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By Michelle Bruch

Local experts dispute stereotype that low-income housing draws crime to neighborhoods

Local research indicates that new subsidized housing does not cause an increase in crime, but housing advocates say they continually battle that long-standing stigma.

On the East Bank, a proposed 64-unit affordable housing project has some business leaders concerned that years of work to gentrify the area will be undone by a few problem-prone neighbors. The neighborhood business association’s opposition raised concerns among city officials, who are working to add or preserve 670 affordable units in Minneapolis this year.

In a recent letter to the Downtown Journal, Lee Sheehy, director of the city’s Community Planning and Economic Development department, offered a statement of support for the project.

“As for the East Bank site in question: the mixed-income housing and mixed-use development approach proposed for this site is consistent with the principles and goals of public funders and policy-makers nationwide, not just in Minneapolis,” he wrote.

Sheehy said critics can create a set of perceptions about affordable housing projects that are very difficult to turn around.

The city considers a unit to be affordable if someone making less than half the area’s median income can afford the rent, spending no more than 30 percent of his or her income. The 2006 median income for a family of four in Hennepin County is $78,500.

“I have totally run out of patience arguing for affordable housing,” said David Fields, Elliot Park’s Community Development Coordinator. “There is absolutely no correlation between affordable housing and crime associated with it. It has to do with the property management.”

A handful of new affordable housing proposals are sprouting throughout Downtown, but the projects have not drawn the vocal opposition seen on the East Bank.

The new projects include:

- Brighton Development’s St. Anthony Mills Apartments near the riverfront at Park Avenue and South 2nd Street. The apartments will offer 85 affordable units, out of a total of 237, with rental units priced between $699 and $1,057 per month. The project is aimed at entry-level Downtown workers who depend on public transportation.

- The Plymouth Church Neighborhood Foundation and Minneapolis Community and Technical College’s proposed housing at 1501 Hawthorne Ave. The development is targeted for low-income adults seeking a nursing degree. Thirty-five studio and one-bedroom units will rent for $404 -$502 per month.

- Central Community Housing Trust’s (CCHT) proposal for 60 units of affordable housing in Elliot Park — an expansion of the Alliance Apartments at 17th Street east of Chicago Avenue. Thirty-six of the units will feature services by RS Eden, a nonprofit substance abuse treatment agency.

- Eighteen affordable housing units for sale at the IVY Hotel + Residences, an 88-unit condo project under construction at 11th Street and 2nd Avenue South.

All told, the new projects will add 198 new affordable units to the city’s housing stock.

City officials have surpassed a goal to either produce or preserve 2,100 affordable housing units from 2003-05.

The city approved new production and preservation goals last month. The goals will add or conserve 1,970 units between 2006-2008.

“I strongly believe that well-managed, well-designed buildings with affordable housing are an asset to any community,” said Elizabeth Ryan, the city’s housing policy and development director.

Voices of opposition

As demonstrated in recent public meetings, those who oppose affordable housing projects are equally adamant about their views.

Business leaders met with Councilmember Diane Hofstede (3rd Ward) last summer to air concerns about an East Bank affordable housing project.

“I don’t think anybody can deny the correlation between low-income housing and crime,” Terry Keegan, president of the Old St. Anthony Association, said at the meeting with Hofstede.

The East Bank project under scrutiny would stand at the US Bank site at 4th Street and East Hennepin Avenue, near Surdyk’s Liquor Store and Gourmet Cheese Shop.

Four units would house people experiencing homelessness under the oversight of St. Stephen’s Housing Services. The Nicollet Island/East Bank board unanimously reaffirmed support last month for a mix of housing types at the site, but some business leaders disagreed with the decision.

“With potential residential uses coming to the neighborhood, I am worried that tenants will have conflicts we hadn’t bargained for,” said Jennifer Young, owner of the Boom! and Oddfellows building on Hennepin Avenue. “People might rent there more because of income guidelines than because of choice, potentially creating a conflict in the future. ... I prefer a development that is wholly commercial.”

East Bank business leaders, some speaking on condition of anonymity, have said they notice crime problems radiating from existing affordable housing projects on the East Bank. Some worry that crime will drive affluent residents out of the neighborhood.

“In general, when people say affordable housing, they’re talking about poor, black people,” Arthur said. “That statement is ignorant at best, and I won’t discuss what the worst is.”

East Bank residents have discussed the question of who, in particular, would live in the affordable housing complex at the US Bank site. In describing potential tenants, the developers rattled off the average starting salaries of teachers, police officers and bus drivers, which typically fall below $30,000.

Another affordable housing proposal slated for a neighborhood on the edge of Downtown drew opposition from neighborhood leaders five years ago. A group of business and neighborhood leaders sued to block the development of Lydia Apartments in Stevens Square, arguing that the city violated its own policies by concentrating too many supportive housing projects in one area.

The Planning Commission approved plans in October 2001 for the Lydia Apartments, a 40-unit building at 1920 LaSalle Ave. with supportive services for people recently experiencing homelessness. Neighborhood leaders sued the city and the developer two months later, and in 2003, the state Court of Appeals reportedly upheld the city’s decision.

Affordable housing advocates say the issue of crime is never far from the minds of residents who eye affordable housing with skepticism.

“Ninety percent of projects done have been exemplary,” said Alan Arthur, head of the Central Community Housing Trust, a nonprofit, affordable-housing organization based in Elliot Park.

