HOPE FOR HENDERSON?

Plagued By Crime And Poverty, Athens Neighborhood Draws The Attention Of
Police And Other Local Agencies

A mere stone's throw from the state's premier ivory tower of higher
education sits a pocket of extreme poverty in which the rocks of preference
too often are hunks of crack cocaine. At any given time of day or night,
the drug can readily be bought on street corners several blocks west of the
University of Georgia campus in downtown Athens, in a neighborhood known as
Henderson Extension.

"It's like the Varsity" fast-food restaurant, said a woman who lives off
Rocksprings Street and asked to be identified only by her first name,
Maggie. "It's like pulling up to the drive-through and having some kid ask,
'What'll you have?'f"

Henderson Extension is a several square-block area roughly bounded by West
Broad Street to the north, South Rocksprings Street to the east, Baxter
Street on the south and Magnolia Street on the west. To many of its
residents, the neighborhood is known simply as "Rocksprings," but to avoid
confusion with the Athens Housing Authority-owned public housing complex of
Rocksprings Homes, the area of concern by police is called Henderson
Extension because at the epicenter of street-level crack sales is the
heavily trafficked corner of Henderson Avenue Extension and Paris Street.

Besides drugs, the residential area is pocked with vacant lots and
abandoned homes, some of which are used for prostitution and as crack
houses, said Lt. Mike Hunsinger, supervisor of the Athens-Clarke County
Police Department's Drug and Vice Unit.

"We target the area constantly, taking countless enforcement actions, but
once these guys we arrest make bond, they're back out there," Hunsinger said.

While drawing extra attention from police, the neighborhood is
simultaneously coming under the microscope of other county and non-profit
agencies in a coordinated revitalization effort to rid it of crime, provide
better housing and build hope for a brighter future.

"We're not talking about poor here, were talking dirt poor," said Doug
Bachtel, professor of housing and consumer economics at the University of
Georgia who conducted a study of poverty in Athens-Clarke County based on
2002 U.S. Census statistics.

"If you had an opportunity to make all that big money selling drugs, you
just have to do it a couple of times and you're not ever going to do a
minimum-wage job," Bachtel said. "The glamour of it all is really
intoxicating, especially for young people. And after that first sale, your
headed down that trajectory."

Mary Redman, who runs The Light, a St. James United Methodist Church
ministry on Henderson Avenue Extension said, "I see a lot of hopelessness
and a lot of despair" in the neighborhood.

"It's a community with a lot of hard-working people with careers and so
forth, but I so see those elements there," Redman said. "A lot of people
are unemployed and without skills, and these are the people who turn to
other things - quick fixes, like dealing drugs."

It's an area where the poverty keeps getting higher because it has become
"inter-generational," and from which "there is no hope at escaping," said
Bachtel, explaining that in the mostly African-American neighborhoods of
Henderson Extension nearly three-fourths of all children are born to unwed
mothers who come from a public school system where 43 percent of children
fail to complete their education.

"In your own mind and in your neighborhood, you're a fool if you are
working for minimum wage, earning 40 bucks for standing on your feet all
day when you can make that much in a single (drug) transaction," Bachtel said.

Not Just Drugs

Police say that besides drug trafficking, they constantly deal with
additional problems in the Henderson Extension area - prostitution, theft
and violent crime among them. Since the beginning of this year alone,
police drug units have made several sweeps, picking up street-level dealers
and conducting search and seizures at neighborhood houses.

Athens-Clarke police say they were unable to respond to a request for
recent crime statistics specifically for the Henderson Extension area
because they lack the personnel and equipment to generate such a report.

Police Chief Jack Lumpkin said problems in the area will continue to be a
focus of the police department, however, even though he maintains the crime
rate there has declined over the past six years.

An immediate impact is expected with the opening next year of a police
substation, a building where officers assigned to the area will change
shifts, planned for the corner of Baxter Street and Collins Avenue on the
south side of the Henderson Extension area.

Lumpkin was scheduled to talk to Henderson Extension-area residents about
the substation and other policing efforts Saturday at Rocksprings Community
Park, off South Rocksprings Street between Baxter Street and Henderson
Avenue Extension.

"The gist of what I will say is that I personally and professionally
support their community and have publicly stated since 1997 that we should
have a police substation," Lumpkin said last week. "Also, I will say that
the Athens-Clarke County Police Department supports their community and
devotes considerable resources to eradicating the drug-sales issues
associated with the Henderson Extension area."

According to Hunsinger, the sale and use of crack cocaine continues to be
the biggest problem in the area, as does to a lesser extent marijuana and
alcohol abuse.

Cleanup Effort Planned

Hunsinger said the county is hoping to achieve a successful cleanup similar
to that accomplished in East Athens neighborhoods surrounding the Triangle
Plaza at the convergence of Nellie B Avenue and Vine and Gressom streets,
using a combination of aggressive law enforcement and community cooperation.

