Commentary:
The East Little Creek Road Corridor between Wards Corner and Wal-Mart is becoming a gun range with humans as targets. Two murders this week in the 800 block of Banaker Road. One murder last week in the 300 block of Fort Worth Avenue and today, Saturday, another shooting in the 800 block of East Little Creek Road. Click here for story. Why isn’t Norfolk going to war on this dysfunction that is becoming a part of every day life in our area? Is it because most of the killings and shootings involve black folks? If this criminal activity were taking place in Downtown, you want to bet that the Mayor and several City Council folks would have their mugs all over the television news. Case in point – The Granby Theater shooting in March of 2007. All hell broke loose in the city’s officialdom. Click here for story . Why is violence in one part of the city dealt with severely and in other areas almost ignored? One answer is institutional racism. Black folks killing each other in Norfolk is ok as long as it doesn’t effect the economic development efforts in Downtown.
Wards Corner Now - Wards Corner, Norfolk, Virginia 
The area is a ghetto. There is crime in the ghetto. Ghetto crime is hard to solve because it’s hard to distinguish the innocent from the guilty (many people with long rap sheets), nobody will talk to the police, and each resonate shot from a firearm seems to erase more and more of eyewitness memory. So, let’s not get racial, let’s not gang up on the police, let’s not blame city hall. The same problem exists in other ghettos in Norfolk. We are just mad because this ghetto has infringed on our non-ghetto; a very reasonable concern. Focus on the main issues, leave peripheral issues elsewhere, and focus on the fact that we have a ghetto nearby and what actions need to be taken to relocate this ghetto and change the occupants of the ghetto to non-ghetto minded people. It’s near impossible to convert ghetto minded people to concerned citizens, as many areas throughout the country (Cabrini Green – Chicago, South Central, Los Angeles, etc.) invovled in social conversion have proven. New people, new attitude. Ghetto people, guns go boom, nobody sees anything, innocent people get killed, police can do little without evidence, and the surrounding neighborhoods have reason for concern. This is normal in the ghetto; why be surprised? The real concern is the location of the ghetto to our homes, our children, and our families – this should be our focus.
Oh you must be talking about the bullet holes in my house .Guess they just need to keep it in one area .Keep it confined.
Knock those buildings down. It’s just that simple. All the pretty new playgr9unds in the world won’t make people act better. More police won’t make them act better. Cameras won’t do it either. Take away the ghetto rat holes like they did in East Beach and give us back a decent neighborhood.
I agree with the statement that it is the mentality of the residence in blighted areas that keeps them that way. Too many times you see neighborhoods fed up with the crime, on TV marching through the streets with candles trying to take back the night.
These people are usually homeowners who care about safety for their families and property value. These same people are the ones who pay property taxes. They have more power than they realize and it’s time to force the change.
You could start with stricter penalties to landlords who house the renters that are creating most of the problems. Steeper fines for run down dwellings, force better lighting and landscaping, additional tax rate increase each time the police are called to your complex or property.
If the landlords cost go up, so will the rental amounts. Those that are here for the cheap rent and trouble couldn’t afford to stay. Also, those that are hear for the sake of housing they can afford, will be forced to move along or learn to speak up, snitch, rat some one out or what ever it’s called now; or risk an increase in rent.
And that is the seed to start changing the mentality in blighted areas.
The more trouble an area has the more it costs the landlords, the owners and investors. Property owners who actually live in the home, should only be affected if the trouble is coming from that home.
Furthermore, it would help if the surrounding “nicer” “safer” area residence would get more involved in the process. Force the change everywhere in Hampton Roads, send the message that if you harbor trouble, it’s going to cost you and if your a trouble maker; you need to find a cheaper place to live!
the only thing that will fix this area is a bulldozer.
I totally agree with concerned living near, it is up to the residents of the neighborhoods to be active in uplifting the area. I have lived in Monticello Village for 13 years and there has been little done by long time residents, if we present a united force, change is possible. The unmanaged apartments and the residents of those apartments do not take price in the neighborhood, they are just transient and create chaos. Concerned citizens come and out and let your voices be heard, be it community involvement or the likes of a bulldozer.
I totally agree with concerned living near, it is up to the residents of the neighborhoods to be active in uplifting the area. I have lived in Monticello Village for 13 years and there has been little done by long time residents, if we present a united force, change is possible. The unmanaged apartments and the residents of those apartments do not take pride in the neighborhood, they are just transient and create chaos. Concerned citizens come and out and let your voices be heard, be it community involvement or the likes of a bulldozer.
If only letting your voices be heard stopped thugs from shooting people, banding together made the drug sales decrease, and forming committees raised property values. As much as I want to believe that people will “wake up and change”, there is little evidence to support this claim although it’s well intentioned. The residents need to move up or move out, the landlords force this, and the town support this change. New people brings a new attitude and a new hope for real change.
I do not think people will change we will have to voice our opinions and solutions and do our parts in propogating change, and part of that change is in one way or another leveling the mismanaged apartments. Support change and help make it happen.
