Relationship Between Crime and Affordable Housing Debated at Novato City Council Session

As part of Novato’s community-wide informational download on all things related to affordable housing, the Novato City Council hosted a work study session Tuesday night to go over crime statistics and rental property management at multifamily complexes in the city.

Chief Joseph Kreins crunched numbers that showed crime is significantly lower in the city than it was 10 or 20 years ago, and fares well when compared with Petaluma, San Rafael, Walnut Creek and Beverly Hills, but warned that “you can’t just focus on statistics because they don’t paint a total picture.”

Art Gerrans, a Novato resident since 1969 who was police officer for more than 40 years, said people used to move to Novato because it was safe. He said he raised seven kids here.

“When you get a situation with public housing, you’re going to have crime,” he said, adding that he worked on homicide and narcotics units with San Francisco police. “These are people who bring their problems with them … and will reflect on our society here. … If you bring these people here, the good people of Novato will leave.”

Kreins went through his presentation and acknowledged that , a 136-unit complex near the downtown area, has been a particular problem for the police department for about four years.

“Quite frankly it was a mess when we started focusing on them,” Kreins said of Wyndover.

Starting in September 2010, the police department initiated meetings with Fairfield Wyndover management company to address the high volume of calls for service and improve quality-of-life issues for the residents in the 800 block of Diablo Avenue. Kreins said his department increased foot patrols and drive-throughs in the area, shared information about observed resident activity with on-site management and set up a liaison between the police and the Marin Housing Authority.

“Working with the on-site management is absolutely key and critical to working with that multifamily housing unit,” Kreins said.

In the time between Oct. 1, 2010, and March 31 of this year, there were 10 evictions and 25 probation/parole checks at Wyndover, Kreins said. Since the start of this year, the complex’s management company improved lighting on the site, locked the external gates and started a Neighborhood Watch group. Kreins said there has been a noticeable drop in person crime and property crime in the past three months there.

Crime statistics for 10 Novato housing complexes were compared and showed Wyndover as No. 1 in total calls for service over the past two years, No. 1 in calls for service per 100 units and No. 1 in percentage of all calls answered by the police department.

“Where is Fairfield Wyndover tonight?” asked resident Toni Shroyer, an outspoken critic of the Wyndover management. “They have a lot of questions to answer. … They are making more than $1.6 million per year and not paying any taxes.”

However, Kreins pointed out that the section of Hamilton had higher numbers than Wyndover when it came to person crimes and property crimes, the two that are more closely related to criminal activity.

Wyndover had 321 service calls for disturbances or suspicious circumstances in the past two years, more than double that of Bay Vista and significantly more the other eight complexes. But Kreins said that those responses only rarely result in arrests for person or property crimes.

He added later that in some cases a low percentage of residents can create a high percentage of crime in a given complex or neighborhood. “You can have one location that creates a tremendously high level of calls for service,” Kreins said, “and in those cases we can continue to move those people out.”

Ned York, an assistant vice president with the John Stewart Company, spoke about his firm’s properties at Bay Vista and Creekside in Hamilton. At Bay Vista, built at the former Hamilton Air Force Base after it was decommissioned, crime has been a major concern and calls for service are much higher than the average in Novato.

The rents at Bay Vista range from $745 to $1,782 for the 220 two-bedroom and three-bedroom units, and the density per acre is about 13 units. The typical household income at Bay Vista is $32,303, just more than half the average in Novato.

York said applicant households are rejected if anyone planning to live in a unit has committed a felony, and background checks date back seven years. Credit checks are a key part of the screening process, too, he said, because “we want to make sure the folks who live at our site have the minimum amount of income to give us confidence that they can pay the rent.”

Marie Chan, an advocate for sustainable affordable housing, begged to differ with anyone who doubted Kreins’ crime statistics.

“It is totally unfair to categorize Novato as crime-ridden,” she said. “… Novato doesn’t need to have this black eye within the county so that other people think we’re a crime-ridden community.”