In a neighborhood where people can be afraid to go outside, 20 residents and property owners marched through the streets this morning in a demonstration against deadbeat landlords and drug-peddling tenants, who they say are dragging the Harrisburg community into the proverbial gutter.
Its just wrong, demonstrator and longtime resident Donna Dumas shouted. Wrong to rent to prostitutes and pimps and drug dealers.
With Richmond County Sheriffs deputies keeping a watchful eye from patrol cars, the marchers carried signs reading, Dope Kills Kids, Lazy Land Lords = Drugs, Crime, and Eve St., Corridor of Shame.
They shouted, Stop the neglect, Hugs Not Drugs, and Save our children, and at one point broke into a chant of, We want 'em out! They filled garbage bags with trash they picked up along the way.
Their accomplishments: they found a marijuana plant growing in one yard, they got loud music turned down outside another property and they convinced at least one landlord to change his ways.
I think the best part is that the neighborhood knows that the neighborhood cares, Harrisburg-West End Neighborhood Association president Denise Traina said. Were all here, and its all that important to us.
No particular group was behind the march, according to organizer Lori Davis, but it was made up of several members of the neighborhood association, for which Ms. Davis serves as vice president. Another leader was Butch Palmer, a board of directors member and the founder of HONGKONG Harrisburg Organization Networking for Gentrification to Keep Our Neighborhood from becoming a Ghetto.
Mr. Palmer had scrapped an idea to carry arms loaded with blanks during the march after the sheriffs office dissuaded him. Instead, he wielded a bullhorn.
Stop being afraid, he blasted at houses whose doors and windows were closed. Come out and join us.
The protestors targeted three specific properties which Ms. Davis said have been generating the most complaints 223 Eve St., 609 Eve St. and 1841 Watkins St. In front of each, she hammered a handmade sign reading, Nuisance Property, into the dirt between the curb and the sidewalk.
When they reached 609 Eve, about a half dozen men and women were sitting on the front porch with bass-heavy music blaring from a car parked in the driveway.
Violation of sound ordinance! Mr. Palmer yelled.
Mind your business, a man sitting in a chair snapped.
We are minding our business, Mr. Palmer retorted through the bullhorn. Weve got our eye on you and were so disgusted.
Deputies told the group on the porch to turn down the music. They shut it off.
Another verbal skirmish broke out at the intersection of Crawford Avenue and Hicks Street, where a group gathered outside an apartment building accused the marchers of racism, even though several of them were black.
Were not in the slave days, someone shouted from the building.
We are slaves now, Mr. Palmer blasted back. Were slaves to crime. Were afraid to come out of our homes and were tired of it.
At 223 Eve, a woman sitting on the front porch, Willie Bell, said her sister lives there and is raising five grandchildren, ages 13 to 19. She denied theres any drug activity, but said she agrees with the protestors that the house needs to be cleaned up. In fact, her brother, Walter Tankersley, took part in the march.
Its not so much that its a nuisance, Ms. Bell said, its that we need the funds to clean it up.
Efforts to reach the owner of the house, John B. Weigle Jr., resulted in missed phone calls .
The owner of 609 Eve St., Roy Searles, admitted in a telephone interview that he hasnt managed the property well and said hes determined to do better. He bought the house in October for $14,000.
Its a big, big headache, he said. I didnt know it was going to be like this getting into real estate. This is my first investment property, and its a bad one.
Hes been running it as a boardinghouse, renting rooms to two men and two women who pay $80 per week a piece. Hes gotten a call from the sheriffs office about activity in and out, Mr. Searles said, and Saturdays protest was the last straw.
All four renters will be out by Friday, he said, and hes going to close the house up, make some repairs and look to rent it to a family . Hell do background checks of his next tenants; with the current ones, he only asked for their drivers licenses and Social Security cards to confirm their identities.
I totally, totally agree, he said of the protestors. But its kind of hard. Show me a neighborhood that doesnt have drug activity.