Supportive neighborhoods

Affordable housing proposals do not always draw opposition Downtown. The construction of the Alliance Apartments in Elliot Park had a few nay-sayers, but the neighborhood organization has consistently supported mixed housing types.

“Elliot Park has a history of being host to affordable rental housing, and it hasn’t just been out of necessity, that’s been our choice,” Fields said.

The neighborhood has more than 900 units developed by the CCHT.

Similarly, leaders from the North Loop and Loring Park neighborhoods have recently encouraged high-priced condominium complexes to offer affordable units.

A Loring Park Task Force recommended affordable units as part of the Eitel Hospital project that is set to break ground this fall at 1375 Willow St. The North Loop Neighborhood Association sent a statement to the city criticizing a developer’s lack of rental or affordable units on the Pacific block. To accommodate a neighborhood request for shorter heights, the developer had removed affordable units from 18- to 28-story towers at the 200 block of Washington Avenue North.

“People Downtown clearly understand the link between affordable housing and jobs and mainly think of it as housing for young working people,” said Judith Martin, chair of the University of Minnesota’s Urban Studies program and former president of the city’s Planning Commission.

Challenging stigmas

Ed Goetz, a University of Minnesota professor who specializes in housing and community development policy, has tracked the impact of projects on Minneapolis neighborhoods.

“A single development in a neighborhood experiencing a revitalization or gentrification is unlikely to change the trajectory of that neighborhood,” Goetz said. “There isn’t any necessary link between the location of affordable housing and crime activity. What is critical in all of this is [property] management.”

In the mid-1990s, Goetz studied crime data at 14 new nonprofit affordable housing projects in Minneapolis. He found there were fewer crime calls at the properties after their rehabilitation and conversion to subsidized housing.

One of the properties Goetz studied was the Barrington Hotel at 911 Park Ave. in Elliot Park. A private individual owned the 26-unit property prior to its acquisition in 1991 by the CCHT. Once the nonprofit developer took over management of the building, police calls dropped significantly.

Luther Krueger, a civilian crime prevention specialist for Downtown’s 1st Precinct, said responsive property management is crucial to a housing project’s success.

“While I don’t have a lot of stats to back it up, our perception is that what people generally refer to as affordable housing, i.e., Section 8 and public housing apartments, aren’t any more of a contributor to crime in an area than market-rate housing, and in some cases are clearly less of a contributor,” Krueger said in an e-mail.

He said police have identified four privately owned, market-rate apartment buildings in Elliot Park as sources of narcotics activity in the past year. Constant meetings with officers and a round-robin of e-mails among area residents and owners did not rectify the problem, Krueger said.

“Eventually, the building with the most trouble was sold and emptied out, and the next-most-troubled building is now up for sale,” Krueger said.

In contrast, an apartment comprised of Section 8 and nonsubsidized units was identified as a problem property two years ago, according to Krueger. He said the building was a stepping stone for people who had previously lived in a structured housing complex with counseling, a 24-hour front desk and security. The building without the extra structure was seeing problems, but Krueger said the problems virtually evaporated after just one meeting with the managers of the property.

A stable force

Good property managers are described in terms of their building upkeep, responsiveness to complaints and noticeable presence in the building.

“We’ve always joked that there is more crime in market-rate apartments because they can get away with it,” Fields said. “Well-run affordable housing actually stabilizes the neighborhood.”

The National Crime Prevention Council recommends affordable housing as a method of neighborhood cohesion and economic stability. The strategy works best in areas that are growing or redeveloping, according to the council. However, the council also states that densely concentrated clusters of high-rise, publicly assisted housing away from centers of economic activity do experience high crime rates.

Martin said the Planning Commission looked at spacing requirements when analyzing new supportive-housing projects.

“There is a correlation between crime and low-income communities with not very many services and not a lot of support networks,” Martin said, noting the challenges seen in North Minneapolis. “Although there have been links established between crime and poor neighborhoods — that’s an historical connection that goes back hundreds of years — there isn’t a lot of evidence that, on a project-by-project basis, the amount of crime increases because a new piece of affordable housing gets built. These tend to be cumulative changes.”

In new development projects, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) limits Section 8 voucher assistance to census tracts with poverty rates of 32 percent or less and minority populations of 32 percent or less. Some Minneapolis projects have needed HUD waivers to proceed, such as the St. Anthony Mills Apartments near the riverfront.

Some affordable housing experts contest assumptions that there can be too much affordable housing in an area.

Goetz maintains in a 2004 article called “The Reality of Deconcentration” that the movement to deconcentrate affordable housing in the mid-1990s stemmed from research showing that poverty was increasingly concentrated in urban areas with high crime. (The Metropolitan Council reported in 2000 that poverty rates in Minneapolis dropped from 18.5 percent in 1989 to 16.9 percent in 1999, but rates are still higher in the Twin Cities’ urban core than elsewhere in the region.) Goetz said an emphasis on dispersed affordable housing can cause neighborhoods to claim they have their “fair share” of low-income housing. Meanwhile, Section 8 vouchers and mixed-income projects have not met the scale of affordable housing needed, he said. In December 2005, the Metropolitan Council projected an unmet need of 22,300 affordable housing units in the Twin Cities metro area by 2010. The demand was based on nearly 171,000 low-income households in the metro area earning less than 60 percent of the median family income and spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing.

Alan Arthur shared Goetz’ view.

“I don’t think that the concentration of affordable housing is a problem. I think the problem, if any, is the concentration of poverty, not affordable housing,” Arthur said. “We have to provide housing for [the poor].”

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