Hard work may make recovery stick

By MARK HIGGINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

The area's recovery has run in "fits and starts the last several decades, but this time I think it will stick. People are moving back rather than fleeing," says Akres, who helped launch Columbia City's crime-stopping dog walk several years ago.

The idea was to get people out of their homes, walking their dogs. It gave people a chance to meet their neighbors and send a message to drug dealers and prostitutes that they should move elsewhere. Six nights a week, for almost two years, the dog troops walked the streets.

What effect it had on crime is hard to say, but during that time, crime in Columbia City did drop, according to Seattle Police Department statistics: Murders went from five in 1993 to zero in 1996; reported rapes went from nine to one.

Robberies dropped by 56 percent; aggravated assaults decreased by 73 percent; residential burglaries were down by 79 percent; and auto thefts plummeted by 93 percent.

According to Juanita Arfi, a Police Department crime-prevention coordinator assigned to Rainier Valley, some residents say they feel safer today.

At the same time, Arfi says, she hears the opposite. If someone lives near a problem homeowner or a business that attracts or condones criminal behavior, he or she believes that crime is worsening. Yet someone else living several blocks away may believe his or her neighborhood is safe, Arfi says.

Continued:

• Happy days are here again for once-blighted community
• For some families, area has been home for generations
• Retail renaissance is sign that bad times are past