IN DEATH, A NEIGHBORHOOD FINDS NEW LIFE

* A Portland woman's will directed that her home, which police say her sons
used as a drug house, should be sold upon her death

An elderly woman's dying wish may be a Portland neighborhood's blessing.

Eighty-five-year-old Elnora Young died in May, and her last wish was that
relatives sell the place that she had called home for 24 years -- and that
police and neighbors have called a dope house for at least five.

Law enforcement officials helped Young's wish come true.

Friday evening, neighbors watched and took photographs as police boarded up
and padlocked the five-bedroom home at 4715 N.E. Mallory Ave.

"I feel relieved," said James I. Kent, 30, who lives next door. "I feel like
we can breathe again."

Police credit neighbors' persistence in calling police and documenting the
problems that led the city to shut down the house. Young knew about the drug
dealing, police say, but did not demand that her family members stop doing it.

"It was blatant activity . . . like hand-to-hand contact and conversations
that could be heard about the size or amount of the rock (of crack
cocaine)," said Officer Marci Jackson of the Portland Police Bureau's
Neighborhood Response Team.

Officers had planned to evict Young for one year according to the city's
specified crime property ordinance, but she died May 28. The ordinance says
it is unlawful for a structure to be used as a crime property. Police
planned to go ahead with the eviction of her relatives, but Young's will
stated that the dilapidated house should be sold. Although it wasn't her
primary intent, the sale gave police and neighbors a permanent reprieve from
the problem property.

"It has taken four years of documented effort," said Elizabeth Kent, 40, as
her three children gathered around her. "They started with a heroin trade
that turned into a crack trade."

It grew so bad, the Kents said, that they built an 8-foot fence in 1996 to
keep hypodermic needles and other drug paraphernalia out of the back yard.

Neighbors are thrilled that they can reclaim Mallory Avenue, between
Northeast Going and Wygant streets, citing problems that date to 1993, when
the Neighborhood Response Team began receiving complaints about:

95 A place where people urinated out of a top-floor window.

95 A place where prostitutes had sex in neighbors' yards.

95 A place where people going in the home for seconds or minutes at a time
cursed and showed no respect to neighbors.

The Kents, with police help, formed the Mallory Avenue Block Watch in 1994
after teen-agers at Young's house had chased Elizabeth Kent onto her porch
when she confronted them after a car accident.

>From January 1994 to March 1995, residents called the Portland police hot
line for drug-house complaints 20 times, which is a lot, Jackson said.

By December 1996, police had enough information from neighbors and their own
investigation to close Young's home.

The city sent her a letter saying it could evict her for a year if the drug
dealing did not end. Young got restraining orders against her sons and
grandsons, barring them from the property, and that was enough to satisfy
police and neighbors that the problem was fixed.

But within weeks, the sons returned, and so did the drug deals.

"Generally speaking, you don't want to evict people, and most cases result
in compromise," said Lt. Rod Beard of Northeast Precinct. "In this case, it
didn't happen."

But the neighbors didn't give up.

For two more years they continued to document activity and call police about
the comings and goings at the home, pressing officials to do something.

Cmdr. Derrick Foxworth of Northeast Precinct credits the Kents with holding
police and other city departments accountable.

"They kept our feet to the fire," he said.

Police receive hundreds of complaints on about 200 residences where
neighbors suspect drug or gang activity, Foxworth said. He said police
usually are successful in resolving the complaints in cases of rental
property because they can get the landlords to evict problem tenants, but in
owner-occupied homes it becomes more difficult.

A week before Young died of heart failure, an informant bought drugs at the
home, and police decided they again had enough evidence to close it.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Roosevelt Robinson on June 19 ordered that
Young's family leave the house by 5 p.m. Friday and that the home, which she
willed to her son, Nathaniel, be sold as she had requested.

Six of Young's children and grandchildren learned of the decision June 24,
and now only a Realtor and interested buyers will be permitted inside,
Jackson said.

Meanwhile, the Kent children eagerly pedaled their bright-colored bicycles
up and down the street where dealers had once fought over drugs. The three
boys, ages 5, 6, and 7, hadn't been allowed to play outside in the evenings
while the drug house was in operation.

Their parents and others in the neighborhood plan a block party next week to
celebrate.

"I want to encourage other neighbors to fight back," James Kent said. "If
you let someone else handle your neighborhood problems, a lot of bad things
can happen before good things can happen."

Dionne D. Peeples covers crime issues for The Oregonian's Crime, team. She
can be reached by phone at 221-8269, by e-mail at
dionnepeeples@news.oregonian.com or by mail at 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland,
Ore. 97201.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett