Oct. 23--LOS ANGELES -- Eliza Mina, a single mother of six, lost her housekeeping job just four days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because travelers had stopped coming to the Beverly Hills hotel where she worked. 

A month later, she's still out of work and doesn't know where she'll get the money to pay her rent or buy the new clothes her children need for fall. 

"They are very sad," she said. "Every day, my little daughter asks me for a dollar, and I have to say I don't have one." 

Mina, 37, is among the more than 3,000 Los Angeles-area hotel and restaurant workers who lost their jobs after the Sept. 11 tragedies sent business and leisure travel into a tailspin. 

From San Diego to San Francisco, tens of thousands of workers in the state's top travel destinations are losing their jobs or seeing their hours cut back. 

Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg, who Friday visited a Los Angeles food bank for laid-off workers, called them the "other victims" of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. 

"It is so heartwarming to watch the outpouring of help that continues to go out to New York and Washington," the Los Angeles Democrat said. "But we also have to worry about the living, and I am trying to get people to focus now on the other victims ... of this terrible war." 

Union officials said most hotel and restaurant workers are single parents and low-wage employees who don't have a savings account to tap. 

Goldberg called for unemployment benefits to be made available more quickly to these workers and for the state to extend health benefits to the nonunion employees who lose those benefits when they get laid off. 

But Goldberg worried that none of this could be done quickly enough to help the laid-off workers she saw lined up for bags of food and other assistance. 

Statewide, some 1.1 million Californians worked at tourism-related businesses last year, and travelers poured $75.4 billion into the state's economy. After Sept. 11, though, the California Travel and Tourism Commission estimated tourism-related revenues dropped 20 percent to 40 percent. 

In Los Angeles, the Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates a loss of 41,000 jobs and $2 billion from travel-related businesses by June 2002. 

"It's been very bad, and it doesn't look like it's going to be any better any time soon," said Tom Walsh, president of the hotel and restaurant employees union in Santa Monica. 

In San Diego, the Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates a loss of 10,000 jobs and $128 million from travel-related businesses by the end of the year. 

"No question, we have been severely impacted," said Sal Giametta, the bureau's vice president of community relations. 

In Sacramento, where most of the travel is business-related, the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union's President Joseph McLaughlin said only 10 members have lost their jobs and some have had their hours cut. 

Vendors at Sacramento International Airport have complained that food sales are down, but they said it's been offset by an increase in the sale of alcoholic beverages, McLaughlin said. 

"All in all, it hasn't hit Sacramento like it has elsewhere," he said. 

In San Francisco, though, tourism is the No. 1 industry. The hotel and restaurant employees union there estimates that 34 percent of its members have lost their jobs. 

City Controller Ed Harrington warned Wednesday of a $100 million shortfall in the municipal budget caused, in part, by the economic fallout from the terrorist hijackings. 

In Disneyland's hometown of Anaheim, hotels and restaurants have cut hours for about 40 percent of the city's unionized workers, according to Martin Lopez, Anaheim hotel and restaurant employees union spokesman. 

"People have been forced to seek unemployment benefits because they're only working 10 to 16 hours a week, and they can't live on that," he said. 

Charles Ahers, Anaheim Visitor and Convention Center president, has estimated the city could lose as much as $200 million in convention-related business. 

Standard & Poor's, the credit-rating agency, recently put a portion of the city's debt on "credit watch" for a possible downgrade because Anaheim's budget is so dependent on tourist spending. 

Jack Kyser, Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. chief economist, predicted Anaheim and San Francisco would suffer most because their economies are most dependent on tourism. 

"San Francisco is also going through the tech-sector meltdown and the run-up in real estate prices," he said. 

To get people traveling again, the state plans to spend $5 million on a campaign urging Californians to vacation in California. 

San Diego is planning an advertising campaign that calls for residents to rediscover their hometown. And hotels and amusement parks are promoting special discounts for in-state travelers. 

For hotel workers like Clemente Calloway, though, these marketing campaigns and the other proposals to help laid-off workers won't come soon enough. 

Calloway, 39, hasn't worked since Sept. 18. He is a single father, and he said his unemployment check -- whenever it arrives -- won't cover the cost of raising a 17-year-old son. 

"My son is a senior in high school, so I wanted this year to be a memorable year for him," Calloway said. "But it's not going to be memorable if I can't pay my rent or the bills." 

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(c) 2001, The Sacramento Bee, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.