This is a complex issue, residents look to the City for help, but it’s not the City’s job to teach people how to be decent human beings. If there are code violations or criminal activities, yes, the City can help. But don’t expect the City to instill the values that most of us received from our parents. This area has sucked for so long, only a fool would expect it to turn around now. I am surprised that the new play ground didn’t do the trick, normally when criminals see a new play ground going up, they scatter like roaches. Nope, ain’t nothin gonna help this neighborhood, so do like Jed and move away from there.
Thank you all for your sensibility. Too many take the following approaches that when it comes to fixing a ghetto rarely work:
1) Form a committe to discuss the issue. Why? The problem is obvious, the solution is equally as obvious, yet we are not empowered to make the bulk of the necessary changes. Anyone have a few million laying around to buy property, pay a para-military security force, or relocate people to new proprety?
2) Believe in Michael Jackson’s song “Heal the World”. It doesn’t work. Pro diversity? Good! We are diverse, we have ghettos near nice neighborhoods. The liklhood of turning around a people that don’t take care of themselves often takes generations if they are remotely willing to embrace change.
3) Pressure the city to “clean up”. This is not the USSR or Nazi Germany, do we really want to give the city the power to remove poeple that the local popular vote says should be removed (outside of illegal activity). If that is the case, I want a neighbor removed who’s yard looks awful, who’s teenager is rude, or who’s house should have been painted in the 70’s. We must differentiate between what is illegal and what we don’t like.
Drugs, violance, vandalism, etc. are all illegal and are police and city matters.
Bad behavior, uncaring attitudes, dirtyness, legal loitering, excessive garbage, ugly buildings, old cars, and unkept appearances are all social issues.
This is not a statement of hopelessness or helplessness, but of reality within our span of control. The most important thing people can do is recognize what they can and cannot control, what energies are productive and what energies are barely theraputic, and how to remain credible as an organization by doing work that is effective (illegal activity) not just what we want the most (social change). I’d love to rub a magic bottle and have the ghetto removal geanie pop out and ask for a wish. I’d wish Wards Corner get a capital infusion and face lift and the texas streets a thug-ectomy and social class change.
Since I have yet to find this magic geanie, I’m not quite sure there is much we can do other than keep the city aware of illegal activity and keep proposing the solution that crime can be remedied with new business and new homeowners and see what help, if any, is available beyond “talk therapy” for those affected by the problem.
The Texas streets are a perfect example of a test area for my force of change. It seems that everyone is aware of the danger, crime and drugs that this area supports and breeds. Yet, it appears that we all just take it in stride and go about our daily lives avoiding this section of town. Why?
Do we really believe that the problem will stay confined to that area, most of the crime in the entire area is commited by those that run back to texas to hide. They come out, do damage and then run back.
Why can’t we have the property taxes for those streets raised? If we know that those streets are costing more money due to crime than other areas, make the property owners pay more.
Perhaps this would make the landlords living in NY, Fla, DC, etc., as well as, better neighborhoods in Hampton Roads; get thier butts over here and start participating in a solution to the problem.
If these non caring, absentee landlords have to start paying more to own these investment properties and yet the value of these same properties does not increase; thier options become sell, raise the rents, or come help get control of the situation.
Should the rents start to rise, do not let the section eight program, WIC, welfare or any other program cover the increase. At some point the cost of living increase will affect the mentality of not snitching on your neighbor.
These tenants can always make $1,ooo by calling 1-800-lock-u-up!
Old Timer,
This Beverly Hillbilly .I am going nowhere.I have lived in my home for over 30 years.My three children grew up in this house.I am asking for help from everyone.Police,NRHA,neighborhood watch,bike patrol.Hell build a nations guard headquarters 300 block E.L.C. Better yet F.B.I.You would think if they get busted enof they will up and move.
The park is kind of like a joke.They are tearing the heck out of it.Kids are not watched.Well maybe from there apartment.In the last week i have gone over there 3 times.First two times teenagers tryed to scare me.Third time i guess i made my point.They where nice to me.Go figure.
Yet another shooting in the area? This cannot keep on, when is enough enough?
Ghetto ! Ghetto ! Ghetto ! That’s all i hear. You people act like this the only place where crime is going on. What about you’re so called ” nice Neighborhood” where they’re finding bodies in freezers killed by they’re own children. Or the ones molesting they’re children our somebodies else’s children. Or the priest playing with little boys. Or that coorperate business man from that “nice neighborhood” caught with child pornography. Crime is everywhere. It’s just not heavily televized in the “nice neighborhood as it is in the ghetto. There plenty of decent hard working people in these low income areas ( the ghetto) that are just trying to live in peace. If the police concetrated more on protecting and serving than racial profiling and harrassing the minority for just walking down the street, then maybe they’re presence would be more effective then maybe people would come foreward and help getting rid of the ones who are causing trouble. In my neighborhood there’s a gang. they’re violent, they carry guns, they harrass the innocent, they’re the N.P.D.!!!!!
Learn how to spell and you might get someone to read more than a sentence. What a bunch of ridiculous statements. From what I see the NPD is not profiling anyone, just arresting criminals. If they happen to be black then too bad.
Also from what I’ve seen the only thing most of the people in those apts work at is stealing grocery carts and shooting each other. They walk down my street swearing and yelling at each other, stealing out of cars and throwing trash around. Your apartment grounds are a pig sty. Stop whining and get outside and pick up some of that mess instead of complaining about the cops.