By DONNA WILLIAMS LEWIS By JILL YOUNG MILLER Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer

Marlene Karas / AJC

Tomas Fernandez Peņa (left) lives in a three-bedroom house in Newnan with 12 other men, two of them his sons, and looks for work daily as a laborer. Mattresses line the rooms where the men sleep. Some of the men are sending money to relatives back home. As Hispanics pour into metro Atlanta, poverty is coming with them.

New census figures show poverty among the region's fastest-growing ethnic group increased nearly fivefold in the 1990s. And it's bringing challenges unlike any those communities have faced.

In Coweta County, for example, the Hispanic population went from a few hundred in 1990 to nearly 3,000 a decade later, and almost all of the increase in people living in poverty was among them, the census numbers, released last week, show.

In some parts of Coweta, at least one in four Hispanic families lives in poverty, which the federal government defines for a family of four as a household income below $17,500 a year.

Among the scenes of destitution a health care worker has witnessed there: A Hispanic mother who lived with her newborn on a leaky front porch. A bare mattress on the floor of a rickety trailer. A tiny pot of rice boiling on a stove while roaches climb the walls.

In counties with little experience in dealing with poverty, the problems can be compounded. Language is a barrier. Culture can be another. Fear of deportation is the toughest. Many of the Hispanic poor are so-called "undocumented" immigrants, in the country illegally.

Latino leaders say governments must recognize the needs of the growing Hispanic poor and work to address them.

But Jim McGuffey, Coweta County Commission chairman, said he doesn't think the county should tailor programs specifically to Hispanics. "I think if we have programs, we can give the programs to everybody," he said. "Nothing against the Latino people, but I don't want to single them out, saying we're going to do things for these folks because they live in poverty."

Rockdale County spokeswoman Julie Mills said she is unaware of any county initiatives targeted to the Hispanic community. She said the county serves everyone without discriminating between groups.

"The role of the county is minimal" compared to the role of community organizations, Mills said.

Outgoing Cherokee County Commissioner Emily Lemcke said her county has no programs directed to Hispanics beyond an interpreter in the court system and at the board of health.

"I think the majority believe that the Hispanic population is illegal -- that most see them as cheap labor for yard work and that they fill the need for landscape work for private business and for the homebuilding industry," she said. "Do we deprive them of their ability to be human because they're here? I don't think so."

Luz Borrero, executive director of the Latin American Association, said it's in counties' best interests to pay attention to Hispanics and their needs.

"They're going to be here and they're going to be accessing these services, and somebody has to pay for them. If we don't enable them to pay, we'll be subsidizing them," she said.

Borrero said all counties should begin to implement across-the-board multicultural training for people directly involved in the service areas.

The Rev. Lydia Ayala, pastor of Iglesia Pentecostal El Faro in Canton, painted a sharp picture of the cultural differences, which can be as significant as language. Many of Cherokee's Hispanic immigrants are from mountain villages of Mexico -- people, she said, who have never seen a clothes hanger and whose sons went off to work in their homeland at age 9.

Some governmental hesitation may come from fear of dealing with illegal immigrants, said Tom Holland, co-director of the Institute for Nonprofit Organizations at the University of Georgia.

"Having knowledge of violations of the law -- as is clearly the case with undocumented aliens -- requires one to report that information to the appropriate public authorities," he said. "Usually, the most local governments can do is make information available about sources of community services to all citizens, hoping that the most needy will notice and follow through."

This puts county health department workers, like Ruth French, a nurse with Coweta's health department, on the front lines. The undocumented know that these health clinics are safe havens, and they come in droves.

French checks up on newborn babies at home through the state-funded Babies Born Healthy program. Once, she found a mother and baby living on a leaky front porch. "There was a big leak right over the top of her bed, and when it rained, it came right in on her bed" where the mother and infant slept, French said. "There were 11 people staying in that house."

French, the health department's only full-time nurse who speaks Spanish, decided she had to get the mother and baby out of there. But where? She moved them to a shelter for battered women. Later, the baby died of sudden infant death syndrome.

"It was devastating, just devastating," French said. "She's, since then, had another child."

About 99 percent of the patients in Coweta's prenatal program are Hispanic, said Alice Jackson, the Coweta health department's nurse manager. The money the state sends doesn't cover the program's cost, she said. "It's not beginning to keep up with the numbers of clients that we're seeing."

Driving Hispanic migration to outlying counties is the availability of low-cost housing and relationships with other, established Hispanic immigrants there, said the Latin American Association's Borrero.

Many of the newcomers work as day laborers. Others are becoming the backbone of the construction industry, meatpacking plants and the poultry business, landscaping and service jobs.

Laborer Tomas Fernandez Peņa, 56, sums up his life in one word: work. When he doesn't have work, he's looking for it. He hasn't found work for five weeks.

Yet he has some support. His two sons live with him in Newnan in a rented three-bedroom house with 10 other men. One son works in construction; the other recently arrived from Colorado, where he picked onions. Peņa said he hopes to find work through them.

Poor as he is, when he's working, he said, he makes about $50 a day. In Mexico, it would take him up to a week to make that much, he said. Those immigrants who are in the country illegally generally don't qualify for Medicaid, food stamps or other government assistance, and neither do their children, unless they were born in the United States.

In Georgia, many Hispanic families are mixed, with parents who are illegal residents and children who are U.S. citizens. Those children are entitled to assistance, but often parents don't register them for fear of deportation. What outreach there is is often left to private, nonprofit organizations, business groups and churches.

"The INS pays less attention to [nonprofits], and they can work more easily in that gray area of providing services without inquiring about anyone's immigration status," UGA's Holland said.

Two Bartow County churches are jointly providing an after-school program for Hispanic children. North Metro Technical College and the county's Chamber of Commerce have developed a cultural diversity training program that's open to the public. A Hispanic work force initiative spearheaded by carpet manufacturer Shaw Industries was developed to help businesses tap into the Hispanic work force. Several Latinos serve on the committee.

At least 60 percent of clients at Norcross Cooperative Ministries are Hispanic, says Shirley Cabe, director of operations. The group serves people in southwest Gwinnett County with a food pantry, clothing closet and, when funds are available, financial aid.

A decade ago, the census listed 656 poor Hispanics in Gwinnett, while in neighboring DeKalb County there were already 2,921 Latinos living below the poverty level. Today, the counties have almost an equal number of Hispanic poor, close to 11,000 each.

Many of those in Gwinnett are finding their way to the county's Norcross Human Service Center, a one-stop service delivery facility opened by the county five years ago with a sister facility in Buford.

The center has a Hispanic advisory committee. It conducts back-to-school events, giving out free donated clothing and shoes. Hispanic newspapers, community radio stations and businesses are on the mailing list. The center also sponsors a Girl Scout troop with about 75 Latino girls.

"All of this takes time," said center coordinator Vivian Gaither. "It's about building trust and building relationships."

In DeKalb, it's about open arms, says Angelo Fuster, the county's intergovernmental liaison.

Among the efforts: the recent decision to recognize cards issued by the Mexican government as legitimate forms of identification, and street signs along Buford Highway that recognize the 23 countries that are the original homelands of corridor residents.

Almost all official printed material in DeKalb is available in Spanish. And the commission office is in close contact with the Latino press, Fuster said.

DeKalb has been seeking bilingual police officers. There are 16 now, and recruitment continues.

Fuster's advice to counties just beginning to experience what DeKalb has:

"Have an open mind and a willingness to be creative and flexible and to accept," he said. "As a community, we have to be willing to work with each other."

-- Anonymous, September 22, 2002