OFFICIALS BEGIN 3-WEEK EFFORT TO DEMOLISH 21 CRACK HOUSES

The sign over the door describes the orange home as a place of paz, amor y
dios — peace, love and God.

But hypodermic needles in the grass nearby told neighbors for years that
the white house — next door — was a den of drugs, illicit sex and squalor.

Residents said they could do little more than watch as addicts, prostitutes
and other uninvited visitors made quick but regular use of an abandoned
white hovel in the 2000 block of El Paso St., at the end of a row of modest
and well-kept West Side homes.

Arriving after dark, trespassers pried off the boards covering the windows,
perched on old mattresses, then left behind condoms, burned bottle caps,
syringes and other trappings of their unlawful activities.

Twenty-five times in three years, neighbors summoned police, but always the
addicts drifted back.

That ended Wednesday, when high-ranking law-enforcement officers
ceremoniously swung a sledgehammer at the graffiti-scarred western wall.

Then, members of the Texas National Guard driving enormous loaders plowed
into the shack, marking the first assault in a collaborative campaign to
raze known crack houses and other havens for drug users and prostitutes.

Called Operation Crackdown, the campaign resurrects an effort among city,
federal and private contractors that demolished more than 90 such buildings
before administrative obstacles interrupted efforts about five years ago.

The El Paso Street demolition was the first step in a three-week blitz
involving 21 buildings, said San Antonio police Deputy Chief Tyrone Powers,
who shared the sledgehammer with First Assistant U.S. Attorney John Murphy.

The renewed activity represents the operation's fourth phase, targeting two
areas on the East and West sides. Both already are the focus of the Justice
Department's Weed and Seed program.

The loaders, their huge mechanical claws leading the way, sandwiched the
small house. Within minutes, the wood-frame house — originally erected in
1929 — was a pile of splinters.

The crew then moved on to raze drug havens in the 2400 block of Guadalupe
and the 1200 block of Montezuma.

Demolishing the homes requires organizers to clear bureaucratic hurdles.
Even so, they acknowledge that razing eyesores is simple compared with
replacing them with homes or turning them into something beneficial.

That part is left to the owners.

Appraisal records list Arthur Siller as the owner of the El Paso Street
home. Arthur J. Siller said the lot belonged to his father, Arthur R.
Siller, who died without leaving the property to anyone in particular.

Since then, the property has been encumbered by a sizable delinquent tax
bill, as well as family disputes over how to use the lot, said Siller, a
longtime board member of the Bexar Metropolitan Water District.

Thus far, there are no plans for the El Paso lot, but regardless, neighbors
said an empty, overgrown lot seemed a better neighbor than the stealthy
traffic that kept their watchdogs howling through the night.

When boards sealed the house, some of the drug users and prostitutes
stopped taking the time to enter before they turned to the business that
brought them, said Joe Garza, 40, who has lived for seven years on the street.

"They used to do it right there on the porch," he said.