61st & Peoria

[Townsend]

Ginnie Graham: Low-income apartment owners called on to discuss changes

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=732&articleid=20130109_11_A1_Foryea705179#

For years, Lanny Endicott has wanted owners of the low-income apartments in his neighborhood to attend a meeting.

Endicott is president of the nonprofit South Peoria Connection Foundation and resident of the 61st Street and Peoria Avenue area since 1973.

For about 25 years, the neighborhood has dealt with the side effects of poverty, including crime.

The latest tragedy - the homicide of four women at Fairmont Terrace - has the city, once again, faced with figuring out prevention.

The discussion must include two points: the effects of poverty and a need for more responsibility among landlords, particularly those of multi-unit properties.

"The most frustrating thing year after year is getting the owners to show up to the table," Endicott said. "We have no success getting outside owners to show up. These are people who can make the decisions to do something about security, renovate apartments, get better lighting and those types of things.

"You have to have the head person involved. Maybe now is the time to call these guys in."

Cracking down: Mayor Dewey Bartlett is floating the idea of using public nuisance ordinances to crack down on high-crime areas.

Years ago, under former Mayor Bill LaFortune, a movement began to rid the city of substandard housing. He once vowed to eliminate these dangerous eyesores by 2025.

As with most task forces, reports and administration changes, this train lost steam.

Neighborhood inspectors have demolished dilapidated housing and improved some properties.

But the community push isn't there like it was before.

Bartlett would like to have crime lumped into this effort to put a hammer on behavior creating unsafe homes.

It's worth considering.

There also needs to be a deeper understanding of poverty, especially if it goes back generations.

"The whole area has some issues, but, in general, you will find people really like the area," Endicott said. "They like the location and there has been a lot of improvement in infrastructure to the area.

"The big problem is that with significant poverty involves crime. It's a different culture, a different way of thinking."

The poverty issue: The 61st and Peoria neighborhood started changing in the 1980s when Section 8 housing was established.

The philosophy was to break up the concentration of poverty from north Tulsa neighborhoods.

It didn't happen that way.

It simply created an additional pocket of poverty.

The South Peoria Connection Foundation was established to help residents become self-sufficient, offering a GED programs and food pantry.

The neighborhood schools, Marshall and McClure, have a 100 percent free-lunch population and offer extensive wrap-around social service programs to improve achievement and life skills.

Area churches have outreach programs to meet basic and spiritual needs.

"We are addressing that side of the poverty issue," Endicott said. "We have to have a discussion, maybe called at the behest of the mayor, with the owners. Many are not local, and for many it's a cash deal paid through the federal government."

Making it safe: Fairmont Terrace has applied for $14 million in federal tax credits administered through the state to renovate the complex.

Initial reports to the City Council show the managers are trying their best to make it safe.

It's a start. But managers aren't the owners.

Grants from the federal government in the late '90s to early 2000s paid overtime for police officers to patrol the area and add more private security and features like gates and lighting.

Managers met regularly with neighborhood homeowners, who organized crime watch programs such as writing down car tags in parking lots.

Those grants expired.

"That made a big change - more police in the neighborhood with a good working relationship with the security," Endicott said. "Things worked then and were successful. Then, it all went away."

Poverty doesn't destine a person to crime or to be a victim.

It does make them vulnerable to predators.

"We have a number of young people getting their GED and motivated to get education," Endicott. "We have a lot of working families."

A true response won't be simple.

[Townsend]

Tulsa City Leaders Will Address Growing Concern About Subsidized Housing in High Crime Areas

http://kwgs.com/post/tulsa-city-leaders-will-address-growing-concern-about-subsidized-housing-high-crime-areas

In the wake of this week's quadruple killings, Tulsa city leaders are looking at ways to deal with problems in low-income, high crime areas. City Council Chairman David Patrick says increased police presence is only part of the solution. He says more must be done to address the concentration of what are called Section 8 low-income multi-unit properties in certain locations.

Patrick says the council is considering a quicker process to demolish dilapidated housing that owners refuse to improve, and helping with tax credits for those who want to upgrade their properties.

[AngieB]

Shame they had to wait until these murders to get serious about that area.

[Townsend]

Shame they had to wait until these murders to get serious about that area.

Give it a few weeks.  Their interests will move on.

[DTowner]

The killing of 4 people at once tends to focus the attention of city leaders more than a steady trickle of single killings.  A cynic might also wonder if the death of 4 white women could play a role as well.

[DolfanBob]

And if it turns out to be a black man. Will we have another Trayvon Martin case on our hands?

[Gaspar]

Give it a few weeks.  Their interests will move on.

That's true.

In fact I'm willing to bet if it was one person killed, or even one person a week, it wouldn't have even made the news radar.

4 all at once, now that's worth reporting.

How sad!

[Teatownclown]

The twins were models? dancers?

DoofusBob...pathetic post.

[DolfanBob]

The twins were models? dancers?

DoofusBob...pathetic post.

Models. Really? Where did you hear that?

[AngieB]

Models. Really? Where did you hear that?

Kaytie was a model. Of some sort. Check their Facebook pages.

[Teatownclown]

Models. Really? Where did you hear that?

RUMOR only...scuttlebutt. Dancers?

[Townsend]

Per TW FB post:

Managers at Fairmont Terrace said they are stepping up security measures at the apartment complex by installing cameras and checking every person who comes onto the property after four women were killed there this week.

I have my doubts this will continue for long.

[sauerkraut]

My guess is the victims and the killers had a connection somewhere, it's not likely they were killed for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Apartment complex also needs to screen it's residents for background checks, credit checks and criminal history.

[rdj]

The Apartment complex also needs to screen it's residents for background checks, credit checks and criminal history.

They do.

Its not the residents.  It's their visitors.

[Gaspar]

They do.

Its not the residents.  It's their visitors.

The folks that come to buy drugs or the folks that come to sell them?