Shooting on the street

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JHZR2

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So Ive complained about the people on the end of the street. They are brought in/screened by the state.

It is essentially forced integration by the owner of section 8 people on the end of our street.

There is no racism here, we have hispanic, asian and black people on the street and we all get along great.

But these people are black and have brought the ghetto to the street. People in junk cars from Camden come around all the time.

Well today while the neighbor was out in the street with his kids, two of the folks hanging around there got into a scuffle and one shot the other twice.

Put his gun in his pants and then got into his car and drove off.

Big to-do.

And the owner, while "apologetic", essentially said that the state program is the only way to get consistent payment, and if anyone on the street had any better ideas, he'd be all ears, otherwise he would keep using this program and bringing in people through the state screening. Apparently intakes months to evict and this finally is strike three... After months of everyone on the street being unhappy and lots of police calls.

Is there any kind of recourse or liability that we can put on the owner of the property for the actions of his tenents? This is becoming unacceptable and it is bothering my wife.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks.
 
A really large "accidental" fire?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

You could always try a grenade launcher or a bazooka!
grin.gif
 
Sorry to hear about your trouble, I am not sure, but I doubt the landlord can be held accountable for much. I would seriously think about moving. From my experience once a bad element is in, things rarely ever go back to the way they were.
 
Originally Posted By: TurboLuver
Sorry to hear about your trouble, I am not sure, but I doubt the landlord can be held accountable for much. I would seriously think about moving. From my experience once a bad element is in, things rarely ever go back to the way they were.


This depends:

In my fathers neighborhood, in 1995 it was a fantastic historic section of town, there was diversity in race but everyone seemed to get along, by 2002 three drug dealers moved into the neighborhood (mind you these are houses not appartments). In the summer of 2002 there were 3 drug related shooting on the same block. lots of complaints to the police department. Very little action. time passes and the drug dealers get arrested ect.. now 2011 its a respectable area again. so areas can turn around, it takes a very small amount of "bad element" to turn a otherwise good area bad.
 
These are houses too. It's not apartments, and I do think it will get better. But I have a problem with forced integration, which IMO this is by the actions the landlord takes for selecting tennants for the home. Especially when they bring the ghetto to an otherwise nice, well kept and established neighborhood.
 
Every once in a while we hear about homeowners associations meddling with small issues big time. So, without knowing how your hood is regulated, if at all, could you perhaps organize your own association and temporarily subsidize the suffering custard until he finds good tenants?

Can you call the cops and file complaints non-stop for any legit reason? And then follow up religiously? Ad nauseum. You all would have to be dedicated though.

Another option is to watch 'Ghost Dog' movie and find a person of similar talent to eliminate the problem..
 
He probably can't get anyone that would on a continuous basis pay the rent at amount he is charging. Rather than lower the rent a $100 or $200 or so a month or fix the place up really nice to attract respectable tenets he choose to mooch off of Section 8 rent subsidy. It's all the landlord's fault really. He could find section 8 renters better bthan these and he has ample grounds to have the evicted and he could turn them in to HUD. A lot of landlords will leave a property vacant rather than rent it at what the market will accept.
 
I would recommend a barrage of cost-of-defense lawsuits by neighborhood residents against the owner. None of them filed necessarily with sufficient merit to prevail, but when he has to spend more on legal fees than he gets in rent, he'll get the picture.
 
Originally Posted By: ArrestMeRedZ
I would recommend a barrage of cost-of-defense lawsuits by neighborhood residents against the owner. None of them filed necessarily with sufficient merit to prevail, but when he has to spend more on legal fees than he gets in rent, he'll get the picture.

The best advice so far IMO
 
Originally Posted By: ArrestMeRedZ
I would recommend a barrage of cost-of-defense lawsuits by neighborhood residents against the owner. None of them filed necessarily with sufficient merit to prevail, but when he has to spend more on legal fees than he gets in rent, he'll get the picture.



He would just recoup such fees, and then some when he counter sues for harrasment. Which is what you propose.

And a barrage of cost of defense suits will cost money. And I doubt an attorney would file a suit that doesn't have sufficent merit to survive it being tossed.

And it isn't in any way the fault of the property owner if some bozo shoots another bozo. Less so since neither lives there to begin with.
 
I know its not the answer you want to here but here it is anyway..

