Lake Washington Apartments is a former military barracks that now houses hundreds of tenants in the Rainier Beach neighborhood. Despite its history, Lake Washington Apartments no longer has an orderly appearance and groomed grounds. Current residents have been complaining to their management for six months about increased levels of crime, filth, violence, drugs and disorder that are turning their home into what one tenant calls "a project."
The Lake Washington Apartment complex was purchased by Southeast Effective Development (SEED) in 1996 to provide affordable housing to southeast Seattle residents. SEED owns and operates other development projects in the Rainier Valley, including Columbia City Gallery, the mixed-use development Rainier Court Project at 3700 Rainier Avenue, and the Washington Care Center nursing facility at 2821 South Walden. Until this spring tenants had no complaints of SEED, but recently conditions have been deteriorating at the affordable-housing apartment complex.
Shamso Basal is a long-term tenant at Lake Washington Apartments who has been faithful in paying her bills since she moved in. Lake Washington Apartments was her first home after arriving in the United States from east Africa 10 years ago. She complains that new management, rent increases, and drug-use on the property have made the apartments an uncomfortable place to live.
Basal's daughter, Zainab, does not play outside because Basal no longer knows her neighbors, or what they do. She often sees strangers coming in and out of her building and is afraid of becoming a target of crime. And, as a non-native English speaker, communication with managers and other tenants puts her in a vulnerable position. With recently increased rent and service charges, Basal is concerned that she is being taken advantage of.
"Having no English is [a] problem," said Basal.
Michael Harris is a tenant who has lived at the apartments for six years. He agrees with Basal.
"This used to be a community, now it's become like a project," Harris said.
Harris noted that the grounds used to be kept up, there was never garbage on the curbs, and apartment hallways were very clean.
"You could eat off the floors," Harris asserted.
Now Harris often sees drug deals outside his door, and has witnessed muggings, beatings, and auto vandalism.
"They're not doing anything to accommodate us and to make this a more comfortable living environment," Harris said about the current management, noting that he has personally called SEED's management and visited their office without any response.
Cops are busy
Southeast Seattle's police precinct received 164 calls for service in August 2006 at the apartment complex. That is up from 50 calls in August of 2005. Southeast Seattle's Crime Prevention Network is working to address issues of crime at Lake Washington with their limited resources. Mark Solomon, Southeast Seattle's Crime Prevention Coordinator, wants Lake Washington Apartments tenants to take more responsibility for their home.
"While tenants had complaints about the property, they have to take responsibility for how it got that way," Solomon said. "The management is not the one going around pulling doors off of hinges."
Common calls for service from Lake Washington Apartments include assaults, burglaries, auto thefts, prowlers, and suspicious circumstances or persons. From January to August there were 74 calls made for auto thefts alone. Both tenants and police acknowledge that the majority of these crimes are committed by outsiders to the Lake Washington Apartments who use the complex as a "cut-through" to escape pursuing officers. Solomon, however, is optimistic that even these criminals can be reigned in. He said that while there was an increase in crime between 2005 and 2006, things are "quieting down" at the complex.
Solomon attributes this reduction in crime to improvements at Lake Washington apartments made by SEED. He recently accompanied SEED on a walk-through of the complex to do a CPTED - a Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design - to brainstorm ways to make the campus safer. Solomon and his team suggested many improvements, including building a wrought-iron fence around the property, installing key-card locks and security cameras, moving the now off-lying basketball courts to the center of campus, and assigning parking stickers to tenants.
Priscilla Call, SEED's asset manager, reports that SEED has not received any complaints, calls or visits from tenants from Lake Washington Apartments. SEED is, however, implementing the suggestions Solomon's team gave them, although she warns, "it will take time." She is hoping that the newly hired "high-level security guards" and soon-to-be planted thorny bushes will deter criminals from climbing the fence onto the Lake Washington property.
Aloof management
Safety is not the only change tenants want to see at Lake Washington. Francis Johnson has lived in a three-bedroom apartment at Lake Washington for eight years. She has seen her share of crime and violence at the property. Her kids tell her about gang activity in the neighborhood, and she has seen the violent jumpings and drug paraphernalia to prove it.
However, it is the management's dismissal of tenant concerns that bothers her-especially when it comes to cleaning up the apartment campus. Johnson says that the laundry rooms used to be clean, but, since this spring they started getting "dirtier and dirtier - filthy and insane. Dirty clothes, garbage, people peein' and doing other stuff in there. They even had condoms in there." Cigarettes are smudged into the carpet of her apartment's hallway despite no smoking signs, and across campus there is a window with a bullet hole that hasn't been repaired in the six months since it was shot out.
"It's just too much," Johnson said.
This fall Johnson called the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) to see what could be done. With the help of ACORN, Johnson helped organize the first tenant's union the apartment complex has had. Now 150 members strong, the union is showing the management that they are serious about their complaints. Both Balas and Harris are members of the union, and Harris concedes that the union has "won on some things. There have been some minor repairs."
An apartment gate that had been locked for months, prohibiting elderly and disabled tenants from reaching the grocery store, has recently been opened, but other repairs might take longer. According to SEED, the improvements suggested by the Southeast Seattle Crime Prevention Network will cost between $450,000 and $500,000. SEED is still exploring funding options.
Harris thinks that Lake Washington Apartments management may be trying to drive tenants out with their unresponsiveness and increased rent.
"They're going to increase rent until we can't afford it and will be forced to move out," said Harris. He imagines SEED "leveling it out and building expensive condos" in the future.
That sort of speculation does not seem out of the question. The apartments are located across the street from Lake Washington's shore, and just south of the affluent Seward Park neighborhood. The apartment's expansive property currently has 366 units and 36 buildings on prime real estate. SEED denies that redevelopment of the property is a possibility.
"We [SEED] would be required to pay our mortgage in full and replace the affordable housing in the neighborhood," Call said.
Southeast Seattle writer Kelsey Jones-Casey may be reached through editor@sdistrictjournal.com or by calling 461-1311
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