COMMUNITY CARE: GASTONIA'S WEED AND SEED PROGRAM AIMS TO BUILD STABLE
NEIGHBORHOODS

GASTONIA -- When neighbors in some of the city's more troubled areas call
with crime complaints, police not only respond, but they also take notes on
who does what and where they do it.

The Weed and Seed program in Gastonia was recognized nationally for its
success in late 2004. The local program has received more than $500,000 in
grants for health and human services, housing and youth programs.

"It's one of the best things that the community has had happen to
Gastonia," said Annie Thombs, assistant community development director for
Gastonia.

Gretchen Shappert, the U.S. attorney for the western district of North
Carolina, said that Gastonia's program one of the most successful in the
country. She helps oversee the program,

"We want to remove the stigma that is sometimes associated with these
neighborhoods and bring them back into the Gastonia community," Shappert said.

The "Weed" portion of the program involves police and prosecutors removing
violent and drug-related criminals from a targeted area.

Those elements are then replaced - the "Seed" portion of the program - with
social services and other programs intended to prevent the crimes and those
who commit them from returning.

"We try to provide services for everyone in the family - from babies to the
elderly," said Jo-Ann Davis, the city's Weed and Seed coordinator with the
Gastonia Housing Authority.

Youth-mentoring programs, truancy prevention and probation and parole
projects with juveniles implemented in the past three years have
contributed to advancements in each of the city's four designated Weed and
Seed areas.

The program identifies Highland West, Highland East, Crescent Lane area,
Mountain View and Linwood Terrace neighborhoods as target areas for
improvement in West Gastonia.

Mayor Pro Tem Walker Reid represents Ward 4, where three of the city's Weed
and Seed neighborhoods are located. Reid credited police and city staff
with helping reduce crime in Weed and Seed areas, but said another area -
code enforcement - has made a significant contribution to cleaning up those
areas.

"I've found we have more problems in rental and substandard housing in the
city," Reid said. "A lot of the crime problems are related to slumlords and
substandard landlords who don't have any screening processes. It doesn't
take but one bad home to wreak havoc in a stable neighborhood."

Enforcing minimum housing standards can help activate a mechanism to reduce
the bad elements that attract crime, Reid said.

Putting an emphasis on home ownership and affordable housing is one way to
help instill pride in problem neighborhoods.

"Your mentality changes," Reid said. "I equate that to renting a car. If
you rent a car, you don't care how much trash, if you spill coffee or run
up on a curb. But if you're making a substantial payment on that car, you
make sure you take care of it. It's the same thing with a house. You keep
the yard up, keep your trash empty. With the upkeep of a house, your
mentality changes."

Plywood covers many of the windows and doors at several brick duplex
apartments in and around the Crescent Lane area, a neighborhood touted as
one of the city's Weed and Seed success stories.

Carl Overton, the associate pastor at Westside Hope Church of God on
Crescent Lane, has lived there for five years.

He's seen prostitutes working his street. He's seen the drug traffic in and
out of shoddy apartments.

He's also seen problems decrease.

"It has been an improvement, but I'd still say there's a long way to go,"
Overton said. "Some properties need to be cleared up or torn out. I think
that would help the community a lot."

"It's been gradual, probably most noticeable in the past two years,"
Overton said of improvements.

Sgt. Steve Duncan heads the city's street-crime unit - known in some
circles as the gray shirts - which supplements patrol officers and has
helped lead the charge in some of the city's high crime areas.

When the unit was created in April 1998, it took about 18 months to
determine what they were trying to do, Duncan said.

The Weed and Seed program began in 2003. Duncan combined the areas that the
street crime unit had been targeting with money available with the federal
initiative. The same four areas - those with the highest crime and highest
call rates - were designated.

"That was the attitude we took - we'll take any help we can get," Duncan said.

With a new program, it was pretty much learn as you go, Duncan said. After
about a year, not without a couple bumps in the road, the unit had a handle
on what they needed to do and how they needed to do it.

Three goals were established to help clear neighborhoods of what were
believed to be their root problems.

Prostitution was targeted as the biggest problem. Convicted prostitutes
were pushed toward rehabilitation and re-education, with hopes that these
lifestyle changes also would carry over into the city's troubled
neighborhoods, Duncan said.

Secondly, repeat offenders were isolated and tagged habitual, increasing
their jail sentences, Duncan said.

"We were arresting the same people time after time after time," Duncan
said. "First, second, third-time offenders were just not getting the jail
time."

Repeat offenders were put into a matrix that the street-crime unit created
and identified by how problematic they were in specific neighborhoods.

The police had in the past used some money from the vice-squad budget to
orchestrate street drug buys, but the additional federal money helped.

Initially, drugs were sold openly, on street corners and on front porches.

"It can be unsettling, but I'm never afraid," Overton said. "The neighbors
here can be very observant."

Police cracked down, sending buyers to jail while sending the deals inside
homes, businesses and other places the police couldn't readily get to,
Duncan said.

The money increased, and the unit received $5,500 over three years for drug
buys - not a lot, but enough to make a difference.

"I looked at it and did a hard analysis about what we needed, not what we
wanted," Duncan said. "It's just like a personal checking account - you'd
like a million dollars in there, but do you really need it?"

The couple of thousand dollars went a long way, Duncan said. Unlike
narcotics officers, the street-crime unit didn't target multiple buyers.
They operated location specific, rather than person specific, and started
trying to push buyers out of bad neighborhoods. It was a new philosophy
with new results.

Finally, the police created a partnership with landlords to help expedite
convictions and turn homes from criminal hangouts into good neighbors.

"If we get rid of the tenants there, we're getting rid of the problem,"
Duncan said.

Once problem tenants were displaced, the police would pursue them to a new
location. Then another. They pursued them as far as the city limits. One
individual was arrested at four different locations before he finally left
the city.

"They're still in Gaston County, but they're not in the city," Duncan said.
"The city is where we work. He specifically said he's leaving the city
because of us - we're affecting his business."