THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 15, 1995 TAG: 9510130654
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: ELECTION '95
THE CITIZENS' AGENDA
The Virginian-Pilot has asked people around the state what their major
concerns are leading up to the Nov. 7 election. This is one in a
series of in-depth reports on those concerns: Today's topic: Violence
in Public Housing.
SOURCE: BY JON FRANK, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 237 lines
Ground zero for violent crime in Portsmouth lies somewhere near Flossie Gilmore's apartment in Washington Park, where she lives with seven grandchildren.
``I talk to my grandkids all the time and tell them to stay away from the gangs and the trouble,'' Gilmore says. ``But it is hard. Real hard.''
Gilmore's public housing neighborhood, a collection of drab brick buildings wedged between I-264 and the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, was the most violent among the 24 public housing communities in South Hampton Roads during 1994.
Gilmore's preoccupation with safety is not unusual. It is typical of life for many of the 17,627 residents in federally funded public housing projects in Portsmouth, Norfolk, Chesapeake and Suffolk. Virginia Beach has no public housing.
For instance, residents of Washington Park were five times more likely to be victims of violent crime - murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery - than residents in other parts of Portsmouth last year.
Throughout Hampton Roads, a similar pattern of violence emerges in most public housing. Fifteen communities - accounting for 72 percent of the region's public housing residents - have violent crime rates that are at least twice as high as the rate in the city where they are located.
The balance of the region's public housing residents live in eight communities where the rate of violent crime is slightly greater than, equal to or lower than the overall city rate in 1994.
In Portsmouth, where the problem is most pronounced, Police Chief Dennis A. Mook says his department has made repeated unsuccessful efforts to reduce violence in public housing.
``We have devoted more time and effort to law enforcement and crime prevention in the public housing developments than to any other areas within the city,'' Mook said. ``For everything we have done, and all the efforts we have made, it doesn't seem to have eliminated the crime.''
If crime could be cut in half within Portsmouth public housing, the overall city rate would plummet, Mook pointed out. Lower crime in public housing could have helped kept the city off at least one national high-crime list. In 1993, Portsmouth ranked 24th among the nation's top 25 cities in the number of murders per 100,000 residents.
In 1994, more than half of Portsmouth's homicides occurred in public housing communities, according to the Portsmouth Police Department.
While 90 percent of public housing residents are described as ``good and decent'' by Mook, the unlawful 10 percent foster a stubborn strain of violence rooted in the drub culture.
These few residents ``sometimes harbor criminals and rent their units out to drug dealers on a nightly basis,'' Mook said.
Some blame it on Portsmouth's reputation as the marketplace for the hardest of drugs - heroin.
``This is heroin city,'' said 21-year-old Jada Pickett, who lived in Portsmouth's Ida Barbour housing community until a teenage boy was gunned down in her backyard three years ago. ``Portsmouth is always going to have a high crime rate because the heroin is so bad.''
Pickett, whose brother was killed last year on County Street near Ida Barbour, said heroin users and sellers from all over Hampton Roads come to Portsmouth for the drug.
``Most of the crime happening here is not caused by the people who live here,'' Pickett said. ``It's people who come to solicit in the parks.''
Mook and other officials agree that outsiders are responsible for the vast majority of the violence associated with the drug trade.
Portsmouth housing communities are especially attractive to outsiders because almost all are easily accessible to the interstate system, making it relatively easy for outsiders to come and go quickly.
Harry L. Short, director of operations for Portsmouth's housing authority, said that resident identification cards were issued to combat that problem in 1993. The authority also has added a host of anti-violence initiatives, including neighborhood watches, security patrols, community patrols and civic pride clubs. And the authority has gotten tough with violators, Short said.
``We have canceled several hundred leases since 1987 of residents who in any way were involved in criminal activities,'' he explained. ``But the drug subculture is difficult to root out.''
When drug traffic increased in poverty-stricken, inner-city neighborhoods in the mid-1980s, crime rates started a sharp climb.
As a result, more than 20 percent of Portsmouth's violent felonies occurred in the city's public housing communities last year, where only about five percent of the city's residents live.
In 1994, the region's three most violent housing communities were in Portsmouth. And of the eight most violent communities in the region, six were in Portsmouth.
Within two miles of Flossie Gilmore's Washington Park apartment off Effingham Street are five other Portsmouth housing projects with violent crime rates that in 1994 were at least four times higher the Portsmouth's overall rate.
Together, Washington Park, Lincoln Park, Jeffry Wilson Homes, Dale Homes, Ida Barbour and Swanson Homes present a formidable challenge to the 210 officers Mook has on the street.
But crime rates are just the numbers behind the violence. The reality of life in Washington Park does not need a rate to prove its harshness. In the lives of Gilmore and her family, the Rolling Stones' song ``Gimme Shelter'' has the ring of truth: ``Rape and murder are just a shout away.''
For instance, a North Carolina man was shot to death in March one-half mile from Gilmore's home by police after they found the man stabbing his wife repeatedly during a domestic dispute in the Ida Barbour housing community.
Later that month, around the corner from Gilmore's home, the man who police believe to be one of Portsmouth's largest crack cocaine dealers was arrested on charges he killed his girlfriend in a Washington Park apartment.
And in August, several blocks from Gilmore's apartment, along Effingham Street, two teenagers were arrested for robbing people at roadblocks they set up at night. One of the teens shot a 41-year-old woman who tried to drive away to avoid being robbed.
For Gilmore and her neighbors, the sound of weapons being fired is commonplace.
