Ask virtually any realtor to locate Columbia’s most affordable neighborhoods and you’re likely to hear “just north of town.”
Go north on Range Line Street, past Smiley Lane, and in no time you’ll find acres of newer, affordable homes. From uncompleted condos to stubbed-in utility lines, affordable housing in Columbia, Mo. looks every bit the growth industry, with the sticker price of a three bedroom, two-bath north Columbia home hovering around $100,000.
Contrast this scene with a “roundtable discussion” a year ago next week, when then-First Ward councilwoman Almeta Crayton gathered some 50 people to talk about the lack of affordable housing. Shortly before that, Columbia Mayor Darwin Hindman convened an “affordable housing commission” that later recommended subsidies and other incentives to encourage low-income development.
But Columbia doesn’t need to encourage low-income development. We’re overbuilt by almost every measure. Asking prices and market rents have fallen, significantly in some quarters. If low-income housing still seems like a policy pipedream, it isn’t for lack of stock.
The pipes in the dream lay in a closer look at some of those newer, affordable neighborhoods. The three-year-old house with a broken window and peeling paint. The concrete curbs crumbling at the edges. The loose siding. The brown, weed-riddled lawns and trash blowing in the street.
Something has happened, and like the Andromeda strain, stricken an entire community. Just listen to one of the neighbors talking to the Columbia Daily Tribune:
Kristen Conner, 26, heard the gunfire. She has lived on Bold Ruler Court, north of Derby Ridge and Smiley Lane, for about one and a half years. “It sounded like semiautomatic gunfire. It sounded very rapid,” she said.
Conner said she stopped an officer patrolling her neighborhood yesterday morning to ask about the incident and he told her police believe the incident at Falling Leaf Lane is related to the incident near her neighborhood. Conner said the police officer advised her to move to a safer part of town. “He said if I can get out of this neighborhood, I should,” she said.
Conner said the neighborhood has declined in the past seven months. “I used to take my dog for walks on Derby Ridge,” she said. “I won’t walk there anymore.”
Won’t walk there anymore because an uninvited neighbor named “crime” moved in, ravaging street after street with each passing shot. By attracting lawbreakers and creating hazards, crime is one neighbor that can destroy an entire neighborhood, old or new.
Like Michael Crichton’s interstellar virus, crime can be reduced, if not altogether eliminated. Yet, in Columbia it continues to surge and spread, the offspring of a confounding, counterproductive, and surprisingly widespread attitude:
In low-income neighborhoods, some level of crime is expected and even okay.
For many leaders, landlords and, residents even, crime is an inevitable by-product of low-income life. It comes with the territory, and so long as it’s reasonably quarantined, needn’t present any fiscal or policy priorities. I’ve even heard local anti-poverty advocates argue that some crime is good! “The first step toward gentrification is reducing crime,” went one argument. “Crime keeps property values down,” went a second. “It helps keep housing affordable.”
True, most proponents of low-income housing would consider such reasoning absurd. But for them, crime remains a low priority. Crime prevention was noticeably absent from the Columbia affordable housing commission’s recommendations, which focused instead on reducing permit impediments and abating code deficiencies.
In a town whose smoking ban and red-light cameras reflect a picayune pleasure in minor prohibitions, it seems mysterious that serious criminal activity gets such a pass. But to a wizened pair of Columbia police officers, who characterized much of northern Columbia as a “4-year-old ghetto” best avoided at night, the mystery isn’t that hard to explain.
“The people who could change it don’t live it,” one officer told me. “All we can really say is, if you live in a high-crime neighborhood, move out. And if you don’t have much money, move out of town.”
You hit the nail on the head.
ReplyDeleteI have heard that an abundance of what is known as Section 8 housing might be part of the problem in these neighorhoods. However, the Executive Diretor of the Columbia Housing Authority, in a recent letter to the Tribune Editor, refuted this. I remain unconvinced.
No matter what, crime is Columbia's number one problem. However,we hear not a peep from our political leaders, in particular the City Council.
I am sure the people living in the neighborhoods you describe, are not the least interested in bike paths, cameras at intersections, prohibiting Tasers or a Police Review Board and the like. They just want to feel safe.
I live on the North side in a NICE neighborhood near Derby Ridge school. The problem areas aren't the neighborhoods full of homes and families, they are the massive over stock of barely kept, quickly built, apartments. TOO MANY in one location. This breeds bad news and crime. SHAME on the city for approving these massive areas of apartments ALL over town by money grubbing developers.
ReplyDeleteAnd about affordable housing...since when is $100,000 affordable for a family of 4 making $40,000 which is about the national average? If you can find a house livable for $100,000 I'm betting it's not large enough for that average family of 4, and probably isn't in a "SAFE" neighborhood. But according to the police officer quoted in the article “All we can really say is, if you live in a high-crime neighborhood, move out. And if you don’t have much money, move out of town.”
I think your story is the biggest load of anecdotal crap foisted recently on the reading public. Great reasearch- two cops and a dog walker.
ReplyDeleteWhere's the newest high school in Columbia being built? Oh yeah, north Columbia. Where are ALL of the largest shopping hubs? Why, North Columbia. Road Expansions? New Shops? North Columbia. Put it this way, uber-commentator: Leave Eastland Hills and head for super WalMart. Then check the distance from Thornbrook (for example) to the closest shopping. One of these things is not like the other. Eastland Hills and several other "ghetto" subs up north can hop on 70 and be anywhere in Columbia in minutes. Not so for 80% or better of south subdivisions. And if you're busily wielding the "ghetto" gun, why don't you get a rock, stand in Cherry Hill and chuck it across the street. The bottom line is not all in Columbia is Zen perfect, however, good people are working daily to make it much better. Next time you want to take shots on this town, you might try at least shooting from the hip, versus the inside of your zipped up pants.
I'm the gal you referenced in your recent article in “Columbia’s affordable housing trap nothing but a 4 year ghetto.” I just wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know that I'm am so happy to see someone bringing this issue up with a crowd like the readers of the Columbia Business Times!
ReplyDeleteI got out of that neighborhood in March of this year. We didn't even care that we had to pay rent on our duplex for a month and a half before it was rented. We had to get out.
Our own landlord admitted that there were landlords who didn't care about criminal records, they would just rent to anyone who's check cleared. I had a friend who moved to Worley Street to get away from the violence and crime! That is quite a change from when I moved here in 1999.
That cop I talked to had some good advice. I walk in my new neighborhood anytime and always feel safe. I don't hear gunfire, doors slamming, people fighting -- just the frogs, the crickets, and an occasional passing car, but who's rear plate is not vibrating from the bass on the stereo. Thank you again for your article.