Dawn Taylor is a leader.

Monday, August 21, 2000

Dawn Taylor is a leader.

Whittier Place is an example.

Steve Wald is pleased.

Taylor is the first graduate of the Austin Police Department’s Crime-Free Multi-Housing Unit Prevention Program.

She manages Whittier Place, a 32-unit townhome complex along Fourth Street SE, where the Whittier School and Roger’s Industries were located.

Wald, an Austin patrolman, coordinates the department’s new program designed to make multifamily housing complexes crime-free.

"We believe this is an effective long-term solution," said Police Capt. Curt Rude, who was on hand to congratulate Taylor last week.

"It shows we are taking a proactive stance in dealing with problems that originate in places such as this and that, along with us, the housing complexes are ready, willing and able to do whatever is necessary to ensure the safety of residents," he said.

On Tuesday, Wald presented Taylor with her certification of completion of the department’s Crime-Free Multi-Housing Unit Prevention Program.

In addition, Wald gave Taylor signs to be posted the let everyone know that residents take crime prevention seriously.

Taylor is the program’s first graduate, but 14 other apartment and other multihousing unit property managers also are enrolled in the program.

 

"The program has three facets to it," Wald said. "First, there is a daylong training session for managers. Then, we do a crime prevention inspection of the place to ensure there is adequate lighting, door locks, eye views in doors and that windows are not obscured by shrubs. Finally, we hold a tenants meeting that encourages them to become a neighborhood watch for the Police Department."

According to Wald, the idea for such a program originated in Mesa, Ariz., and spread quickly across the United States. Rochester was the first city in Minnesota to implement such a program through its police department.

It’s a well-known fact: where there are more people concentrated in a single place, there is the potential for more criminal activity.

Police calls to such housing projects are common place. Vandalism plagues the properties and the law-abiding tenants suffer the ignominy of living sometimes in fear of what goes on around them. Previous attempts to evict the troublemakers have been met with charges of harassment and discrimination.

Now, property managers are being proactive. Leases include prohibitions against more than the lease-holder and immediate family to occupy a residence. Being arrested is grounds for immediate eviction. Background checks help weed out credit risks and those with criminal histories.

"The residents at Whittier Place very much support this program," Taylor said. "We already do background checks into the credit history and possible criminal history of prospective tenants and this only adds to our efforts."

Opened a year ago, Whittier Place’s 32 units are completely occupied and Taylor has a waiting list of 19 prospective tenants.

"The current tenants are a wide cross-section of people," she said. "We have older, retired people and working people and families with children."

The complex was designed, in part, to offer a safe residential haven for tenants. For example, a children’s playground is located in the middle of the horseshoe shaped complex along Fourth Street SE.

"Every tenant has windows facing the courtyard so they can see if anything happens to the children on the playground," Taylor said.

When two teen-age boys were spotted on the play area after 10 p.m. one night, tenants told the manager, who confronted the youths and – because they did not live there - ordered them to leave.

Wald said that’s an example how the new program is giving property managers and tenants the tools to "take back their own neighborhoods."

"We want to make every neighborhood like it was years ago," Wald said. "That’s when people sat on their front porches and talked with each other and when they looked out after each other’s property and children."

"Everybody helped each other and that’s what we want people to do in multihousing units," Wald said.

For more information about the new program, call the Austin Police Department at 437-9400.