At 6 new-design housing projects, lower crime & higher hopes

WHILE CRIME plagues older, run-down Philadelphia Housing Authority projects, a remarkably different story arises at sites that have been razed and rebuilt.

In the Cambridge Plaza public-housing development - where new townhouses have replaced two concrete, high-rise towers - Juanita Hatten lives in one of the sunshine-yellow stucco and red-brick homes with central air and a manicured lawn.

"Crime has really dropped" in this North Philadelphia development, said Hatten, who says she's in her "young 50s."

She first moved into one of the towers when she was 14 and recalls "stairwells of urine, broken bottles and dogs running up the steps."

With the new townhouses, "it's no comparison," she said last year while sitting in her bright kitchen. "The new homes, compared to the old homes, it makes you proud of where you live."

"You're not going to tolerate" certain activities, such as gangs selling drugs out front, she said.

The new architecture - attractive homes with private lawns replacing the old, dilapidated high-rise towers and low-rise buildings that had looked out onto a common courtyard - has been a major factor in contributing to a decrease in crime, the Housing Authority said.

"As we rebuild sites, the crime goes down as a result," said spokesman Kirk Dorn.

Recently released PHA crime statistics back up this assertion.

At the six sites that have been demolished and rebuilt using new design concepts championed by PHA Executive Director Carl R. Greene, the total number of major crimes has plummeted 63 percent from 1999, Greene's first full year here, to 2007. In contrast, the number of major crimes jumped 65 percent at all 45 PHA-run public-housing developments during the same period.

Greene, who studied the design ideas of New Urbanism, has advocated mixed-income developments in which residents have their own private yards and where neighborhood streets pass through the site, integrating it with the surrounding area rather than isolating it.

The six Philly sites rebuilt using New Urbanism ideas are Cambridge Plaza and Richard Allen Homes in North Philly, Greater Grays Ferry Estates and Martin Luther King Plaza in South Philly, Lucien E. Blackwell Homes in West Philly and Falls Ridge in East Falls.

Each is a noticeable change from the old public-housing model of towers or dense low-rise projects that face inward, toward a common courtyard, and streets that dead-ended in the projects.

Factors besides design have also contributed to the reduction in crime. PHA has imposed stricter rules.

Resident groups serve as crime watchdogs.

Fewer people live at most of these sites. And home ownership is available at some of the sites, generating more stability and pride.

Greene would like to demolish more of the older, run-down projects and replace them with the newer-style developments - and, hopefully, see crimes fall there, too.

One troublesome spot, the Norman Blumberg Apartments in North Philly, saw the number of major crimes leap from five in 1999 to 59 in 2007.

And on Sunday night, at the Queen Lane Apartments in Germantown, a PHA police officer was shot and injured. The number of major crimes there doubled from seven in 1999 to 14 last year.

Compare that to Hatten's development, Cambridge Plaza, where major crimes fell 69 percent from 16 in 1999 to five last year. Or to Greater Grays Ferry Estates, formerly Tasker Homes, which saw a drop of 73 percent, from 75 in 1999 to 20 last year.

People are "creatures of the environment," Greene said during a tour last year of some of the new sites. "You treat people like animals, then they live that way. You treat people like kings, then they live that way."

Greene credits public housing for helping to drive up real-estate prices in neighborhoods, such as at the Martin Luther King Plaza development, just south of Center City, near 13th and Fitzwater streets. Near the public-housing townhouses, private homes were up for sale last year for about $700,000.

While Greene was giving a tour of the MLK townhouses last year, Donna Chapman, who was a project manager for a block of private homes on 13th Street, near Bainbridge, was checking on her homes. Greene walked up to her and asked: "How do you feel about being so close to public housing?"

"But that's not, but that's, that's a different animal so to speak," Chapman said, as she looked toward a block of tidy homes on 13th, south of Bainbridge, realizing for the first time that those homes were indeed public housing.

The old development, also called Martin Luther King Plaza, consisted of four high-rise towers that were a magnet for violence and drugs. The towers were imploded in October 1999. Construction of the new townhouses began in 2000 and took until 2006 to complete. In 1999, the site saw 19 major crimes. Last year, the figure dropped to 10.

Greene appreciated Chapman's surprise and used it as an example to show that private homeowners can live comfortably next to public-housing residents, especially when public housing is trending toward a mix of incomes and a mix of renters and homeowners.

"We don't want to just warehouse the poor and scare away all the working people," Greene said. "If you concentrate all very, very poor people together with nonworking families, then the crime goes up."

But, he said, if you mix people with various income levels and give them opportunities for things such as job training, they will take pride in where they live and crime will go down.

The income range of people PHA serves varies - "from zero to up to 80 percent of median income," Greene said. The average income of all 84,000 people PHA serves is $11,000 to $12,000.

fewer resources

Greene began his tenure as head of PHA in March 1998 and early last year received another contract renewal that will keep him here through 2011. During his tenure, he has had to deal with budget cuts from the federal government, but he has also implemented quality-of-life rules. In 1999, Greene initiated a policy of criminal background checks on all adults 18 and older.

PHA conducts the checks once every two years, but will do them once a year if it has reason to be suspicious, Dorn said.

Richard Zappile, PHA's chief of police, said the strict policies also cover who is allowed to live in public housing. In general, if anyone is convicted of a serious felony, including murder, rape or drug dealing, that person is barred from public housing. If already a resident, PHA will take action in court to have that person evicted.

One thing PHA suffers from, Zappile noted in an interview last year, is "a lack of manpower." Because of budget cuts and subsequent layoffs, PHA reduced its number of patrol officers to about 50 last year.

Even before the layoffs, city police have helped PHA police patrol public-housing sites, he said.

