LANDLORDS, POLICE WORK TO STOP DRUGS

The smell of burning marijuana hung heavy in the training room at Ozarks
Technical College.

For some in the audience, the scent was familiar. Not because they smoke
the stuff, but because their renters do.

On Tuesday, this harmless demonstration raised several tricky questions:
How to deal with tenants who use drugs? How can a landlord know for sure
when it's happening? How to get rid of problem renters?

Two Kansas City police officers and a state housing attorney offered some
answers during a seminar that introduces the Crime-Free Multi-Housing
Program to Springfield.

The program brings police and landlords together to deal with problems that
sometimes neither can handle alone. The program began in 1992 and is now
used in 46 states. Promoters consider it tenant-friendly and say it has
drastically reduced police calls to apartments where landlords have adopted it.

In some north Kansas City complexes, police calls for service dropped 60
percent since the program started, said Kansas City police officer Don Smarker.

"In this program everyone wins except for the bad guys," said Smarker.

Robert Wise, an attorney with the Missouri Apartment Association, said
landlords must do their part.

"A lot of landlords get in trouble when they try to be nice guys," said
Wise. "Don't bend the rules," he told a group of about 53 property owners
and managers.

Rule two: "Develop a good working relationship with the police. The sharing
of information is tremendous."

For Jack Pugh, the seminar offers new hope for some Springfield landlords
who need to become better guardians of their property.

"It's badly needed," said Pugh, who owns about 20 rental properties and is
president of the West Central Neighborhood Alliance, where about 70 percent
of homes are rentals.

"We have no way to train rental property owners, and to keep ahead of the
changes in the laws."

This week's seminar included sessions on spotting criminal activity and
stopping it before it moves in by screening applicants.

"It's about the only program where police, landlords and attorneys get
together to speak the same language," Wise said.

Wise said police and landlords often are dealing with the same problems,
they just have different motives. For police, it's arresting a drug dealer
or meth cook operating from a rental unit. For landlords, it's evicting a
problem tenant.