MOVE! And move quick.
Once this sort of thing gets in a neighbourhood property values will drop like a rock, its a short and slippery slope from a nice neighbourhood to ghetto and from what i see owning apartment buildings section 8 is the official stamp of a approval to start one.
 
Originally Posted By: OtisBlkR1

This depends:

In my fathers neighborhood, in 1995 it was a fantastic historic section of town, there was diversity in race but everyone seemed to get along, by 2002 three drug dealers moved into the neighborhood (mind you these are houses not appartments). In the summer of 2002 there were 3 drug related shooting on the same block. lots of complaints to the police department. Very little action. time passes and the drug dealers get arrested ect.. now 2011 its a respectable area again. so areas can turn around, it takes a very small amount of "bad element" to turn a otherwise good area bad.


That was a very specific resolution to the problem, not likely to happen all that often, I am painting with a broad brush. If in fact the landlord is taking part in government subsidies such as section 8 to fill his rentals he is not likely to reverse that practice, so what you are going to be looking at is a revolving door of unsavory characters.
 
You would not be able to legally force him to only rent to people not out of the Camden, racially motivated or not. To be honest IMO this landlord isn't really out of the ghetto yet and IMO he is using this property to "stick it to the riches" or whatever he was having in his mind.

IMO the only thing you can do is to petition to make getting into this area as hard as possible. Parking enforcement for non resident, curfew, speed bump, police enforcement, regular call in, etc until the residents or the landlord feel annoyed (but not threatened) by the inconvenience of it.

You guys can also chip in to buy a house next door and rent it to an active cop.

Good luck, your odd of success is very low.
 
It's not going to get better. I've seen it happen plenty of times before, including the side of town in which my parents live.

Some of your neighbors are already considering moving out, and once one or two others move it's even further downhill. Your property values will start to dive as the houses in the neighborhood begin to deteriorate.

It's just one of many reasons why we moved to a rural area decades ago and never looked back.
 
Probably time to move. Once section 8 gets in your neighborhood, it's hard to get it out.

My aunt lives in a neighborhood in Birmingham that was reasonably nice not too long ago. I remember going there in the early to mid 1990s and everyone kept their yards up and all the houses were nice, but the ghetto was a stone's throw away. From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, a lot of the houses turned into rentals as people started selling them and moving further out from the city. Now it's part of the ghetto. About half the houses are kept up, and the other half not so much. Property values there tanked, and who knows if it will ever recover. If it does it will take decades.
 
Originally Posted By: Trav
MOVE! And move quick.

May be too late. Who'd buy into a ghetto? I would not.
Unless he is ready to take the loss right now
 
Section 8 has destroyed very nice neighborhoods in my area. I used to clean carpets at some of those properties and I was literally afraid I was gonna get mugged or my van stolen.
 
Thanks all. Its really weird. There are no apartments around. There are plenty of really nice homes and that's it. The place is an anomaly, and the reality is that rents are really high around here. Too high for these types of folks to routinely move in.

If we were able to buy it and put in a proper renter, all would be well. There would be zero instance of similar stuff anywhere around until you go to Camden.

The owner used to live there. I think that the comment that "To be honest IMO this landlord isn't really out of the ghetto yet and IMO he is using this property to "stick it to the riches" or whatever he was having in his mind." is valid to some extent, however the owner is likely better off than most on the street (some big lawyer). The owner also claimed that he has used this state program for most of his tennants for the last number of years, and while the turnover has been every 18-24 months, this is the first time that there has ever been any kind of an issue like this.

I do feel like this is a bad egg group, and it looks like they will be evicted sooner rather than later, but I wish that we could ensure that whomever is in there next doesnt have a chance for this sort of thing to remotely be possible.

Having one set of renters on an entire street isnt a big deal, especially since they are officially on the main road at the end and just share a side of the home on our street. If they can be kept in check, all will be OK. Just need to be sure that we can make that so.

Id hate to move because of people like this. Talk about unfair. And, this is going to be the norm for us all, unfortunately. So those of us in the functioning population better come up with a way to deal with and protect ourselves, otherwise we might as well hang it up and call it a country.
 
Originally Posted By: Y_K
Originally Posted By: Trav
MOVE! And move quick.

May be too late. Who'd buy into a ghetto? I would not.
Unless he is ready to take the loss right now


It is a single house in the whole area. It just has to be at the end of my street. Its not like we have tons of this.

And every town in the state is required to have some "low income" housing. So its not like one can truly ever get away from it. That is a law that needs to be overturned ASAP though.
 
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