New pastor has big plans for the Pico neighborhood
Rev. Ronald Williams wasn’t in town long before he saw the rough side of the Pico neighborhood.
A few months ago, he stepped outside of his church to say goodbye to his parishioners when he noticed bright yellow police tape blocking off 19th Street.
He ran down the street to see what had happened, only to learn a young black man had been shot in the torso by a group of Hispanic males driving a SUV. Williams went to visit the young man in the hospital and pray with his family.
The next Sunday as Williams was delivering his sermon, the young man walked into the church and thanked him for the visit. He’s been coming ever since.
“We have to get involved to do what we can to calm down the violence in the neighborhood and re-connect with our youth,” Williams said. “These are our kids, whether or not they live here or wander in, they are a part of this community.”
“We have to get involved to do what we can to calm down the violence in the neighborhood and re-connect with the youth of this neighborhood.” — — REV. RONALD WILLIAMS First A.M.E. by the Sea
Williams is the new pastor of the First American Methodist Episcopal Church By the Sea, a predominantly black congregation wedged between where Michigan Avenue dead-ends with the Santa Monica Freeway.
The congregation is split almost evenly between people who drive in from other cities on Sundays and those who mostly live in the Pico neighborhood — an area historically troubled by gangs, drugs and violence.
But that doesn’t deter Williams. He says he has seen it before, and he’s ready to face it again.
Born and raised in Miami, Williams graduated college and entered into the ministry in 1970. After preaching for a short time in Atlanta he was moved from congregation to congregation — a common practice in the A.M.E. church — before ending up in Portland, Ore. and then Bakersfield, Calif. before landing in Santa Monica.
During a recent walk around the area, Williams meticulously closed fence gates and moved children’s toys off the sidewalk. People would occasionally wave or stop to chat, others simply yelled out his name from the open windows of homes and moving cars.
In his short eight-month stint in Santa Monica, Williams has found his way into the lives of his parishioners and into several key issues in the neighborhood.
He is helping a local affordable housing provider in Santa Monica on a project to possibly bring back some families displaced by the construction of the freeway in the mid-1960s.
He also is involved in helping workers unionize at the Doubletree Guest Suites Hotel and campaigning for the city’s proposed Living Wage ordinance that will go before Santa Monica voters this November.
When it comes to crime and the homeless, Williams believes its up to the neighborhood to fix those ills.
“I guess we can continue to ask the city and the police why they can keep those problems out of other neighborhoods but not here,” he said, “But it’s still here and it’s still going to be a problem.”
As for housing, Williams would like to see more of a balance between affordable housing units — which tend to be rental only — and incentives for home ownership.
“Something needs to be done so we are not locking people into renting for life,” he said. “It seems almost impossible with the land values around here, but we ought to do something to encourage people to buy their own homes.”
Williams also has partnered with Ft. Mike Gutierrez of St. Anne’s Church, a renown leader in Santa Monica’s Hispanic community, to start a program where volunteers from the two parishes will walk the streets in hopes to deter crime.
The group is scheduled to have its first neighborhood patrol June 1. Future patrols will be held randomly.
“No matter what’s going on in the streets between black and brown people, there is still respect for the clergy,” Williams said. “And if people feel that way, we have a responsibility to do everything in our power to help stop the violence.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 25, 2002. Read the original PDF.