THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 29, 1996 TAG: 9607290030
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: VILLA HEIGHTS: GETTING INVOLVED
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 163 lines
Crime.
Blighted housing.
Kids getting into trouble.
Americans know these and similar problems. They also know that government is not the complete answer.
Many people are looking to traditional places, such as their neighborhoods.
This past spring, Lana Pressley, president of the Villa Heights Civic League in Norfolk, voiced a frustration that reverberates in many communities: How do you get your neighbors involved?
In these occasional reports, The Virginian-Pilot will follow the efforts of Villa Heights residents working to strengthen their neighborhood.
We don't know how it will come out. Neither do they.
When crime sneaks up on a neighborhood, sometimes the good guys have to sneak back into control.
Villa Heights hopes to start in the kitchen.
Chicken. Meatloaf. Spaghetti with sausage. Salads. Crackers and cheese. Cakes. Iced tea. Lemonade.
That was the crime-fighting menu when the Villa Heights Civic League hosted a pot-luck supper at its monthly meeting July 18 in New Bethlehem Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, 753 E. 26th St.
Food vs. crime? Why not a more direct attack, such as organizing a block-watch program?
That will come, believes Lana Pressley, civic league president.
``Right now,'' she said, ``I want people to get to know each other.'' Many of Villa Heights' 800 adults, she explained, are still too cautious to approach their neighbors or attend community meetings.
A pot-luck supper might bring them out.
By 7 p.m., Iona Buck, Sarah Jones and Gail Watts had organized the small, combination kitchen-social room, setting up tables and chairs and unfurling white, paper table covers. A serving counter began crowding with food.
``Thank you, Mr. Skinner. Right on time!'' said Watts, accepting a strawberry cake from Franklin D. Skinner. It was made by his wife, Susan.
Pressley arrived a few minutes later, delayed in traffic during another sweltering midsummer thunderstorm.
``Here's some chips and dips,'' she said, rushing into the church's sanctuary where civic league members sat in the wooden pews.
Some cooled themselves with cardboard fans bearing the likeness of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on one side and business advertisements on the other.
``I see some new faces here, and that's exciting,'' Pressley said, as she readied herself at the podium. ``On my way here, I was thinking, `Nobody's going to come because of the rain.' ''
She counted 21 people at the meeting - not great, but more than the usual turnout of 12 to 15. The gathering included three newcomers and one woman who was rejoining the league after letting her membership lapse. Pressley asked each to stand to make self-introductions. The regulars applauded.
After a short business meeting, Pressley began to shepherd her neighbors to the kitchen-social room.
But Ivory Fitzgerald leaned forward from the first row: ``We need a blessing first,'' he half-whispered.
Elder Proctor H. Freeman, representing the New Bethlehem Church, took care of the prayers. And those assembled took care of the food.
Pressley believes the civic league has to try new ways to foster unity.
``I didn't want to do too much formal stuff at that meeting,'' she said. ``I wanted it to be just a time for the neighbors, for sharing, just talking.''
To have an effective block watch - with neighbors not afraid to report suspicious activity - a neighborhood's got to have people willing to reach out to each other, she said.
That's why Pressley asked them to share more than food. She challenged each of them to talk with four others.
Pressley followed her own directive. She plunked herself down next to Dennis Ewell, who was attending a civic league function for the first time.
``I just asked him where he lived, and he gave me his address, and we just kind of went from there,'' Pressley said.
Ewell, who has lived in Villa Heights for seven years, said he enjoyed talking with Pressley and other neighbors. ``If you communicate with each other,'' he said, ``we can help each other, because when you lay down at night you don't want to worry about someone breaking into your car.''
Crime sneaked up on Villa Heights sometime over the past 10 years. Longtime residents aren't sure when the problems began in their once-quiet neighborhood.
``One night, I was trying to figure out when things had started changing,'' said Watts, a 12-year homeowner. ``I knew I'd been busy, working two jobs then. But I just didn't notice. I really didn't. . . .
``That's my fault and everybody else's out here. I'm just as guilty as the next person.''
Watts says she wants a block watch because ``the police can't do everything. They're only human. The people in the neighborhood have to help, too. They have to be the eyes for police for any unusual activity.''
It's hard to gauge the extent of crime in Villa Heights.
By most accounts of residents and police, crime and related drug trafficking occur less often than a few years ago. Several blocks were notorious for daytime drug dealing and open prostitution.
``That was then. It's different now,'' Watts said. ``I think the police are enforcing the laws around here a lot better.''
Yet, as wisdom goes in many neighborhoods: One crime is too many, especially if it happens to you.
That's why sisters Ella Cochran and Carolyn Clark turned out for the pot-luck supper.
Cochran said she's tired of finding her van vandalized. She fears it might get stolen, like at least five cars on her block over the past year, including one taken from a church parking lot in broad daylight.
At times, Cochran, Clark and Franklin Skinner take turns watching for suspicious activity. It was Skinner who told Cochran and Clark about civic league efforts to start a block watch.
While overall crime in Villa Heights may be waning, there are indications that some of it moves around.
``In a lot of neighborhoods,'' said police Lt. Jim Brownlie, ``we'll go into an area and hit it and hit it and hit it. Unfortunately, I think, when you hit it like that, you take it off one block and it just goes to another. It's a battle all the time.''
Also, an unknown amount of crime goes unreported.
On one occasion, Carolyn Clark thought it useless to report a bicycle theft.
But block-watch advocates say all crime must be reported so police can better allocate their resources. ``If you have 15 bicycle thefts and no one reports them, then we wouldn't know there's a problem,'' said Brownlie.
And, even if crime is decreasing, a neighborhood should never relax, Watts said.
Like Pressley, Watts believes neighborhoods build unity in various ways, not only from block watches.
For several years, she's volunteered to distribute civic league announcements and other fliers. Usually, Watts takes a few neighborhood children with her, including 8-year-old Janie Golson, who lives downstairs from her.
While delivering fliers, Watts will chat with neighbors she sees on their porches or in front yards.
Watts also said she'd help with another activity proposed by Pressley: keeping track of children who get A's on report cards and then rewarding them at the end of the school year.
Pressley also has proposed a parade and a best-looking-yard contest. But she says no idea will work unless more volunteers step forward.
It's a quandary that many grass-roots organizers encounter. They want more neighbors to participate, but they don't have enough participation to draw more neighbors.
Will the pot-luck supper whet the appetite for greater involvement?
``I'm hoping that if everyone goes back to their blocks and tells more people that we're rejuvenating the civic league,'' Pressley said, ``then we'll start getting more people and things will start happening.'' ILLUSTRATION: MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN
The Virginian-Pilot
Lana Pressley, president of the Villa Heights Civic League, hopes
pot-luck dinners are the first step to a stronger community.
VP Graphic
VILLA HEIGHTS
Population: 1,227
Housing units: 535
Owner-occupied: 116
Rentals: 338
Vacant: 81
Avg. household income: $19,566
SOURCE: Norfolk Department of City Planning and Codes
Administration, based on the 1990 Census by CNB