Arden-Guthrie plan a recipe for disaster

Arden-Guthrie plan a recipe for disaster
Wendy McCammack
Posted: 07/23/2009 06:34:44 PM PDT


"Good for the Hood ?" A great question for The Sun's article about Arden-Guthrie. Mayor Pat Morris' plan to spend $8.4 million refurbishing 100 rental units and filling them with very low-income drug dealers, gang members and parolees is not good for any hood. It is unhinged from common sense. The reality is "it's not where you live, but how you live."
We began repairing the Arden-Guthrie community over 18 years ago. We systematically removed more than 74 non-compliant four-plexes, dramatically reducing public safety calls for service. This freed police and fire personnel to respond more quickly to other emergency calls throughout our city. It also gave the nearby single-family residents a little peace.

The Arden-Guthrie crime problem didn't stay in Arden-Guthrie, however. It impacted neighborhoods and businesses from Boulder on the east, along Highland Avenue, north to Mountain Shadows, the Serrano Middle School and Carriage Hills areas, west to the Del Rosa and Perris Hill neighborhoods and residential areas around St. Bernardine's Hospital at Highland and Waterman.

Businesses took a particularly hard beating. One can easily track where the crime is by the graffiti and non-compliant, unsafe structures still unabated at the Economic Development Agency's own admission.

The crime, still unacceptably too high, has dropped dramatically from just four years ago, not to mention what it was in 1991. But that trend will now reverse because the mayor's urging of Councilmen Fred Shorett, Dennis Baxter, Tobin Brinker and Rikke Van Johnson to approve the continued insanity at Monday's council meeting became a reality.
Spending $8.4 million on a housing project that will only accept very low-income tenants will not solve the underlying problem. Not only will this project fail to prevent a tragedy like the one that took Mynisha Crenshaw's life, it will expose more children to more gang members, drug dealers and parolees. No new low-income housing project will stop friends or associates, who tend to bring trouble with them, from visiting good-intended tenants creating havoc for the law-abiding residents.

To think that an out-of-towner nonprofit whose business it is to fill low-income apartments can turn Arden-Guthrie into a paradise by bringing in even more very low-income families is unrealistic. We need to take better care of those helpless to help themselves against exploitative slum landlords. With the looming release of thousands of parolees, more new, very low-income housing in San Bernardino will be a magnet for more crime. That is the last thing our less-fortunate community members need.

The money being used is called "Neighborhood Stabilization" funds as part of the federal stimulus package. We can use these funds to buy foreclosed single-family dwellings from banks at discounted prices in neighborhoods that are on the brink of de-stabilization. So why does the mayor insist instead on rehabilitating or building 100 new, low-income dwelling units? We should be using that money to bring back to full taxable value approximately 75 single-family dwellings where first-time low-income home buyers could have a shot at the American dream.

We could also create, from those four-plexes, owner-occupied duplexes, requiring the owner to rent to families earning less than $45,000 annually.

This creates the affordable housing and home ownership in one structure where the homeowner has enough money left over from the tenants to maintain their property. With this money we could also rehabilitate homes owned and occupied by seniors. This kind of help can prevent deterioration because of a senior's fixed income situation. Property deterioration can contribute to lowering surrounding property values. This money should be spread over several marginal neighborhoods rather than being concentrated in two or three high-crime areas where the criminal effects will multiply exponentially.

Mayor Morris needs to fulfill one of his campaign promises that so far has shown marginal results, turning more renters into homeowners. We have the money to do it. And in most cases, their house payment can be less than their rent. We could also consider new duplexes, instead of existing apartments, where owner-occupancy is mandatory. Instead of risky rentals, the owner would live on one side and rent the other to a moderate-income family they deem suitable as next-door neighbors.

Home ownership is the key to stabilizing neighborhoods. That fact has been proven again and again across the country.

