There’s been another shooting in my neighborhood; this one is fatal. Three people were killed Aug. 9 in a house on South 10th Street, in the middle of a block full of families, less than three blocks from Harvard Park Elementary School. These killings are not isolated incidents in our city. Citizens in older neighborhoods witness far too many shootings and other acts of violence. In July, two separate shootings were perpetrated at one house on Yale Boulevard.
What do these incidents have in common? First, they all occurred in an older Springfield neighborhood, one being left behind as Springfield continues its relentless march outward. Second, they both occurred in rental homes, long neglected by their landlords and edging toward ruin.
I think it is time for a reckoning in Springfield. If we do not give careful attention to older neighborhoods, which comprise the entire center of our beloved city, they will devolve into uninhabitable blocks punctuated by crime scene tape. Eventually, every neighborhood will be “older,” including those currently considered desirable. Every aging, marginal neighborhood was desirable at some point. This future affects all of us.
Surely, we can organize to restore peace, pride and safety to the neighborhoods that hold the history of Springfield. Surely leaders in city government, School District 186, local businesses, nonprofits, service organizations and neighborhoods can convene to craft solutions to the longstanding problems that result in blight and crime. We already know some key issues to address. None of them are simple, and they all require introspection, discussion and collaboration across differences.
Some of the issues we need to tackle are poverty, educational opportunity, job training, employment, housing and neighborhood infrastructure.
These issues can seem abstract and hard to approach. Yet modest efforts can yield big changes. Just like building a neighborhood, sustaining it requires that we build brick by solid brick. We can take immediate, specific, concrete steps to achieve positive change.
Specific first steps could include:
1. Require every property owner to pay for garbage and junk removal. Enforce violations promptly.
2. Require every property owner to regularly mow, remove weeds/leaves/fallen limbs, and keep a clean lot. Again, enforce violations promptly.
3. Establish a landlord registry, so that names and contact information for landlords is accessible to all citizens. Then we know who to call when a property becomes a problem.
4. Convene a homeowner/landlord/tenant/neighborhood task force to engage in joint problem-solving about the obligations and challenges of property ownership.
5. Promptly enforce city laws and regulations related to nuisance properties. If current regulations are not sufficient to keep neighborhoods safe and clean, let’s adopt new ones.
6. Provide incentives for homeowners to maintain and improve their property.
We need every homeowner, including landlords, to be accountable. Just imagine each house as a home – a place where people are trying to make a life. And each home is part of a neighborhood, which will rise or fall with its housing stock. If you own a house, you need to treat it like you live in it. Buying a house in my neighborhood and living at the edge of Springfield or out of state, while neglecting your house next door to me, harms my property, and my neighborhood and, ultimately, all of Springfield.
I am not opposed to rental property. Rentals are an essential part of community housing. I am opposed to rentals being neglected and abandoned. Rental property and owner-occupied property should be indistinguishable when you drive through any neighborhood.
The time is now. The longer we wait, the harder it is to pull Springfield back from the edge of blight.
Polly Poskin is a resident of the Harvard Park neighborhood. She has long been active in the Harvard Park Neighborhood Association and Inner City Older Neighborhoods, although this opinion is not intended to represent the views of any group.
This article appears in Back to School.
The suggestions of this article blaming negligent landlords, and recommending punishing property owners for shootings are ridiculous.
There is no excuse for people to shoot and kill each other…. even if the yard isn’t mowed.
Responding to the comment made by @Reader12 the article isn’t blaming the landlords for the shootings. It’s saying that negligent landlords are contributing to a decline in the neighborhood. Also property owners who have a murder take place at their property can be held liable. That’s why all landlords do background checks to make sure they know what type of people they rent to. I can agree with what the article says about the Harvard Park neighborhood and I would like to make Springfield better. Thank you to the writer of the article.
This piece is spot-on. The issues that are contributing to the violence and neglect in Springfield are not simple issues, and change is often slow to occur in the right direction. We, as citizens of Springfield can’t just wash our hands of entire neighborhoods because they have problems that are difficult to solve. The thoughts presented in her opinion piece are not suggesting that mowing the grass at a rental property will prevent a shooting. She is merely pointing out that every human being deserves to live in place that they can take pride in, whether it’s rented or owned. One of the things that comes with feeling pride in your home and neighborhood is that you care about what happens in and around that property and that neighborhood. When landlords are held to certain standards by the city, it not only protects renters from some of the negative stigma attached to being a renter, but also protects the neighborhoods where the rental properties are located from becoming an eyesore. There are many facets to this issue, but Ms. Poskin’s commentary provided some very constructive ideas as a place to start.
Utterly ridiculous to have a one size fits all answer for everything. There is absolutely nothing in this article that will work. People who are willing to shoot someone don’t care about the trash or the height of the weeds. The only thing these ideas will do is make the rent go up on all of the properties I manage, that don’t have these problems, and if they did I would evict them.
I have had people object to having a rental property in “their neighborhood”.
In almost all cases the rent charged is 30 to 40% higher then what it would take to own that same property. So the person complaining can’t afford to rent the house next door, but they still complain.
Why is the landlord responsible for what a tenant does, I am not their parent, I am not their guardian, They have the right to live there as long as they pay rent. When a neighbor complains to me about a tenant having a garage sale or something else equally as minor of an issue I tell them to call the police. I am not responsible for what anyone else does. Unless it is dangerous and then I evict them.
Most of the laws in Illinois give the renter almost as much right to the property as if they owned it.
Virtually all of my tenants are upper middle class or even upper class. Why do I have to suffer with all of this. I AM NOT THE PROBLEM.
Get this, if a landlord in all his wisdom takes the door off of a residence to repair it, but really to get them to leave. The landlord will be arrested. So maybe change that law and then good landlords will remove front doors and bad tenants will be forced to leave.
Only thing that will work is to make it easier to get bad people out and hold people responsible for their own actions not the landlord.
In the long run none of these ideas will work