No one was home when the marchers reached 1841 Watkins, though they found a marijuana plant growing beside the front porch of another house on the street. A deputy pulled it out of the ground, tossed it into his car and radioed for a narcotics investigator.
The owners of 1841 Watkins, Emory and Rachel Rabitsch, said as far as theyre concerned, the people living there are good tenants. Its a duplex, with a woman and her husband in one part and the womans son in the other. Theyve lived there about four or five years, they pay their rent on time totaling $1,000 per month, and they dont tear anything up, Mr. and Mrs. Rabitsch said. Both the husband and the son have jobs.
Mr. Rabitsch said hes gotten on to them before about beer cans left in the yard, and the tenants cleaned them up. He said he knows they get rowdy sometimes, and neighbors have complained to him about drinking and partying.
Hes talked to them about that, too, Mr. Rabitsch said.
These people are not bad people. I have seen worse, he said. Were still in the business to make money. Its hard to get rid of a good tenant that pays on time.
Mrs. Rabitsch said shes not going to evict them just because theyre not upper-class people.
They can demonstrate all they want, she said. But Im not going to discriminate against these people.
Ms. Davis said today's protest wasnt about poverty or sociology.
Thats not what were fighting today, she said. Were fighting the landlords that are allowing the bad people to live in these properties.
They dont screen, she said. They just want the money.
Which properties?
the Harrisburg Association needs to MAKE PUBLIC the names of the slum lord owners of the properties that are crime/drug ridden. The publishing of this information publicly will do a great deal to bring the proper embarrassment to these trashy people...& most likely be a catalyst to upgrading the property and then tenants...
absentee landlords don't take the Chronicle. A well placed match ought to do the trick.
this is in response to the picture caption "A Richmond County Sheriff's deputy pulls up a marijuana plant along side a house on Watkins Street that was pointed out to him by a group of Harrisburg residents, property owners and concerned citizens marching in the Harrisburg neighborhood Saturday, July 4, 2009 to protest irresponsible landlords and drug activity." - - - who is going to be held responsible for that, its a marijuana plant growing on the side of the house? are they going to arrest who lives there.... or.. if it's an empty house, will the landlord then be held responsible? ...your thoughts please...
Arrest who lives there.If the house is empty, fine the owner.
Other neighborhoods should also march and take theirs streets back. If I had druggie neighbors, I would raise all kind of cane.
Does anyone see any blacks in the picture?? Why?? Don't blacks live in Harrisburg!!
They probably have something better to do on the 4th of July. Like obviously a majority of people who live in Harrisburg. Black or White.
I hope that all landlords look at this and change for the better.
Pretend, at least the one's who marched stood up for their cause. Judging from you're 2:13 post that's more than you would do. Looking at your previous posts I know that's more than you would do!!!!
Congrats to these people.. We should all follow their example of wanting change in our neighborhoods and setting examples for our children of what is right and wrong. Good job folks!!
Harrisburg has been a slum for quite some time now. These ppl could just move to a neighborhood with a better class of people.
Hillguy, I agree....why let it get this bad to begin with? These folks should have been more proactive.
Well, at least it isn't a riot, but a positive reaction towards reclaiming the neighborhood. HillGuy, why should THEY leave? You don't clean up a mess by sweeping it under a rug...get the dustpan out and put the leavings in the trash where it belongs. As for the mj plant, wonder why the SO didn't arrest the homeowner like they usually do under other circumstances. Had they done so, it may have provided even a greater incentive to continue the people's efforts to clear out the unseemly characters that have planted themselves there. Thanks Harrisburg...good job.
Some of us just move to Columbia County where we don't have to fear being shot if we venture outside at night.
Congratulations to those marchers! I hope their efforts are not in vain. Those people they encountered with the loud music got the message that they should be more considerate of others..now, I don't know if they'll do anything about it yet, but at least it was pointed out to them. Further protests should help.
Did they march in front of that gay bar that has the prostitutes walking around it day and night?
There is no boogie man in columbia county...... there is no boogie man in columbia county......