Little in this Pasadena neighborhood suggests how dangerous it really is. On a sunny-and-72 Saturday afternoon, young women walk and talk together as their children push strollers carrying baby brothers and sisters. Hispanic and black children play on the sidewalks with little concern for safety, occasionally skipping into the corner grocery for ice cream and sodas.

Palm trees line the streets and sway silently in the cool Southern California breeze. Houses in the neighborhood, indeed in much of Los Angeles, do not announce the poverty within them. Garbage is out of sight, and most of the houses are well kept.

A young man on a high handlebar bicycle lazily circles the block. He sings and swings back and forth in front of several former "crack houses" which now serve as the headquarters for John Perkins's Harambee Center—a Christian outreach to the people of the inner-city.