Jared Soares | The Roanoke Times

Joshua Smith, 10, hangs from a clothesline at Lansdowne Park, the oldest and largest of Roanoke's eight public housing developments. Joshua and his mother, Amy, will be moving out of Lansdowne later this month. The Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority plans to spruce up its complexes and install new measures to combat crime.

On a sunny winter afternoon, a blond-haired girl ran across the street to see Sidney Jackson.

He was painting a bench, covering the peeling green paint with swipes of red, bright as a firetruck.

As he worked, Jackson teased the girl about her obsession with Harry Potter and asked about her Easy-Bake Oven. The last time they had talked, the light bulb was burned out.

Jackson is a maintenance man at Lansdowne Park, the oldest and largest of Roanoke's eight public housing developments.

But his duties there go beyond painting benches and fixing leaky faucets.

As the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority follows through with a plan to curb crime and build stronger communities at its developments, Jackson said lifting up the residents is just as important as keeping the place looking nice.

"That's what it takes, I guess, to rebuild this," he said.

The housing authority got its first good look at crime data in 2007, when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development mandated a change in the way public housing agencies were managed.

Housing authorities were required to begin tracking property performance, including crime rates. HUD specifically wanted to see the crime rate in each of the agency's properties compared with the crime rate in the surrounding communities. Any property whose crime rate was more than 20 percent higher than the community's rate would be considered by HUD to be nonperforming.

When the Roanoke housing authority looked at the data in July 2007, five of the city's eight developments had crime rates that exceeded HUD's threshold -- and one property's rate was almost three times the rate of the surrounding community.

"It was certainly concerning," said Glenda Edwards, executive director of the housing authority. "There is nothing that's a higher priority than the security and health and safety of our residents."

With the help of Roanoke police, the housing authority put into place a plan intended to increase security and improve the appearance of its properties, which house more than 2,700 people.

That includes installing security cameras, additional lighting and more fences on some of the properties.

The housing authority also is trying to keep the occupancy rate at or above 95 percent, because empty apartments invite vandalism and other crime.

Site managers are working with police to crack down on trespassers, on the theory that it's not the tenants causing problems -- it's people coming onto the properties.

And the authority is spending more time and money to keep the sites clean of trash and vandalism and to spruce up the landscaping.

Edwards believes that as the appearance of the properties improves, so will the crime rates, and along with that, tenants' attitudes about living in public housing.

"I think there is a stereotype that public housing is just filled with criminals or thugs," Edwards said. "That's just inaccurate."

Strategies with potential

The paint on Jackson's bench was only a day old when two people were gunned down just a block away.

They were hospitalized and wouldn't cooperate with detectives. No one has been arrested.

That shooting was one of dozens in the city last year, and a recent example of what police and the housing authority are up against.

Using U.S. Census data from 2000, the housing authority each month compares the crime rates per household in the developments with the surrounding community.

The numbers vary from month to month, but overall, the housing authority has seen crime rates at most of its properties improve in the past year.

For instance, in July 2007 the crime rate at Lansdowne Park was 50 percent higher than the rate in Northwest Roanoke.

By December the next year, the crime rate at Lansdowne was lower than it was in Northwest Roanoke.

Part of that drop can be attributed to a slight increase in the crime rate in Northwest Roanoke. Even so, the drop in Lansdowne's crime rate was significant.

"We are heartened by the improvements and the progress, but we're not to a place where we can sit back and say, 'OK, we've accomplished what we set out to accomplish,' " Edwards said.

Lansdowne still had the second-highest crime rate among public housing sites in 2008, behind Hunt Manor.

Hunt Manor's most reported offenses were trespassing, followed by disorderly persons. At Lansdowne, the most reported offense was destruction of property, followed by assault.

The housing authority and the police believe that most of the crime is coming in from the outside.

"The crime problem is not a public housing problem or a problem with the people who live in public housing," Edwards said.

Police find that the troublemakers are frequently people visiting friends at the developments or people who are temporarily living there with a friend.

For that reason, the housing authority gave police a list of tenants. Anyone whose name is not on the list can be charged with trespassing if police see them loitering or causing problems. In 2008, police had 64 reports of trespassing at the eight public housing complexes, according to department data. In 2007, there were 54 reports.

The department used the same strategy in 1991 at Lincoln Terrace, Roanoke police Lt. Todd Clingenpeel said. Lincoln Terrance underwent a major renovation starting in 1999 and is now known as Villages at Lincoln.

Enforcing trespassing rules there resulted in a drop in crime over a short time period, Clingenpeel said.

Police aren't just on the lookout for trespassers and criminal activity. Officers talk with residents about what problems they see and address those issues. They give residents safety tips and can tell them about the housing authority's resources such as child care or job-training assistance.

"Let's not just fight crime here," Clingenpeel said. "Let's go in and make an overall community change."

