Crime crackdown has had tangible effects in public housing 6.14.11

WISH-TV

For years, public housing in Indianapolis has been a breeding ground for crime and criminals. A 172-page study showing results of a four-year effort to change that was released overnight. If you compare what's going on now to what it was when all this began in 2006, huge strides have been made.
New floors, kitchen cabinets, countertops and updated bathrooms: for Trina Taylor what's happened inside her public housing apartment is only one big improvement. The other is a crackdown on crime.
"It's down – way, way, way, way better since I moved in two years ago. It’s way better,” she told 24-Hour News 8.
In 2006, Housing Agency data showed that 80 percent of homicides in the city were linked to public housing. Shady businesses and a national criminal biker gang all operated out of federally assisted housing. There were what the agency called "mortage cartels." Five of the worst were convicted of obtaining more than $37 million in illegal federal loans.
Dozens of boxes with paperwork from prosecutions sit in the police office of the Indianapolis Housing Agency. IHA Executive Director Bud Myers said the crime crackdown is working.
"Lately, there's been a spike in homicides, but at the same time, we have seen a drop in the homicides that are linked to public housing or Section 8," he said.
In the past four years, Myers said, there have been 129 raids, resulting in 367 arrests, 132 wanted sex offenders tracked down, more than 600 illegal tenants evicted and $1.3 million in illegal welfare payments recovered. Myers said federal grants and stimulus money have made the crackdown possible.
But juvenile crime remains an area of concern, Myers said.
“However,” he said, “we're finding that we can do it now a lot better, because the parents want to have that stopped."
Taylor sees the improvement first hand.
"Zero tolerance,” she said. “They don't play that here. So I feel very safe, me and my family."
But mortgage fraud continues to be a big problem, Myers said. He blames mortgage lenders, such as German financial giant Deutsche Bank, for not doing background checks on those buying houses used for federally assisted living and not notifying local housing authorities when a property goes into default or is resold.
It's a part of the problem he said, that hasn't improved in the past four years.

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