Council Orders Review of Patrols at Housing Projects

Faced with a crime surge in public housing, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday ordered a review of how well the Housing Authority protects its residents.

Overall, crime has increased 21% in housing projects this year, while the number of Housing Authority police dropped from 76 to 47 officers in the last two years, officials said.

“We are very frustrated in the San Fernando Valley because of everything that is happening now,” said Sandra Obando, who heads a tenant group at San Fernando Gardens, where crime rose from 10 incidents last year to 34 by the end of June this year.

Rosa Ramon, another resident of the Pacoima complex, said outsiders try to sell everything from drugs and fake immigration papers.

“We want to protect our children,” Ramon said.

The motion by council President Alex Padilla directed the Housing Authority to report back on police deployment and to develop a plan to increase police protection in all city housing projects.

“We are experiencing a spike in crime, specifically in the public housing projects we have in Los Angeles,” Padilla said. “When we hear from our constituents in the housing projects about their concerns, about their fears, we have a duty to look into it.”

About 8,200 families live in the 17 city housing projects in Los Angeles.

Newly elected Councilwoman Janice Hahn, whose district includes one-third of the city’s public housing, said she is also alarmed by the rise in crime in the housing projects.

“It is a great concern to me, and something I have also heard regularly from residents, their concern about the rise of crime, their fear,” said Hahn, whose district includes Watts. Among all housing projects, Nickerson Gardens in Watts had the highest crime total. For the quarter ending June 30, the number of crimes reported rose to 159--including 23 aggravated assaults--from 114 in the same period last year.

Most of the housing projects are without agency patrols for as long as 12 hours at a time on weekends because there are not enough officers. The problem is a lack of federal funds, said Ed Griffin, director of planning at the Housing Authority.

“We are trying to cover the four [developments] most heavily impacted” by crime with larger teams, he said.

Padilla asked that the agency’s report include an examination of ways to improve communication and collaboration between the LAPD and Housing Authority police.

“I believe today that the communication, the relationship isn’t there to provide [protection] in a satisfactory manner,” Padilla told Griffin.

Hahn asked that the report also address complaints she has heard that LAPD officers are sometimes unwilling to respond to calls for services in the public housing projects, leaving them for the Housing Authority to handle.

LAPD officials said they do not avoid enforcing the law in public housing projects.

“I understand some residents feeling they are not getting the response they want, but it is absolutely not true,” said Sgt. John Pasquariello. “We respond to any crime. [The Housing Authority’s] resources are limited so we are usually the first response there.”