Coverage of Saturday's Stop the Violence March-Taft Homes

Dozens of Peorians took the street Saturday night in an effort to curb violence in the city. The "Stop the Violence March" took off on Adams Street and continued through the Taft Homes.

Organizer Howard Nathan said he knew he had to do something when his Mom called him, scared of the growing violence in her neighborhood. "These kids are not out here just fighting anymore," said Nathan. "They are out here shooting. They are using guns, big guns, guns we don't even know, haven't even heard of."

Participants said it's not one area of Peoria that's the problem, but violence in the entire community has to stop. Currently the city's homicide count for 2012 stands at seven.Nathan plans to march in a different area of the city each week until the violence stops.

"Every week, every week, as long as we can just get more people listening and coming out joining us," said Howard. "Who knows how long it will go, until some of this stops."

"We just got to take it to every area that's experienced a homicide, you know what I mean," said march participant Kelvin Parker. "Not even necessarily gun violence but just a death is a death. Homicide or not, a death is a death. We just got to take it city wide and not just down here. We got to take it far and beyond."

Participants said an attitude change has to take place in the city, with an emphasis on family and self-respect.

"We just got to take more interest in our children cause sometimes the children can turn to the streets if they can't turn to their parents for guidance and love," said Parker. "If we as parents give our kids that time they need to listen and see what their life is like, then I think that might stop it."

Nathan hopes the message spreads across Peoria and beyond.Source

What exactly is the PHA doing about crime and safety

There is a great deal of the crime happening in Peoria's housing projects (Taft Homes, RiverWest, Harrison Homes), Section 8 properties and scattered site housing areas. These are all housing types that are managed by the Peoria Housing Authority (PHA).

As we continue to hear about crime throughout the city on PHA property or involving PHA residents, I began to wonder what exactly is the PHA, as a management company, doing about crime to make the clients who do abide by the law safe. Are they going into their pockets to provide extra security? Are they updating their No Trespass List on the regular and expunging old information?

I went to the website, hoping to take a look at the minutes of the Peoria Housing Authority Board to see how they are currently addressing these issues. Unfortunately, the last minutes from a Peoria Housing Authority Board meeting published on the Internet are dated March 28, 2011. The minutes are shown at the bottom of this post, notice there is no mention of crime, security or safety, even though the following was happening at the time...

I took a look at the Trespass List after Elaine Hopkins posted about it and made the following observations: 

                         

Apparently there are names on the list of several people who are now deceased. There are names of people on the list who have children named after them - but there is no distinction as to age, or any descriptors other than M/B or F/B (black male or black female). The lack of updating of the list would seem to indicate that there is no dedicated knowledgeable security person working with the the Housing Authority.

Remember this article in the local newspaper talking about the Housing Authority buying security cameras? If they purchased security cameras, how come they aren't solving more of their own crimes? If they got the grant in October of 2010, they should have had the cameras in July of 2011 - how come they didn't have more information about exactly who had fireworks and was starting trouble?

What I did notice from the minutes of the Peoria Housing Authority Board is that there is a lot of discussion about getting money from the government and spending money (tax dollars), but there is little to no discussion about safety or quality of life of the people who reside on the properties.

Peoria Housing Authority Board Minutes

Stop the Violence March: Saturday, July 14, 2012

                         

Take the guns from your sons - a local father's plea

Don't get me wrong, it's always good with the PPD takes a shooter off the streets. I'm looking forward to the days when we find the shooters who are killing people. Do you think it depends on the location you are in when you get shot?

Man arrested in shooting in City Hall parking lot

An 18-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a shooting in the City Hall parking lot on Oct. 9.

Cory W. Bragg was booked shortly after 10 p.m. Thursday on two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm, aggravated battery with a firearm and damage to property.

On the night of the shooting, police had been dispatched at 11:57 p.m. to the Locker Room, 112 SW Jefferson Ave. An officer was flagged down after he arrived about shots being fired nearby in the 400 block of Fulton Street.

At least two people apparently had exchanged gunfire in the block after an under-21 party at the establishment. A 17-year-old girl was shot in the hand.

The vehicle the victim was sitting inside was hit twice - once in the driver's door and once in a rear passenger door. A window in the glass arcade of the Peoria Civic Center behind the parking lot also was shot out.Source

What's going on in the Taft Homes?

As the PHA directors win awards for "doing their jobs", many of the residents feel that the place has never been worse. I'm sure we all saw the recent reports of rats running rampant in Taft. They were so bad, there is no way an active management could have missed it.

From WMBD...
"Not more than ten steps into our visit at Taft Homes, we saw the evidence everywhere. A dead rat, holes under the porches, in the ground, and even in people's homes. A woman living at Taft Homes in Peoria called the WMBD newsroom looking for help. Rats were taking over her housing complex. Brenda Coleman said she had been telling management about the problem for months, but nothing happened. After our station told the Peoria Housing Authority what we saw, it got to work right away."

We also saw what has been described as "a large-scale illegal fireworks display in a housing complex adjacent to the state’s largest Fourth of July celebration" - another thing that an active management should have seen.

Did I say active management? Perhaps thats the problem, because you see, I have it from a reliable source that the PHA manager at Taft walked out earlier this summer and last week the replacement manager walked out and as of right now, there is NO ONE literally NO ONE, on the property managing it. The doors to the office were locked all last week.

After the Fourth of July debacle there was a lot of talk about increasing security in Taft Homes. Well, I guess they haven't done it yet, because I heard that Saturday night (July 30th), gun shots were being fired for about an hour straight and it was so bad, some residents wouldn't even go home. Wonder why that didn't make the pjstar.