``I've hit the floor many times when I've heard gunfire,'' Gilmore said. ``Most of the time I don't even know why it is happening or where it is coming from.''
In Norfolk, the problem is less severe but still significant. Violent crime in Norfolk public housing exceeds that of the city. It is double the overall city rate in most communities.
Between 4 percent and 5 percent of Norfolk's population lives in public housing, yet 8 percent of the city's violent felonies were committed there last year.
Despite this, Norfolk Chief of Police Melvin C. High claims some success in fighting crime in and around public housing neighborhoods.
High said there has been more than a 6 percent decrease in crime there during the past three years. That assessment, however, takes into account all crime, including the nonviolent crimes against property, such as burglary and auto theft.
Although High already has instituted plans to beef up the police presence in public housing by 11 officers, he concedes that more police can do only so much.
``In any city, or within any neighborhood, the solution to successfully fighting violent crime is through a combination of effective families, community involvement, and educational and employment opportunities,'' High said.
In Suffolk, two housing communities - Hoffler Apartments and Cypress Manor - had violent crime rates in 1994 that were at least five times the rate in the rest of the city.
James P. Armstrong, director of the Suffolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, said domestic violence is epidemic in his city's public housing.
``The calls for domestic violence were higher in our public housing communities than anywhere else,'' Armstrong said. ``But it is very difficult when you concentrate families that have the most severe economic problems.''
In Chesapeake, the housing authority has tried to keep its public housing projects small in order to minimize all types of problems. But even in a suburban city, where the crime rate is relatively low, crime is high in some public housing.
For instance, Broadlawn has five times the city's violent crime rate, while the violence rate in McDonald Manor was four times the city's rate.
``Almost without exception, whenever you have large public housing projects you are going to have a higher crime rate,'' said Edmund Carrera, director of the Chesapeake Redevelopment and Housing Authority. ``The concept of large projects has gone by the wayside. They don't work.''
The Department of Housing and Urban Development confirmed Carrera's opinion. Many of the nation's largest housing authorities - including those in New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Memphis - have been given a ``troubled'' rating by HUD.
``Everyone will acknowledge the problem began in the 1980s,'' said Ray Strutton, assistant executive director of the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority, the region's largest authority and one of the largest in the state. ``It really mushroomed with the crack cocaine epidemic and has really gone on full steam since then.''
Before the 1980s, public housing was relatively peaceful in most cities, according to Strutton, who has been with the NRHA for 17 years. Back then, Strutton said, Norfolk public-housing communities like Young Terrace, Tidewater Gardens and Bowling Green produced many prominent professionals and other leaders, he said.
The parks most often served as stepping stones for people in need of a hand. There was vice and violence, but most examples were minor by today's standards. Instead of gang wars over drug turf that destroy lives and leave dead bodies, there were the relatively innocuous problems of crap-shooting, alcohol abuse and fist fights.
``We had violence,'' Strutton said. ``But nothing like it is now.''
The nation's economy began changing in the early 1980s. In theburgeoning information-based society, the semi-skilled and unskilled workers who often lived in public housing became less and less valuable. That made getting out of public housing more and more difficult.
Poverty deepened among most residents, Strutton said, and the traditional family unit began to break up.
Soon the foundation of many public housing communities changed dramatically. They went from being made up primarily of two-parent families to being made up mostly of unmarried females with children.
Today's typical public housing communities, Strutton said, are ``neighborhoods that are vulnerable. The people can be intimidated by criminals because they are low-income and often poorly educated.''
Now, you can't get a pizza delivered in some communities. It's hard to get a cab, and even police and paramedics use extreme caution when entering some public housing neighborhoods.
In spite of the crime problem, public housing is popular. Rent is sometimes free and never more than 30 percent of income. All four authorities have waiting lists. Last summer, Norfolk opened its list and immediately filled it with 1,500 names.
``As bad as everyone may think public housing is, it is certainly a lot better than some other situations in the city,'' Strutton said.
And two of the largest public housing communities in the region are relatively peaceful. Both Diggs Town and Young Terrace have violent crime rates that, while not at the level of the city's safest neighborhoods, are about average for Norfolk.
As for Diggs Town, Strutton said the lower crime rate followed $17 million in improvements. They included new fences, realignment of traffic patterns and construction of front porches so that residents would sit outside and see what was going on.
Young Terrace, though, is livable because of a strong management team that provides solid, no-nonsense leadership, Strutton said. When residents violate their leases, he explained, they know they will be dealt with swiftly and fairly.
``A lot of times people underestimate the impact that management has,'' Strutton said. ``But we have always thought that management was key to controlling crime.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
Clockwise: Police arrest a man at Norfolk's Young Terrace after five
people were shot over a jacket in Portsmouth's Washington Park. John
Bell photo
Norfolk officers look over a BB gun they confiscated from teens in
Young Terrace. The officers had drawn their own guns thinking it was
real. Christopher Reddick photo
Flossie Gilmore looks out her door in Washington Park. It is the
region's most violent project. Christopher Reddick photo
Officers check for weapons at High and Twine streets near Ida
Barbour, Portsmouth, Huy Nguyen photo
Photo
HUY NGUYEN/Staff
Portsmouth police officer John Niemeyer and another officer arrest a
woman on Pulaski Street, a cut-through area between Dale Homes and
Swanson Homes.
KEYWORDS: COMMUNITY CONVERSATION CRIME PUBLIC HOUSING
HAMPTON ROADS STATISTICS by CNB