Sometime this year, the housing authority hopes to deploy another crime deterrent: surveillance cameras.

The authority is accepting bids for a project that will put cameras at six developments. Morningside Manor and Melrose Towers, two sites designated for senior citizens and the disabled, already have cameras.

The cameras and other security improvements are estimated to cost $850,000, Edwards said. Most of the money is coming from HUD's Public Housing Program, which funds capital improvements and operating costs. About $30,000 of the cost was provided through a grant from Roanoke police. That money was used to improve and put up more fencing, Edwards said.

Once in place, the cameras will not be monitored, but police responding to a call in an area where there is a camera will be able to access real-time video to see what is happening. The recordings also can be used as evidence.

Cameras have been used for years at public housing projects across the country. They are especially controversial because, unlike surveillance cameras mounted in a public square, for example, these cameras are filming people's homes.

"It adds to the impression that people have that they are prisoners in their own houses," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Program for the American Civil Liberties Union.

Studies in the United Kingdom, where surveillance cameras have been widely used for years, show that the cameras do not reduce crime but simply displace it, Steinhardt said.

It is a concern that Roanoke police share, and they will be monitoring the issue closely, Clingenpeel said.

No one has complained to the housing authority about the cameras, said Earl Saunders, who oversees real estate and housing management for the housing authority.

And at least some residents said that if the cameras help police, then they don't mind.

"I actually think it'd kind of be a good idea to put security cameras out here," said Robert Davis. He lives at Indian Rock Village in Southeast Roanoke, where he said a lot of children play outside.

Tasha Brown, who has lived at Lansdowne for 18 years, said the problems come from a select group of Lansdowne residents and from tenants at neighboring apartment complexes.

"I'm glad they are [installing cameras] so they can see that it's not everybody up here in Lansdowne making it bad," she said.

The 'broken-window effect'

Cindy King moved to Lansdowne 33 years ago and was pregnant with her son the next year. She had no qualms about raising the boy there.

"The people then took pride in the place where they lived," she said. She recalls a residents council that organized holiday potlucks and bought small gifts for the children.

Then, in the early 1980s, crime crept in. She'd see youths dealing drugs outside her apartment.

"I've seen kids go from pacifiers to baby bottles to beer bottles," she said.

The sense of community evaporated. No one came to the council meetings unless there was an incentive, such as food. The council eventually quit meeting.

"People just acted like they just didn't care," King said.

Over the years, trash began to litter the street and graffiti marred brick walls.

It is hard to say what caused the change, but Clingenpeel and Keri Burchfield, a criminologist at Northern Illinois University, have a few theories.

Clingenpeel said he thinks it could be attributed to societal changes. Years ago, he said, there was a stronger emphasis on families and neighborhoods.

"Society was much different back then," he said.

Burchfield added that the nation saw crime rates rise in the 1980s during the crack cocaine epidemic.

"Certainly that's going to affect public housing as well," she said.

The housing authority is working to clean up the developments. At Hunt Manor, crews are replacing siding, and at Indian Rock Village, some sidewalks are being repaired.

Studies have shown that run-down buildings signal to criminals that no one cares what happens there. This idea is referred to as the broken-window effect.

But there are many factors that contribute to the success of reversing the effect, Burchfield said.

"Without a base of residents willing to work together ... just cleaning up the broken window doesn't really work," she said.

Residents have to respect and work with the housing authority and police to bring about change, she said.

"You want a sense of community, a sense of trust between the community," the housing authority and police, Burchfield said.

The housing authority understands that and is re-establishing resident councils at its sites.

"The sense of community and people looking out for each other is vital for improving security," Edwards said.

The councils meet monthly with police and site managers to hear the latest crime reports and talk about problems they've seen. At Lansdowne, a Roanoke emergency dispatcher talked to the councils about how to call in crimes anonymously. Clingenpeel has spoken to them about gangs and drug use and has urged them to call police about anything they see that doesn't look right.

Not all residents have embraced the extra attention from police and the efforts to improve security, because they say there is no need for it.

"When we walk outside, this is what we see," said Earnest Lee Thomas. He lives near Lansdowne and frequently visits his sister who lives there. "We don't see the milkman or someone delivering flowers. There ain't nothing bad, it's just the way it is."

Katherine McCoy said she believes she and her visitors are unfairly targeted by police because of where they live.

McCoy said her family won't visit her because the last time they did, the police followed them out of the development and pulled them over. A friend who came to see her last year ended up in court with a trespassing charge, she said.

Edwards said she understands how some people may perceive the increased police presence, but added that she believes more people feel safer because of the added patrols.

King, now a grandmother, hopes that as the 56-year-old complex is fixed up and cameras installed, the residents will once again begin to feel an ownership of their community.

"It takes the residents to want it, too," she said. "I'd say 80 [percent] to 85 percent of the residents just don't care too much."