By HENRY BROOMFIELD

I have been a resident of Los Angeles all of my life. More specifically Watts, and I have a problem that I think needs to be addressed. To my knowledge, ever since the riots of the early 1990s, Watts has been promised jobs and businesses for the residents who lived here, but they have been slow to come. Now I say “lived,” because I have seen people who lived not only in the area but on my street leave because of the lack of jobs, along with the and crime that has plagued and infested the area.

I have recently read in the papers that Los Angeles is trying to get “Big Box” stores like Costco, Home Depot and others to come into some of the surrounding cities, but have been met with hesitation and resistance. Now I am not trying to hold Watts up as a charity case or anything, but like my mother always told me “what one man doesn’t want, another will.”

Watts is in desperate need for any kind of business, big or little. We have two “big” grocery stores here Food 4 Less and Superior and that’s it. Every corner you go down, you see churches and liquor stores. Now, I don’t see the problem with having a church or two, but we could use more businesses.

I would welcome any stores coming here for a number of reasons. It would bring construction jobs here. In order to make the people feel good about themselves, building a store would help. Giving our children jobs in the stores would cut down on crime. The reason we have gangs and drugs going hand in hand is because the kids don’t feel they have anything to value. No job and no education equals low to no self-worth. If they want to hang out so much, let them be the security guards in the store, along with any other job you can give them, just as long as they go to school. Kill two birds with one stone.

I am a resident of Watts, and I can safely say, that I would gladly welcome any kind of business that would like to come here and help us to start helping ourselves.

Henry Broomfield is chairman of the Watts Neighborhood Council.