LANDLORDS MUST HELP FIGHT DRUGS AND CRIME

I have renovated and owned apartment buildings in Memphis for about 15
years. Most of them, on at least 20 city streets, have been in low-to
middle-income areas.

My tenants have been robbed, raped, assaulted and even murdered. I've done
everything legally possible to protect them, but it has not been enough.

As early as 1994 I realized that if owners of rental dwellings were to
screen their tenants thoroughly, run background checks on them, and make
sure they paid their rent with legal income, even low-income neighborhoods
would thrive. I developed a plan of action in cooperation with a
high-ranking executive of the Memphis Police Department.

The plan involves cooperation among citizens, rental property owners, and
city and county governments. There is no reason it would not work today.

Go to any area of Memphis that has a high density of small apartment
buildings, duplexes and rental houses, and there will be drug dealers on
the street, contributing to criminal activity in the neighborhood.
Invariably, those dealers will live in nearby rental dwellings.

It is past time for the owners of these buildings to screen their
prospective tenants adequately. That includes criminal background checks
and employment and income verification.

Why should I, the owner of a $250,000 apartment building, be allowed to
destroy your neighborhood with my criminal tenants? You can buy a small
apartment building on a decent residential street in Memphis for $200,000
to 300,000. You also can rent carelessly to the first people who show up
with pockets full of cash and ruin the neighborhood.

I've seen this happen again and again. I can name four nice streets in
Midtown where this is occurring right now.

Owners who rent to drug dealers, who don't care where the rent comes from
as long as it gets paid, turn their backs on a neighborhood. Law-abiding
residents are stuck.

It's time to start cleaning up and taking back our inner-city
neighborhoods. Here's how:

a.. Citizens and Neighborhood Watch groups need to call the Mayor's Citizen
Service Center (576-6500) with complaints about drug dealing, crack houses,
prostitution and other disruptive activities at or around a particular
address in their neighborhood.

a.. The center will call the Police Department to deal with the problem.
But city government also needs to place some of the burden of
responsibility on the owner of the rental dwelling.

a.. After a prescribed number of complaints, the owner of the dwelling will
be notified and given copies of the neighbors' complaints (these neighbors
could remain anonymous). The owner would be asked to take whatever
corrective action he can legally take, and to call the city back once the
problem is addressed.

a.. If the owner is not willing to cooperate, there may be nothing legally
left to do. But if he is contacted enough times about a problem, he no
longer can plead ignorance about criminal activity on his property. His
insurance company certainly will be interested. Years ago I owned a
building in Midtown that turned over at least five families every month. In
just one year, 120 families moved into or left that complex.

Such turnover is very hard for police to monitor. The person with the
greatest influence on the behavior of a building's tenants is its owner.