Landlords enlisted in fight against crime

YAKIMA, Wash. -- When you walk into the Fruitvale Trailer Inn, smile.

Eight video cameras will record you. Lights on nearly every unit will illuminate your movements. Neighbors will watch you and call police about even minor suspicions.

Don't try to hide. Trees have been pruned way back to give everybody a clear view.

"The word on the street is if you want to commit crime, you don't do it in this trailer park," said Alix Mills, a resident of the park in the 900 block of Fruitvale Boulevard.

Mills and her neighbors live in the first complex fully certified by Yakima police as Crime-Free Rental Housing, a 2-year-old partnership between the city and landlords. The arrangement is one of several in Eastern Washington that aims to add property owners, as well as their tenants, to the list of allies in the battle against crime.

Earlier this month, the city of Yakima passed an ordinance putting more teeth into the voluntary program, which is based on one used by Walla Walla for about nine years. Sunnyside is just beginning to draft its own arrangements and laws, while Pasco has had a partnership for about 10 years.

"I would like to see a lot more landlords get involved," said Bill McLaughlin, the 20-year-owner of Fruitvale Trailer Inn and the first full graduate of Yakima's Crime-Free Rental Housing.

Here's how the program works in Yakima:

Property owners attend a 12-hour training session about evictions and tenant screenings. Then, they make security improvements to their properties, adding better locks, more lighting and 180-degree peepholes. They also start neighborhood watches among tenants.

In exchange, they advertise their vacancies as "crime-free."

So far, about 70 landlords have taken the 12-hour course, said Ted Roberts, president of the Yakima Valley Landlords Association, which helped create the program. The group has more than 500 members.

"Hopefully, the program will spread so bad guys don't just move around," Roberts said.

In a related part of the program, police send out incident cards to property owners and managers after they respond to calls to make landlords more aware -- and, it is hoped, responsible -- for the goings-on at their units. Since 2008, police have mailed 5,500 cards, averaging about 350 per month lately.

By definition, crime prevention is tough to measure, said Yakima police Lt. Tom Foley.

"It's too early to make a decision whether this is paying the dividends," he said.

Proponents say it has worked in other places.

In Walla Walla, police calls at rental properties have dropped 20 percent since the program started in 2001. Some of the least-cooperative landlords simply gave up, said Sgt. Randy Allessio.

"We've literally run a couple of them out of business," said Allessio, who called the program the crowning achievement of his 35-year law enforcement career.

In Yakima, Foley said it has so far attracted only responsible landlords, such as McLaughlin and Jan Hutchinson, manager of Glenmoor Green apartments on Tieton Drive.

With 220 apartments sprawled over 14 acres with a lot of traffic, Glenmoor Green could be crime-ridden but isn't, Foley said.

Hutchinson screens her tenants carefully and kicks out the ones who cause trouble, Foley said.

Hutchinson resorts to eviction about once a year and uses the incident cards to confront her tenants about behavior. She has never had to use them as court evidence but likes knowing she could.

"I am so happy this is happening and it's needed," said Hutchinson, the chairwoman of the landlord association's crime-free housing committee.

Still, there are rental properties in Yakima on pace to have more than 300 police responses this year, Foley said. Those incident cards stack up and serve as a bargaining chip for police to tell those landlords, "You still have a problem and it's becoming our problem," Foley said.

A new Yakima law may give police more backing.

Last Tuesday, the Yakima City Council passed an ordinance that mandates landlords to take action when their properties have been labeled as nuisances -- those that have three or more serious police calls in two months or seven in a year. If they don't, they could face fines of up to $500 or lose their city license.

In Sunnyside, police and landlords have been drafting their own housing program and ordinances.

The proposal is to license all leases with the city and enter them into the police database, so officers know on their way to a call who the owner is. It also would mandate landlords to require their tenants to undergo criminal background checks.

If they don't comply, landlords could face a fine of up to $500.

The rules would create more work but cost nothing, said Deputy Chief Phil Schenck. An unpopular proposal a few years ago would have charged fees.

Schenck said most landlords are responsible, but a few are reluctant to evict.

At one rental house on Sixth Street, Schenck said, police began dating bullet holes to keep track of drive-by shootings. They arrested juveniles there for gang-related crimes, Schenck said.

Police even wrote the landlords tickets for maintaining a public nuisance but later learned the property owners were afraid to confront the family about their behavior, or even to collect rent, Schenck said. They also were unfamiliar with their rights, he said.

"They were reluctant to deal with the problem until we got involved and pressured them to," Schenck said.

Police helped persuade them to use a three-day notice-emergency eviction process allowed by the state for dangerous situations.

Many landlords are pretty happy with the idea, said Dan Churchill, property manager for DK Bain Real Estate in Sunnyside.

He said the license requirement might allow landlords to more easily determine who is living in their apartments.

At Fruitvale Trailer Inn, McLaughlin's efforts show.

Patches of grass are dark green. Bumper-scraping speedbumps, painted bright yellow, cross the circular drive. Neighbors chew the fat on their front porches with clear views of the rest of the complex.

Of McLaughlin's 37 tenant families, 32 participate in the block watch.

Some of them have lived there 20 years.

"When you have a place you feel safe, you don't move," said Tom Keevan, a six-year resident and co-captain of the block watch.

Car prowls have dropped, they said, while video cameras and the watchful gaze of the neighbors led McLaughlin recently to confront a couple of boys testing out locked door handles. Turns out they were just looking for their friend.

The residents call their neighborhood an oasis in a portion of town that is not so safe.

"It's almost like a haven of private and security," said Mills, who raises her 14-year-old son in the complex.

* Ross Courtney can be reached at 509-930-8798 or rcourtney@yakimaherald.com.

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