While we are talking about guns, shooting and not making the news... I also heard that Friday night (July 29th), several guys were shooting in Harrison Homes.

SIDEBAR... whenever I see the words Harrison Homes, I think Harrison Street. Anyhow...

Funny, the last couple of days I was thinking things (i.e., shootings) seemed to have calmed down a bit (guess I was wrong). Unfortunately, I now have to rely on the "on the ground reports" from people in the hood to find out what is really going on in Peoria's housing projects.

Peoria's PR faux pas continues and placing the blame remains somewhat elusive

Today, Billy Dennis posed this question:

Why does WMBD 1470 continue to do business with FOX News, which lies about Peoria

He is referring to this little item that ran on Fox Nation (whatever that is)…

Billy, I would post this on your blog, but for some reason I continue to be unable to post there - anyhoo, go to WMBD1470 and look at the first piece they published on the "Taft riots", look at the terms the story was filed under. Fox News, simply found an AP photo that reflects what WMBD 1470 filed the story under "disaster, accident, war and conflict". In other words, WMBD gave Fox News the ammunition (pun intended).

click on image to enlarge

Gotta go, I'm not supposed to be posting while on vacation! Carry on...

Police take cover from shooter in Taft

Peoria police officers believe a round from a rifle may have been fired in their direction early Wednesday as they investigated an earlier call for gunfire in the area of Taft Homes.

Officers were called at 1:56 a.m. Wednesday to the 700 block of Northeast Adams Street after a resident in the area heard a single shot fired outside one of the Taft Homes apartment complexes.

Four officers were in the area near Wayne Street, the northern boundary of Taft Homes, when another shot exploded in close proximity to the police. The shot was so close, police took cover, then approached the courtyard where the gunfire was believed to have originated.

No one was found, and no shell casings were discovered, though a report noted that the shot sounded like it came from a rifle. It may have been fired out of an apartment window, though it ultimately was unclear whether police officers were the intended targets. Source

Affordable housing with river views...

Is Peoria in the second wave of gentrification?

PJStar, June 9, 2009 - Residents living in the soon-to-be redeveloped Taft Homes must comply with the Peoria Housing Authority's Housing Incentive Program that requires them to have full-time jobs or a part-time job and schooling, a good rental history and utilities in their own name. That likely will sweep many residents - none of whom currently pay utilities and some of whom don't have jobs - out. PHA officials acknowledge some will not conform. They will be moved to other public housing. Harrison Homes specifically was cited.

PJStar, June 22, 2009 - The PHA is planning on redeveloping Taft Homes housing units to include some public housing, affordable housing and market-rate housing. The city says it would like to see 85 percent of the units at fair market value and only 15 percent subsidized. City Economic Development Director Craig Hullinger said he wants to work with the PHA to get “high-quality development” on the prime riverfront property.

In a recently updated report, housing market research firm Tracy Cross & Associates Inc. still contends Downtown and the nearby Warehouse District could absorb 200 or more new housing units annually over the next several years.

“Not only has Downtown Peoria’s housing market not changed dramatically in the last year, but more importantly, Peoria has yet to fully serve its *Downtown employment base with adequate housing alternatives, a factor clearly highlighted in our original analysis. Equally as important is the simple fact that Peoria is only now ramping up its efforts to implement the Downtown revitalization effort.” (Downtown employment base = Caterpillar)

Class trumps race in America's inner cities

The marriage of wealth and power means disaster for those who have neither, and it's a catastrophe for low-income people of color.

In urban centers across the country, minorities are being shunned to the side as real estate developers turn them out of their homes, and housing authorities turn a blind eye. The forced gentrification of majority minority neighborhoods is happening quietly and deliberately as bloated rents force impoverished renters to vacate in order to make room for the wealthier tenants. Public housing projects in inner cities like Oakland, Chicago and Brooklyn now face the threat of demolition as city-planned ‘urban renewal’ duplicitously masks city-conspired ‘gentrification.’

Mariana Viturro, co-director of the St. Peter’s Housing Committee, a group that fights for tenants' rights in San Francisco, said the residents of these housing projects are the victims of land speculation and market forces.

The city of Oakland, Calif., recently approved a plan called the Hoover/West MacArthur Vision Statement that would allow the redevelopment of several housing projects and result in the displacement of hundreds of low-income renters. This is all part of the city's plan to “clean up” the Hoover/West MacArthur area.

This plan of fixing up the impoverished parts of Oakland is a thinly veiled collision between housing authorities and real estate developers to get rid of the poor. Land is money. Landlords are raising the rents to exorbitant amounts so tenants are forced to vacate, and developers can swoop in to renovate the buildings. This attracts upper-class tenants who can afford to pay higher rents, thus raising the property value.

It’s another classic example of low-income people being pushed out of their neighborhoods once their presence becomes an inconvenience. Blacks and Hispanics were once driven to the inner cities after World War II by the possibility of jobs and pushed out of suburbia because they were usually denied access to suburban home purchases. Now history is repeating itself in reverse, as whites flee back to cities and oust low-income tenants. Now it's primarily class and not race that has become the separating line.

In the fight for equality, it looks like America has only managed to make a lateral move with the invisible barrier becoming class instead of race. The truth is being silently mapped out across urban grids everywhere, as income becomes the great de-equalizer.

The war on poverty has finally turned into a war against the poor where class can substitute for race. Source

Related reading: Gentrification and the Paradox of Affordable Housing by Andres Duaney, #73, Gentrification, Stuff White People Like