A Philadelphia police officer recently patrolling the Richard Allen development around 9th and Poplar streets agreed that crime has fallen there, but was cautious in his optimism. "Things are a little better," said the officer, who did not want to give his name. "But you still have the same drugs, the same shootings, the same crowds."

"I wouldn't want to walk around here" at night, he added. "During the day, it's not bad."

Richard Allen Homes, adjacent to Cambridge Plaza, opened in 1942 with 1,324 low-rise units. It was notorious as a crime-infested project from the 1960s up until the first phase of its demolition in 1997. Today, the development has about a third of the number of units, and subsequently, fewer people living there. Its 408 units consist of a mix of brand-new homes, rehabbed ones and apartments in a senior building.

With the renovation and the fewer units, the number of major crimes at Richard Allen has dropped from 32 in 1999 to 11 last year.

Dorn acknowledged that crime has gone down at some sites because fewer people now live in them, but contends the issue has more to do with population density and the architecture of the sites.

While fewer people live at five of the six rebuilt sites, one development is expanding in size and number of people.

In West Philadelphia, the renamed Lucien E. Blackwell Homes covers an area of 10 to 12 square blocks, and is still growing, Dorn said.

The development, formerly called Mill Creek Apartments, had consisted of three crime-infested high-rise towers that stood at 46th Street and Fairmount Avenue. They were razed in November 2002 and replaced by mixed-income townhouses and twins that were completed starting in 2005.

Major crime here has dropped 29 percent from 1999 to 2007.

The new homes have attracted young professionals, such as Rokib Ahmed and his wife, Farhana, both in their 20s. They moved here last year from Queens, New York, and bought a new $155,000 two-story, three-bedroom home with an indoor garage on Brown Street, near 45th.

"The houses are comparatively cheap," Farhana Ahmed said last year. "That's why we moved here."

They came to Philadelphia for her job as a quality control analyst at Merck. Plus, Farhana used to live in this area and has family nearby.

While the neighborhood feels safe, there are little nuisances - such as kids running around their property. "Do you know how many times they ring the bell and run?" Farhana asked.

The development now also includes the 800 block of Lex Street - the scene of the city's worst massacre, in December 2000, when seven people were shot to death inside a dilapidated crack house.

The new two-story, brick-and-stucco homes now face wide, concrete sidewalks.

Brenda Mosley, a registered nurse in her 50s who was living on that block last year, said that with PHA homes replacing the old, run-down private rowhouses, people "know they have bylaws, rules they need to follow."

Of PHA staffers, she said: "They not tolerating guns, they not tolerating drugs, they not tolerating violence."

Cynthia Walden, 61, has been a block captain in the area since the early 1980s. She lives in a private rowhouse at Brown and Lex streets, surrounded by the new public-housing development.

"A lot of crime has gone down" in the neighborhood, she said. "When you're given a brand new home, I think people start feeling better about themselves."

demolition

Next to be razed on PHA's list is Mantua Hall in West Philly. PHA is also working on a deal to rebuild Liddonfield Homes in the Northeast.

Liddonfield resident Diane Shuler, who recently turned 47, would like that. On a sunny day last autumn, she stood outside surrounded by empty pretzel and potato chip bags, McDonald's drink containers and white pieces of paper that littered the unkempt lawns of the aging, low-rise Upper Holmesburg project.

"You can see the blight. People pull open these doors and they go in and smoke crack in them," she said, pointing to some of the dilapidated brick homes with boarded-up doors. "It's bad. We just had a shooting here."

In Liddonfield, the number of serious crimes jumped 117 percent from 1999 to 2007.

"The worst is the shootings, when you sleep," she said. "I'm raising three of my grandchildren. They wake up screaming, 'Ma, they're shooting! They're shooting!' "

Rose Bryant, 52, president of the Liddonfield resident council, countered that crime isn't that bad. She cited positive things about the place including its senior center and a church that's pulled the community together.

Meanwhile, PHA is scheduled to demolish the Mantua Hall Apartments, an 18-floor concrete high-rise in West Philadelphia on March 30. It plans to build low-rise contemporary townhouses there, Dorn said.

In preparation for the demolition, residents have recently been relocated to other PHA housing.

During a reporter's visit last summer, when the high-rise was still bustling with residents, Patricia Jenkins, 35, complained about the tower as she prepared to get into her car, parked in front of the building's two doors, where young men were hanging out.

Her left arm was in a sling. "I slipped on some piss in the stairway," she said, explaining her injury. "We might as well be living out in the streets with conditions in here. I've been trying to get out."

There are shootings right in front of the building and drugs are prevalent, she said. "The same guys you were talking to," she said, pointing to the young men in the front of the building, "smoke marijuana in the lobby. The people in here, they sell. They rob you."

The number of major crimes at Mantua increased slightly from 13 in 1999 to 16 last year. Francine Jacobs, 54, lived in the same apartment in Mantua Hall for 33 years before she was recently relocated in preparation for the demolition. During a brief interview last summer, she, too, was ready to complain: about roaches infesting her two-bedroom apartment and how no one from PHA came to fix cracks in her walls.

She was relocated in November to the Bartram Village development in Southwest Philadelphia off Lindbergh Boulevard. She doesn't like her new, supposedly temporary, home.

"I jumped out of the frying pan and into the fryer," she said in a phone interview last month. When she moved in, the apartment wasn't ready, she said.

"Oh God, there are so many roaches in the kitchen," she said. "I just went through hell. I cried, I cried. . . . The bathroom wasn't cleaned at all."

Though she had complaints about Mantua Hall, if she could move into a new attractive townhouses PHA plans for the site, would she want to move back?

"Yes, I would," she said. *