The North Renton neighborhood, like many communities, has its own set of challenges.
In previous articles, this series examined development concerns, government planning and a local bar’s run-in with the state liquor control board.
But, what are residents and the City of Renton doing to remedy the community’s “trouble spots,” as resident Kizzie Funkhouser puts it?
She’s lived in North Renton for four years and recently helped organize a neighborhood clean up project.
The city recently implemented a citywide program that allows funds to be used to assist clean up efforts of public and private properties.
City funds are eligible for properties deemed a nuisance or or a public health or safety risk, with no other means to clean them up.
There was an elderly woman whose property had become too much for her and became a bit of an eyesore in North Renton.
Funkhouser was called upon by the city, because she lives in the neighborhood and because of her expertise.
She is the supervisor for volunteer Chore Services of Catholic Community Services.
That program supports low-income seniors and disabled adults with on-going services.
As part of the new Clean Community Initiative, Funkhouser organized 17 neighbors to tackle the woman’s yard.
The results were dramatic.
The volunteers were able to free the yard of waste and tons of blackberry bushes with six trips to the dump.
Off-loading those trucks would not have been possible without help from the initiative, Funkhouser said.
“There’s a personal responsibility I think that everybody should take to make their neighborhood a safe, enjoyable place to be,” she said. “But, it’s hard to do that in a bubble. It’s nice to have the support of the city coming in to provide resources, to provide guidance.”
Donna Locher, City of Renton lead code-compliance inspector, calls North Renton residents “very proactive in keeping their neighborhood clean and safe.”
The Clean Community Initiative was created to help property owners who could not physically or financially clean up their properties, Locher said in an email.
“With the recent number of properties fighting foreclosure, there has been a problem getting properties cleaned up,” she said. “If a property is facing foreclosure, there may not be funds to clean up the property therefore issuing tickets and fines is not a solution.”
The most common code violations in the city are unlicensed or inoperable vehicles and garbage, Locher said.
But, she also stressed that the North Renton neighborhood does not have any more or any fewer violations than the rest of the city.
The Renton City Council also adopted a new ordinance in October 2011 that seeks to make it a crime to have a property that is a chronic nuisance or unkempt and unsafe.
Mayor Denis Law spoke of the ordinance in his State of the City address on Wednesday. The city will be filing lawsuits in Superior Court against several property owners soon, Law said.
Although Law didn’t mention any specific properties, Nora Schulz, a North Renton resident, has her suspicions for which property owners the new ordinance was created.
She and her parents grew up in the neighborhood and all three are landlords.
Schulz believes the cause of North Renton’s ills are Section 8 housing that blights the neighborhood with irresponsible property owners.
“We have some landlords who do not take any responsibility for the property that they rent,” Schulz said. “They don’t care about the maintenance of it. They don’t care about the people they rent to and they don’t have any respect for the people they rent to because they rent to people they don’t check out.”
Schulz faulted Section 8 housing for being a broken system that allows for this type of behavior from landlords.
To that Mark Gropper, executive director of Renton Housing Authority, had this to say in an e-mail: “It is the responsibility of the landlord to screen potential tenants for suitability, regardless of whether they have rental assistance or not.”
Renton Housing Authority administers the Section 8 housing program for the federal department of Housing and Urban Development.
Gropper said of approximately 800 families served by the program, fewer than 12 a year have their rental assistance terminated because of behavioral and conduct concerns.
Gropper also maintains that landlords are responsible for maintaining their properties through collection and maintenance of appropriate security and damage deposits.
“Neither RHA nor HUD can be held liable for the damages caused by a Section 8 tenant in a privately owned rental unit,” he wrote.
Schulz, who is also the vice president of the North Renton Neighborhood Association, has seen some improvements in the area with commercial property owners.
She once called the bar Pounders on Main Avenue “the fifth ring of hell” because of all of its infamous criminal activity. The establishment has been replaced by The Berliner, which she’s heard no complaints about.
“I think the community itself has degraded, but I think there is still a concept of community here,” said Schulz. “And, I think that has more to do with people today than it has to do with anything else.”
She noted that people in general are more apt to connect with each other on Facebook than across the street, but Schulz said North Renton people still want to know their neighbors.
NORTH RENTON: THE SERIES
The Renton Reporter is continuing its special report on efforts by the City of Renton and the residents themselves to improve the quality of life in this venerable neighborhood between downtown and Kennydale. In this installment, we look at what the city and neighborhood are doing to clean up some of the neighborhood’s unkempt properties.
THE OTHER STORIES