"There are a lot of dilapidated properties in an eight-or nine-block area,
which is all lower-income owned or rented," Hunsinger said of Henderson
Extension. "There are a lot of good people in that community, and by no
means is it forsaken, but there are some issues that need to be dealt with
that the community needs to recognize and then get behind a coordinated
effort."

Triangle Plaza across town - once a virtual open-air drug market, with such
attendant crimes as shootings, robberies and assaults - had become known as
the "Iron Triangle" because of its roughness. Officials and residents say
Triangle Plaza is now a much safer area in which to live, work and visit
due to a multi-pronged revitalization effort by police and other local
agencies.

In addition to installing a police substation in the area, Athens-Clarke
police implemented community-oriented policing (COP), in which officers
make efforts to become personally acquainted with residents and seek their
assistance in preventing and solving crimes. Police also have used federal
"Weed and Seed" funding to pay overtime salaries for additional police
patrols and to train citizens in employment skills.

Complementing the law enforcement component of Triangle Plaza
revitalization has been the efforts of such agencies as the East Athens
Development Corp., the Athens Housing Authority and others to develop
affordable housing, with the end result being residents and business owners
noticing a dramatic decrease in the area's crime rate.

Revitalization Starts

Several dilapidated Henderson Extension homes have already been renovated
and sold as affordable housing by the Athens Housing Authority, with some
help from the Hancock Community Development Corp., a non-profit
organization founded in 2000 with the mission of helping to revitalize the
Hancock Corridor - the larger area of which Henderson Extension is a part,
encompassing parts of West Broad, Baxter, Rocksprings, Pulaski and Old West
Broad streets, as well as Hawthorne and Prince avenues.

Alvin Sheats, executive director of the Hancock Community Development
Corp., said HCDC will take a more prominent role on the affordable housing
front as it matures.

"There is an ongoing need for housing rehabilitation over here, which is
something we at HCDC will be focusing on as soon as we get funding," Sheats
said. "It's close to the downtown area and the university, but it has been
so plagued by derelict housing and crime that the many historic homes there
have not been attracting investors."

Interviews with Henderson Extension residents may provide a glimpse into
reasons why investors in the neighborhood's housing stock have been few and
far between.

"The hell-raising is all on that corner," Rocksprings Homes resident Mabel
Porter said, pointing to Henderson Avenue Extension and Paris Street, which
is directly across from the public housing complex that the 76-year-old
housekeeper has called home the past 40 years.

Porter said she confines her activities to the fenced-in Rocksprings Homes
complex, where Athens Housing Authority and police personnel regularly
patrol the grounds.

"Right in here it's fine, but it's the other places outside where they
can't seem to do anything about it," Porter said. "I try to avoid Paris and
Henderson because there are fights there now and again and a lot of drugs
being sold."

Porter said she looked forward to the opening of the police substation
because she would welcome the increased presence of officers it will bring.

"They need to get that rough crowd out of there and stop all that drug
dealing that's been going on," she said. "You see the cars stopping on the
corner and they have those little bags in their hands. If you get rid of
that, then things might get better."

Police and housing authority officials are quick to point out those
responsible for drug dealing in Henderson Extension do not live in the
county-owned Rocksprings Homes apartments. Rick Parker, executive director
of the Athens Housing Authority, said his agency maintains a zero-tolerance
policy when it comes to drugs, with leases allowing it to evict an entire
family if even just one member gets arrested on a drug charge.

According to some Henderson Extension residents, the primary reason drug
dealers gather on street corners near Rocksprings Homes is because that is
where their customers go, assuming that illegal drugs can always be bought
near public housing.

The sale and use of drugs are not the only problems in Henderson Extension.

Sonya Fears of Rocksprings Homes said, "I heard about a shooting close to
the time I moved here in November, but it's not too bad here. I see the
police go through here every hour."

Fears, a 27-year-old mother of three who works as a UGA secretary, said
upon moving to the apartment complex from the Triangle Plaza area in East
Athens, her new neighbors told her "it's good I got an apartment on the
front part" of the complex, away from Paris Street and Henderson Avenue
Extension.

As her children - ranging in age from 6 months to 3 years - grow older,
Fears said she will warn them of the dangers lurking outside the security
of their home.

"I will talk to them and tell them of the experiences I know of what goes
on out there, because a lot of those guys are going to die from life or
they'll live and go to jail," she said.

Once known for its pecan orchards, the Rocksprings area had been the type
of place where you could go to sleep without having to worry about locking
your doors, according to longtime West Hancock Avenue resident Lillien
Hill, who grew up in that part of town.

"The neighbors were real good, everybody was always looking out for
everybody," the 80-year-old woman said. "Now you can't walk a lot of the
streets because too many people could knock you out for money and for
rapes. There's too much bad stuff now."