FIGHTING CRIME STEP BY STEP

GREENSBORO -- The drug trade terrorized Smith Homes in the late 1980s.

While police cracked down on open-air drug markets elsewhere in the city,
many dealers moved their operations to the public housing community on
Florida Street, says Gloria Rankin.

"From sunset to sunrise there was drug dealers, wall-to-wall drug dealers,"
says the 53-year-old president of the Smith Homes Residents Council.

"You really didn't have to look at a TV to see 'Miami Vice' or anything
like that. All you had to do was look out your window. It didn't matter
whether it was rain, sleet, snow or shine." Things changed in 1989 after
Greensboro and the Greensboro Housing Authority opened a Police
Neighborhood Resource Center in the community.

The centers, often called PNRCs, serve as police substations in public
housing communities, bases for uniformed officers and a manager who is a
public housing resident. They also help inform residents about available
social services.

The program is now more than 13 years old and has 10 officers at work in
five public housing communities: Claremont Courts, Ray Warren Homes,
Hampton Homes, Smith Homes and Hickory Trails.

In their first decade, the centers helped to reduce criminal and drug
offenses by 60 percent in their communities.

Officers get to know residents and work with them to fight crime. Police
Chief Robert White and housing authority Executive Director Tina Akers both
have praised the program. "If the police were just driving through the
community and just responding when there was something going on, there
would be a completely different relationship," Akers said.

Before the centers opened, public housing residents would sometimes allow
drug dealers to hide in their apartments. Residents are much more likely to
help the police now. For residents fearful of reprisals by criminals, an
anonymous hot line allows them to let police know what is going on.

"Folks didn't want to get involved because they were scared," Rankin said.
"But, like I tell them, if you don't get involved, who will? You can't
expect the police to do something for your community that you don't want to
do yourself.

"Our children deserve a safe place."

Rankin was one of the residents who approached the Greensboro City Council,
the police and the housing authority to push for the centers. She is the
manager for the PNRC at Smith Homes, the complex where she has lived for 32
years and raised five children.

The centers, with an annual budget of almost $650,000 paid by the housing
authority and the city, do more than prevent and solve crimes.

"The chief of police gives us the autonomy to do different programs that
regular patrol officers don't get to do," said Sgt. Jeff Lowdermilk, who
oversees the PNRCs. "We take the kids fishing, we take the older residents
on trips."

Police officers A.J. Ricketts and M.A. Wright recently organized the city's
first Women's Empowerment Seminar for residents of public housing. The
October event aimed to help participants become self sufficient and
included mortgage lenders and local colleges.

"It emulates the policing of yesterday," Lowdermilk said. "The face-to-face
contact and foot patrols are basically going back in time to when officers
spent more time out of their car than in their car."

The statistics have improved since the PNRCs opened, but for residents the
benefits go far beyond numbers. As Rankin proudly points out, "Our children
can play out of doors."