Border Street: Hope survives amid tumbled-down lives

By Tina Griego, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 7, 2006 at midnight

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A little more than a mile from Border Street, on the fringes of the neighborhood, sit two blocks of 37 dwellings. Most appear to be small single-family homes of various, haphazard architectural styles. A few are nicely maintained. A few look abandoned. About half are rentals.

From January 2005 to October 2006, the two blocks were the location of 40 reported crimes and many more calls for police. The complaints covered the neighborhood's usual range of noise, juvenile hooliganism, shots fired in area, domestic violence in progress. The reported crimes included burglary, auto theft, drug abuse, assault upon a police officer, aggravated assault and one homicide, believed to be drug-related, in a tiny wood house that was later burglarized.

It is the City Council Member's understanding that the place was tossed by people looking for drugs. Its windows are now covered with plywood. No one has lived there for months. The first time the City Council Member drove the alleys of the two blocks, the sight provoked an, "Oh, my God, it's like a shantytown."

Several city officials have driven through the same two blocks in recent weeks. It is likely they took in the same sights as the City Council Member did. In one alley, they would have seen: gang graffiti on fences and walls and dumpsters; moldering sofas and cushions and mattresses; assorted discarded furniture and trash; a giant, stuffed Tweety Bird, the kind someone would have won on a carnival midway in a happier time; a plastic toy house; an iron; a garage with a satellite dish on the roof; a garage with a garbage bag for a door; piles of boards, garbage, falling down sheds.

"It looks like someone took a TV apart there," the City Council Member says, turning the corner onto the street. "That house is for sale. I don't know who would buy it."

The police and neighborhood inspectors picked these two blocks as among the worst in the neighborhood and so a good place to try to learn what it might take to make the Border Street community a safer place to live. The general idea, which began percolating in the mayor's office earlier this year, was that police work is only the beginning. Keeping a neighborhood safe requires more collaboration among departments and better communication with businesses and residents.

Last week, 10 people from various city departments met at the neighborhood's police substation to review the crime statistics and code violations, and come up with a plan. It'd be too hard to get everyone on the block to come to a meeting, the group decided. "So, we'll go to them," the City Council Member explains later. "I'm going to go door-to-door with a police officer. All 37 houses. We'll ask residents what they think the biggest problems are, how they think the city can help. After that, we're going to do a big neighborhood cleanup. We're going to reclaim this neighborhood."

The City Council Member says this knowing that reclaiming this area is easier said than done. The problems run so deep "it takes your breath away," the City Council Member says.

The police commander figures he'll send the precinct officer and a translator with the City Council Member. They'll go in January. He wants the people on the street to know what cop is in charge of the area. He wants them to meet that officer face to face.

The police commander has been around long enough to know problems in a neighborhood ebb and flow and that when one issue has been taken care of, another pops up. He's frustrated now because the graffiti, once under control, is everywhere again and homicides in his district are climbing. A lot of young gangsters with no conscience are moving into the area, he says. "They'll shoot you and not feel a thing." His officers find 10-year-olds on the street at 2 a.m., and when the officers call home, a parent will say, "I didn't even know he was gone."

The police commander is an optimist. "I grew up in this neighborhood . . . in the projects. My mom raised all seven of us on welfare. My dad took off when I was 10. I never saw him again. No cards. No calls."

He says that someone called him a year or so ago. Wanted to know if he was so-and-so's son. Yes, said the commander. I wanted to let you know he died, the caller said. Thank you for letting me know, the commander said and hung up.

His mom drilled into each of them the need to be honest and dignified. Find jobs where you use your brain, not your muscles, she told them.

"I don't despair because I come from this," he says. "Been there. Done that. Whatever we can do - even if it's a little bit - it helps. I've been doing this a long time, and you can't make life perfect. You can make it better."

griegot@RockyMountainNews.com

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