Either we use this money wisely, fully understanding the long-term ramifications of the strings attached, or we turn it down. Either way, adding more very low-income rentals to an already troubled neighborhood is a recipe for disaster. More of these projects will cause even more homes in that neighborhood to fall into foreclosure because while the criminal element increases, property values decrease.

http://www.sbsun.com/pointofview/ci_12902691

San Bernardino ponders major redevelopment for eastside neighborhood
By Andrew Edwards on July 10, 2009 6:17 PM
By Andrew Edwards
Staff Writer


SAN BERNARDINO -- A troubled cluster of apartments on the city's eastside is at the focus of new redevelopment proposal, but there is disagreement among some of the city's top officials as to whether the plan is a bold way to repair a broken neighborhood or a flawed concept that will fail to reduce crime and blight.

The plan would employ about $8.4 in funds provided through the federal government's Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The funding is intended to help San Bernardino and other cities cope with the recent wave of foreclosures.

San Bernardino officials have zeroed in on a neighborhood where abandoned and foreclosed apartments sit in the middle of a zone said to be a quagmire of drugs and crime, while also being home to a pair of schools.

The divide between policymakers is whether the current plan will lift the area out of its troubles or merely spend a lot of money and effort while leaving the neighborhood's weaknesses in place.
Mayor Pat Morris and Economic Development Agency staffers say the federal dollars provide an opportunity to bring order to a chaotic neighborhood.

"We looked for the most crime-ridden, degraded areas of our city where we could have the most impacts," Morris said.

That area would be a few blocks along 19th Street and Sunrise Way, parallel streets that lie just southwest of the empty land where the notorious Arden Guthries once stood.

EDA statistics show that 356 serious crimes were reported in the area from January 2007 through March 2009. There were 453 Code Enforcement actions over the same time period.
San Bernardino officials have earlier ordered the demolition of the forty-odd apartment complexes that made up the Arden Guthries in an effort to wipe the neighborhood's slate clean and make way for commercial development. The land is now vacant.

But the eradication of the Arden Guthries was not the end of blight in the neighborhood. Some of the four-plexes on Sunrise, for example, exist only as abandoned husks.

In one such building, no barrier prevents trespassing. Gaping holes have been smashed into the drywall and debris covers the floors.

EDA housing director Carey Jenkins said the vandalism is presumably the work of drug addicts scavenging copper wiring to trade for the quick cash that fuels their habits.

"I will not be surprised if this is burned down by some kind of illicit activity before we get our hands on it," Jenkins said.

One quarter of the properties in the neighborhood are abandoned, Jenkins said, a condition he said is symptomatic of "complete failure of a community."

But one Sunrise Lane resident, a woman who did not want to give her real name, said it was about three years ago when Sunrise life was truly rough.

"It's very quiet. Family oriented," she said of her street's current conditions. "It used to be wild over here, yes."

Under the federal government's conditions of the grant, one quarter of the money must be used to finance housing for people earning half of the area median income. In San Bernardino, that amounts to annual incomes of about $19,000.

The redevelopment plan under current consideration addresses that mandate by calling for 25 of the four-plexes to be acquired by a nonprofit and rehabilitated by a nonprofit as low income housing. The concept also calls for the demolition of neighboring four-plexes to make way for single-family homes and senior housing.

The provision for low-income housing has some city officials leery of the proposal. Both City Attorney James F. Penman and Seventh Ward Councilwoman Wendy McCammack, don't like the idea of 100 apartments being set aside for low income earners.

EDA staffers had asked for the City Council to greenlight the redevelopment plan on Monday, but Penman succeeded in gaining the council's OK to wait two weeks while city lawyers examined the paperwork.

"The greater issue is the concentration of those low-income families in a high-crime area," Penman said in an interview.

Penman concludes that the low-income requirements amount to little more than an open door for parolees to settle in any rehabilitates apartments. The end result, he predicts, will be increased strain on city programs and a neighborhood populated by people with similar problems as those who have already raised cain around Sunrise and 19th.

McCammack, whose ward includes the Sunrise and 19th areas, has similar concerns. She wants redevelopment efforts to support senior housing or the development of owner-occupied residences. Like Penman, she sees a cluster of low-income apartments as a potential crime magnet.

