COSTA MESA : Former Felon Helps Get Parents Involved

In his youth, Roy Alvarado wanted to become a Catholic priest. Instead, he became a felon and a drug addict. But at age 48, he turned his life around.

His conversion came late, but it’s one reason why people should not easily give up on youngsters who get into trouble, said Alvarado, now 58. Everyone deserves a second chance, he says.

“We must believe there is hope,” said Alvarado, who has spent 13 years in prison for a variety of offenses, including dealing in guns and drugs. “Someone told me that this generation is lost, it made me sick.”

For the past four years, Alvarado has been a counselor at the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, working primarily for Costa Mesa high schools. He conducts lectures for as many as 100 students a week on how to avoid gangs, drugs and alcohol.

He meets with parents of students having problems at school. Occasionally, he visits former students serving time in jail.

Alvarado founded the Madres Costa Mesa, or Mothers of Costa Mesa, to get parents involved in solving teen problems. He said schools are so “overwhelmed with what’s going on” that parents, churches and the community must all pitch in.

Instead of social groups competing against each other, they should share resources and tackle the problems together, Alvarado says.

“Some organizations are like gangs,” Alvarado said. “They want to protect their turf rather than share with other agencies.”

But it is in dealing with troubled teen-agers that Alvarado is at his best, according to school officials who are familiar with his work.

“He has a storied history,” said Frank Infusino, principal of Estancia High School, in a recent interview. “He has been there and relates real well to the kids.”

Alvarado has been there. The youngest of four sons by migrant farm laborers, Alvarado went to jail when he was just 10 years old for forging government checks. His plans to become a priest faded when he hit another boy with a baseball bat and was kicked out of a Catholic school.

At 18, he was jailed for burglary and forgery. He was in and out of prison for the next 30 years.

“My own role models were addicts and convicts,” Alvarado said.

But after spending two years in prison following a 1984 conviction for possession of an Uzi machine gun, Alvarado said he “began thinking about getting my life together and staying clean.”

Alvarado, who has four children, said that Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous helped him sober up. In 1988, he enrolled at Saddleback College and completed a course in counseling.

He has since worked for such programs as the Supportive Teen Outreach and the Migrant Workers programs. Later he joined the Drugs, Alcohol and Tobacco Education program run by the Newport-Mesa school district.

Alvarado said society must provide outreach programs for youths who have been in trouble.

“We should develop a strategy to deal with kids after they get into trouble for the first time.” Alvarado said. “We have a system that is very difficult for kids to re-enter society once they get arrested.”