El Independiente

              General election
date set for May 20
May 20 has been set as the date
for the South Tucson general elec-tion.
The primary election will be
held March ti.
Seats up for election include city
council spots currently held by
Mayor Shirley Villegas, Councilman
Paul Diaz and Councilman Pete
Tadeo.
Anyone wishing to run in the
election can pick up ballot materials
from CityHall beginning Dec. lt. All
nomination forms must be ified by 5
Residents wishing to vote in the
election must be registered by Feb.
10 for the primary and April 21 for
general election.
20-year-old charged
with murder
South Tucson Police arrested a
suspect in the Nov, 13 shooting of a
15-year-old in an alley near 1600
South Ninth Avenue.
Chief Gerald Brewer said officers
arrested Johnny Ruiz, 20, of 328 W.
27th Street, and charged him with
two counts of attempted first degree
murder and three counts of aggravat-ed
assault in what Brewer character-izad
as a gang-related shooting.
Ruiz was booked into the Finsa
County Jail on $tOO,000 bond and
has since confessed to the shootistg,
Brewer said.
The victim has been released
from the University Medical Center.
Annual party to be
held on Christmas
The "Miracle on 31st Street"
Annual Christmas Party wifi be held
on Christmas livening, on west 3tst
between South 10th and 11th
Avenues. Ail city residents are invited
to attend,
Rsstion Gonzales, who hosts the
party, said he expects at least 7,000
people to attend the festivities this
year.
The South Tucson City Council
agreed to provide policing help and
clean-up services for party, now in its
26th year
Lun
CASA MARIA:
Neighbors want
homeless soup
kitchen to clean up
its act.
Page 2,
BY SHELLY RODGERS
Managing Editor
Roaches scattered when she opened the kitchen drawec
Water trickled down the brick wall, soaking family pho-tographs.
Scraps of food floated te a sink of water after the lunch
dishes were washed.
But she doesn't mind. She likes it
here. This is her home.
Mary Tapia Figueroa, 34, a single
mother of seven children, with an
eighth on the way is trying to survive
financially and emotionally at Comise
Chambers - Tucson's oldest and
largest family public housing project,
located south of downtown.
Despite leaking pipes, roaches
and clogged drains, Figueroa is happy to have a place to
live.
"We couldn't afford any other place to live," she said.
"My family would have nothing if we didn't live here."
But by next spring, Figueroa sud her family will be
forced to move out of their home because the city plans to
bulldoze the 29-year-old, 200-unit housïug project.
after receiving a $14.6 million graos from U.S.
Department of ttousing and Urban Development, the city
plans to build 120 new homes on the site. Only 60 of these
new homes will be allocated for Connie Chambers resi-dents,
while the other 60 will he rented to other families at
non-snbsidized market rutes.
The other 140 families currently living in Connie
Chambers will he relocated after the city buys 140 homes
throughout Tucson, said Karen Thoreson, the city's commu-nity
services director.
Figueroa said moving will be difficult for her children
because they will have to make new friends and attend a dif-ferent
school.
"To me, it's real stressful, especially for the kids," she
said. "lt's really hard. Very hard. The kids don't want to
South Tucson's endiente English/Spanish Newspaper
DANCING THE
NIGHT AWAY:
After nearly 50 years
of weddings and cefe-brations,
The Latino is
still going strong.
'Page 6
El Independiente has dedicated the
December edition to the issues ofpover-ly
and homelessness. See related stories:
Page 2, Pima County Interfaith
Council tackles poverty issues
Page 7, One 62-year-old man's
"classy comeback"from homelessness
Page 10, Greyhound Park low-income
hotel gets play'gesund
"HOTO OY.5000LY0050000
Crystal Avechuco, 9, Jasmin lyon, 4, Sergio Constante, 12, Alboluz Portugal, 10, 'Pinky' and tullan Vargas,
3, hang out in their crowded backyard at the Connie Chambers public housing project.
Connie Chambers families to get new homes
move out."
If they move, Figueras said ber daughter, Maria, 19, suffi
have to quit her full-time house-keeping job at SL Mary's
ttospital. Her son, Victor, 17, will also lose his job removing
graffiti for the city. Neither will have transportation to work.
And even though both children work for minimum wage,
Figueroa said the family calmot survive without the income.
"We only get $343 in food stamps a
month," she said. "It takes ai least $450
just to feed helada. If we tose the money
Maria and Victor make, I don't know
what we'll do."
The city plans to offer a solution to
low-income famffies by bringing retail
opportunities to Barrio Santa Rosa, the
neighborhood where Connie Chambers
is currently located, Thoreson said. A
top-notch child care facility will be built
for infants, toddlers and after-school care. Other planned
developments include a health clinic, restaarant, grocery store,
job training center and community center
"We want to educate people and teach them skills so they
can get oat of public housing and lead successful, meaningful
liveS," Thoreson said.
But Figueroa fears that her children will steal and get into
trouble if their new home does not have a commanity center -
like the Santa Rosa Park Community Center at the Connie
Chambers housing project.
"t mist the (community) center," Figueroa said. "The kids
get togo over there every day and play games, watch movies and
they even get to go camping ou weekends."
The community center is one of the few places Figueroa's
kids can escape the realities of home, she said. With only four
bedrooms, living qaarters are cramped, forcing the children to
pair or triple up. Crystal, 16, and the twins, Jessica and Albalnz,
10, share one room. Maria and Jalian, 3, share another, And
Victor and Sergio, 12, share the smallest bedroom in the house.
Oniy Figueroa has her own room.
Sleeping conditions in the summer are even more cramped,
See CHAMBERS, page 3
BASKETBALL:
Pueblo High School
senior Robert Garcia
and his teammates
have a tough road
ahead of them in this
boys' basketball sea-son.
Page 8
Clean, new
needles
given away
BY MARC GIJRSTEL
Stuff Writer
The Pinta County ilealth Department
has selected South Tucson as the first
target location in a pilot program aimed
at preventing the spread of HIV among
intravenous drag users by distributing
needles to addicts.
"If we can control the growth of 111V
infections now, we can prevent a growth
in these infections later on down the
road," said David Hoover, Piuma County
Health Department's HIV- and sexually
tramsmitted disease-prevention pro-gram
manager
This new emphasis on HIV preven-tion
over the prevention of drag use is
necessary because of the high rate of
111V cases in Tucson, the highest in the
state of Arizona, said health departmueut
VEASE EN ESPANOL PAG. 2.
director Dennis Douglas.
ttoover, who is coordinating the
needle exchange program, said that 42
percent of new HIV patients in Pinta
County over the last two years have heea
intravenous drag users.
In addition to distributing needles,
progr,tzu workers will collect and dis-pose
of old needles and other para-pheraalia
and hand out information
about drug treatment programs.
"Our goal is to save lives," Hoover
said. "This is a way to keep people alive
until they can get treatment"
During two recent clean-up efforts,
volunteers found more than 60 needles
discarded in the city's empty or vacant
lots, some near schools. The needle
exchange will help take these risks off
the city streets.
"It's away of protecting the commu-nity,"
Hoover said. "This progrmu suffi
help prevent children from finding
these needles or police officers from
getting stuck while making a search."
The needle exchange program,
which is funded by the county and with
n private grant from the Drag Policy
Foundation, began Dec..5 and will run
for an unspecified amount of time.
A health department van will come
through the city twice a week, probably
on Tuesdays and Fridays, Hoover said,
Information cards are being distributed
around tite city to alert people about the
program. A phone number is listed on
See NEEDLES, page 5