I read the article “Good news about crime - it’s down this year” by Crime Prevention Specialist Tim Hammett, in the May Camden News. He states, “…it is often difficult to attribute such [drop in crime] trends to specific causes.“ He gives most of the credit for crime reduction to the Minneapolis Police Department and neighborhood organizations. I give most of the credit for the reduction of crime to the housing foreclosures in our area.
I believe that for years state and local government officials were determined to make the Northside a “Section 8 Housing Project.” They allowed investors to buy previously, privately owned homes, and turned them into rental properties. Our government officials wanted to use our neighborhoods to house the criminal population of the City of Minneapolis and Hennepin County. Mayor Rybeck’s solution for the ever-increasing crime rate on the Northside was simply to add more police officers.
These rental properties created most of the criminal activities in our area. They housed drug dealers, prostitute rings, thieves and robbers, murderers, sexual predators, rapists, gang members, and more. Within a few short years, crime had “sky rocketed” in Camden and other Northside neighborhoods. By the time the mortgage crises hit, our neighborhoods had deteriorated into battle zones for the gangs and the drug lords.
What an embarrassment it must have been to our government officials when the “North Side Crime Zone” started to spill over into Uptown and Downtown Minneapolis. The Nation magazine even stood up and took notice when a woman from New York was “gunned down” in Uptown. And Downtown has suffered too. The thriving nightlife has all but collapsed because of the numerous shootings that have occurred in the past few years. At night people no longer venture into Uptown or Downtown for fear of being assaulted or murdered.
Believe it or not, the mortgage crisis has been the greatest blessing our Camden community has seen in years. In 2007, North Minneapolis was reported to have the largest percentage of foreclosures in the nation! Landlords, who bailed out, owned over 60 percent of those foreclosures. When their properties foreclosed, the renters were forced to vacate. When the renters vacated, they also took the criminal elements with them. The crime rate fell. In 2008 crime is down 50 percent, and in some areas as much as 60 percent. Peace and quiet is returning to our neighborhoods.
I realize many honest, hardworking people were scammed out of their homes. I hope they will be given the opportunity to once again buy homes in this area. We need responsible homeowners in our neighborhood to rebuild what the criminals tried to take away from us.
Our government officials may be the greatest criminals of all. They should never designate one area of a city or a county as a government subsidized low rent housing project. These government housing projects are well known for their high crime rates. And crime concentrated in one area will spill over into every other area of the city. Housing is important and necessary. But distributing Section 8 housing equally throughout the county is essential for combating crime in an effective way.
I believe the police and neighborhood watch groups have played a key role in the reduction of crime in our area. But the most significant reason for this huge reduction is due to the mortgage crisis that caused low rent landlords to flee and leave behind empty, quiet homes that were previously used to shelter criminals.
We have an opportunity to see real lasting change in our neighborhoods. I pray that our government officials have the insight to curb rental properties and offer potential homebuyers a chance at the American Dream.
Susan Peterson,
Folwell