ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, September 25, 1996 TAG: 9609250068
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER NOTE: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.
TIRED OF SHARING HER NEIGHBORHOOD with vagrants, Christine Proffitt picked up her pen. The city got the message.
Waiting for the authorities at 10:45 Tuesday morning, Christine Proffitt looked uneasy.
"I'm a little nervous," she admitted. "I don't know why he's bringing so many people."
Moments later, a Roanoke police car came up the hill. From it stepped George Snead, the city's director of public safety; Ron Smith, the chief housing inspector; and Lt. John Barrett, daylight platoon leader for the Roanoke police.
They were drawn by her letter to the editor that had been published less than two weeks earlier, describing problems with drunks and vagrants in the neighborhood. Twenty-five other people had signed it, too.
Snead, who didn't know a reporter would be present, handled the introductions. Proffitt invited everyone inside her brown-trimmed house in the 400 block of Bullitt Avenue Southeast.
They sat at her dining room table of wood and ceramic tile and faced one another - Proffitt at the head, still flustered; Snead with his legal pad; Barrett with a small notebook; and Smith with a look of concern.
Snead, in a gray suit with a striped shirt and tie, asked for the story. With her Long Island accent, Proffitt, in jeans and black Nike T-shirt, bolted through it.
Snead asked clarifying questions, and gradually her charges came out: The neighborhood has been plagued by winos, she said. They sit in the alley or on the curb by a nearby convenience store, drink in public, ask for money and generally make a mess.
She worried particularly about the children in her blended family - her husband Tim's three kids, who visit regularly; her three, who live there; and a relative's child, who lives with them. She felt it wasn't safe to send them to the store.
The drinkers occupy the abandoned house behind hers, she said. Less than two weeks earlier, the house caught fire. Firefighters brought out a drunken man on a smoldering mattress. Snead suggested they go outside and look at the house.
Outside, he noted that the plywood over the doors and windows appeared to be improperly secured. Snead directed Smith to have someone contact the owner and tell him to tighten the place up.
The yard was full of trash. The zoning department would be informed about possible violations, Snead said.
Weeds and vines filled the lots bordering the alley. Someone from weed control would come by and take a look, and the growth would be trimmed from the public right of way.
The front door had a hole, punched through it by the firefighters. Snead told Smith to contact the owner and get the hole fixed.
Proffitt said the people who created the neighborhood's problems should be made to clean them up.
"Theoretically, I agree with you," Snead said, "but getting the laws to do that is much more complicated."
Back in Proffitt's dining room, Snead reviewed the notepad and the actions he had ordered.
The police have been great all along, Proffitt said. She and her family moved into the five-bedroom house in February. They knew when they bought it, for about $20,000, that vagrants hung around, but the house was big and "dirt-cheap."
She works as a home health aide, and Tim is a roofer.
When Proffitt brought up other issues, Snead told her not to jump into disputes but to call the police, and to work with the Southeast Action Forum, a neighborhood group.
"We don't want people to feel they have to move," he said. "You work with us."
"We will," Proffitt said. "That's a promise."
Out in the yard, Snead said he tries to visit neighborhoods periodically to handle specific problems, though he doesn't do it every week. It's part of the city's vision.
"There's a hopelessness in this thing," he said, holding out a copy of Proffitt's letter, "and it really concerns me because there is hope and we will find ways to serve this citizen."
Thirty-five minutes after they arrived, he, Smith and Barrett climbed into the squad car and rolled off, their mission - not to promote dependence, but independence and interdependence, Snead said - well under way.
When Snead asked to come see her, Proffitt said, "I was really scared. I was thinking, 'Did I do the right thing?'''
But when they left, she said, "I'm glad. I hope something gets done."
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: NHAT MEYER/Staff. Christine Proffitt listens as Georgeby CNBSnead (center), Roanoke City director of public safety, discusses
increasing patrols in Proffitt's
neighborhood with police Lt. John Barrett. color.