Fortune Magazine
September 6, 1993
New Hopes For The Inner City
The Society/Special Report
By Kenneth Labich

One of the most intriguing educational experiments is taking place in one of the most infamous inner-city neighborhoods in America: South Central Los Angeles. The program began in 1988 when Kent Salveson, 41, a mortgage banker turned real estate developer, was overseeing completion of a new low-income apartment complex near downtown Los Angeles. He got to know a Mexican American waitress at a nearby restaurant and came to admire her aspirations for her children's future. "I started thinking how fortunate I was, and I started thinking that there was more that I could do for people less fortunate," says Salveson. H decided that education was the key - "Success depend on what you know; that' what people pay for" - and looked for help from faculty members at his alma mater the University of Southern California. With an assist from the education department a USC, Salveson developed unique way to offer better educational opportunities to the poor black and Mexican-American families who live in his 46-unit EEXCEL Apartments. After school, the complex' 85 kids, ages 5 to 18, return home to a cheerful, full equipped study center located right in the building. Two doctoral students from USC live on the premises, and other tutors come in daily for special classes. If a student is having trouble with, say, trigonometry, an engineering student might be called on for help.

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