"We would be making a big mistake, and I think we would be destabilizing an already unstable neighborhood," she said.

Jenkins said EDA staffers propose to use the funds to rehabilitate apartments because Washington, D.C.'s low-income mandate means the money could only be used to to subsidize a dozen or so owner occupied homes, as opposed to 100 apartments.

Because the plan also calls for the eventual demolition of 46 four-plexes to make way for senior and owner-occupied housing, he said the proposal will significantly reduce the number of low-income apartments along Sunrise and 19th.

Jenkins and Morris also said management services provided by Mary Erickson Community Housing, a San Clemente-based nonprofit, will result in a safer neighborhood and more responsible tenants than has been the case when absentee landlords dominated the neighborhood.

"We'll attract good families because of this," Morris said.

Mary Erickson's executive director, Susan McDevitt, said her organization would be able to screen prospective tenants to keep troublemakers away.

Time presents another issue. The plan's proponents say the alternative to doing nothing is to leave the neighborhood at the mercy of absentee landlords, who may swoop in to purchase properties before a decision is made.

"They're sold once again to unregulated investors who are more concerned with cash flow than the community," McDevitt said.

The council's next opportunity to debate the issue is the meeting scheduled for July 20.

http://www.insidesocal.com/sb/sbnow/2009/07/webhedsan-bernardino-ponders-m.html

This is old, they been talking about this for years now. They finally tore down the place a while ago, the Eastern part of the area, the parts near Sterling and Sunrise are still there, and I don't think there going to demolish that, so either way the new home depot/or what ever there going to build will be next to a very shady and depressed neighborhood. Makes no sense unless they completely knock down the entire area and displace hundreds of people. Fighting crime the SB way.

Just on the news yesterday, their was a gang of people from that area protesting what they was trying to do, knock down a few more parts from around that area. Said they was going to have another 'big' protest this Saturday. I was trying to find that video on FOX 11, because it showed some footage from around that area with some SQUAD G'z hit ups on the buildings. Was Squad G'z the only gang that claimed Lil Africa?

Yeah. Sqaud G's hood. There used to be two sides to the neighborhood, the sterling/sunrise side and the Arden side. The arden side got knocked down already but if you saw it before, it was dilapidated so far to the point that demolishing it made the most sense anyway. Nothing but abandoned boarded up buildings that became dens for the base heads, with a few buildings where families could still live in.

Was it several apartments or just one on the Arden side that got tore down? Were they on Arden street? I'm guessing those apartments was the heart of the Little Africa area, or at least where most of the action was happening. Used to go visit my aunt over in that area since when I was a little kid, but still unfamiliar with the area in general.

Squad G'z...aren't they considered "baby hoovers"? If so, do they still push Hoovers or do their own thing now? And what about Alley Boys? Aren't they in that area also?

The side that got tore down was over off of Highland and Guthrie, on Case ave at the center divider. They where old two story duplex buildings with small alley ways in between each unit. However the "heart" of the area is at the Sterling side at Sunrise, but the whole area is the Guthries or "Little Africa".

Sqaud G'z is a relatively new name from earlier this decade, but it's always been the same cats in that area since the late 80's. Yeah there baby hoovers, 94, 107 primarily. There is dudes from other hoods in that area, there used to be alot of PPHG that lived around there as well.

Alley Boys, is also something recent. You have the 18st Maze from the West side hooked up with some of those dudes now in what they call "Alley Maze".

Good looking out Ryda. I used to hang around my aunt's house over there when I was a little kid, and even back then it was bad. Probably always have been since the start. Couldn't even park the car outside for a brief moment without worrying about it getting took. Havn't really been around that area too much since then. The city and the media have been repeatedly refering to the area as the "slums" of San Bernardino.

Good stuff! I use to live on 19th Street in The Sterlings Apts. I moved back from there back in the mid 80's. I was still pretty shitty back then too..