Manager Took Housing Project’s Crime by Storm, but Finds Victory Is Never Total : Whirlwind Success Loses Strength
The angry complaints of a roomful of housing project tenants at Van Nuys Pierce Park Apartments in Pacoima had reached a crescendo:
Drug dealers have claimed several parking lots. Why aren’t there more lights outside? How come that vacant lot isn’t locked up at night? When are those troublemakers going to be evicted?
Then Fred Nobles walked in--the man responsible for running the place, the man who would be a target for all their complaints. But instead of jeers, Nobles received a warm round of applause. One woman even stood and clapped.
The gracious greetings and applause reflect the uncommon respect that Nobles commands as manager of the large public housing project. He is the man credited with turning Pierce Park around, creating homes for the poor in buildings that once were burned out and uninhabitable.
Tenants call him “caring.” Federal housing officials who oversee projects like Pierce Park call him “innovative.” Mayor Tom Bradley has asked him to calm angry tenants at troubled apartments he doesn’t even manage.
But though Nobles takes in the accolades with a smile, he often grimaces and shakes his head in discouragement as he walks through his project. His is a bittersweet success, tinged with the reality that he will never be able to completely rid the place of the crime, the drugs, the troubled tenants.
Despite running what is regarded as a model housing project, Nobles has recently come to terms with a frustrating lesson. His years of work have reduced, but not eliminated, the magnetism that the sprawling 430-unit complex seems to hold for drug dealers and gangs.
Today, his struggle continues, and he is reworking his formula for success with an eye toward strengthening the project’s weakened tenant organization.
“I can’t solve all the housing and drug problems in this city. I can’t even solve the problems in Pacoima,” Nobles said. “I can only hope to control what happens in one little area. That area is here.”
Pierce Park is a federally subsidized housing complex owned by Wogo Developers, a private limited partnership that bought the project in 1976 from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development with a $4.3-million federally insured loan.
Home to about 2,000 low-income tenants and once the reputed PCP drug-dealing center of the San Fernando Valley, it is one of the Valley’s two large public housing projects. The other, nearby San Fernando Gardens, is owned and operated by the city’s Housing Authority.
Although relative peace and quiet have blanketed Pierce Park in the past three years, problems have crept up again recently. This time they are rock cocaine and gangs.
Last month, five gang members were injured in what police described as a narcotics-related shooting that took place in a crowded children’s playground. Residents and police said it capped months of increasing crime and round-the-clock drug dealing in the project.
“Since the shooting, I don’t feel comfortable anymore,” said Yolanda Johnson, a 14-year resident. “I don’t know from day to day what is going to happen.”
In many ways, tenants at Pierce Park are feeling a bit abandoned. Nobles has the unending support of the residents, but the amount of attention he has been able to devote to Pierce Park has suffered because of a new business’s success.
Buoyed by accomplishments at Pierce Park, Nobles started his own company--Nobles Property Management--two years ago, handling more than 1,600 units at apartment complexes throughout the city.
The growth of his business has meant that he now spends only one day a week at the Pacoima project, leaving day-to-day duties to three assistant managers.
Although he never lived at the project, Nobles once worked there full time. He dealt one-on-one with tenants and led an active crime-watch group that met regularly with police.
Under a business arrangement typical of such agencies, Nobles is paid by Pierce Park’s owners to run the project. Pierce Park, he says, is the flagship of his business, which grosses about $400,000 a year. More than half of that goes to operating expenses, he said.
Nobles, 48, grew up in a San Diego housing project, the oldest of 11 children. After graduating from UCLA with a degree in political science, he worked as an adult education teacher in South-Central Los Angeles, ran a government-financed minority business program in the early 1970s and served as executive director of a Venice drug abuse center before accepting the job as manager at Pierce Park in 1977.
“I was hired to make the project work. I made it my business to know people,” Nobles said. “They had been promised things over and over again. We put our money where our mouth was, and I earned their respect.”
Praise From HUD
An initial infusion of $2.3 million in rehabilitation money from a low-interest government loan, followed by continued social programs, transformed the project into a showcase by the mid-1980s, HUD officials said.
“I can really say there is no comparison to Fred Nobles,” said Loretta Gillette, a HUD management specialist. “We expect decent, safe and sanitary housing, but he reaches to his tenants and gives them one-to-one contact. And that I think is what makes him unique.”
Nobles said he is “comfortable,” not rich, and is quick to point out that he drives a Honda, not a Mercedes and rents the home he, his wife, Aileen, and their 19-year-old daughter share in the Big Rock section of Malibu.
Still, it is a long way from Malibu to Pierce Park, where residents receive rental subsidies because their income is below the federal poverty level.
Nobles says he “feels little tugs” on his conscience when Pierce Park residents complain about housing problems. He is unsure at this point how much more he will allow his company to expand because he wants to preserve the personal touch that is characteristic of his management style.
“When Fred pulled himself away, I could feel a lack of interest among the tenants,” Gillette said.
The crime-watch group disbanded as things got better. The social and recreation programs dropped off, too.
Residents’ Fears
“It’s not like the old days anymore,” said Barbara Taylor, who led the crime-watch group years ago, before health problems curtailed her activities. “People aren’t motivated, and they are afraid again.”
“I understand why there may be feelings of abandonment,” Nobles said. “People miss what we once had going. But I’m not worried that we will ever slip back. The problems are small compared to what we confronted before.”
Nonetheless, Nobles is launching new programs to motivate tenant leaders to be strong enough to sustain a crime-watch group and activities without him.
For now, he is coming around several times a week, talking to people, walking through the project. It is clear to tenants that he means business.
On his way recently to inspect a new street cleaner, he spotted two teen-agers squatting on the grass, discreetly counting a wad of money. Quickly, one stuffed the cash in his pocket. They both stood and tipped their baseball caps to the approaching Nobles, saying almost in unison, “Good afternoon, Mr. Nobles.”
He acknowledged the teen-agers with a stern glance.
Nobles has met with local police to seek additional patrols at night and to grant officers’ permission to arrest loiterers for trespassing.
Last week, a new crime-watch group was formed, with different tenants taking leadership roles. A program director was hired to create recreational programs for youths. Already, the Western Los Angeles County Council of the Boy Scouts is setting up weeklong summer programs at the project, and Nobles is planning to hire a youth sports coordinator.
But the atmosphere could get worse before it gets better.
On Thursday, parents attending a meeting of the new crime-watch group were warned by police that their children may be “swept up” if they are found loitering near what police called “hot spots” in the project--places where drive-up drug deals are constant.
“I don’t like living here, but the truth is, I can’t afford another place,” said Johnson, a single parent. “We need reinforcement right now. But I think people realize we can’t depend on management for everything this time.”
