Tag: neighbors

I’m supposed to be collecting signatures to try to open the Dunbar High School track to residents. Our Dear Mayor Fenty gets to run on the track in the mornings, it would be nice if residents had the option to do so as well. In a brief shot of energy, as I’m still recovering from a cold, I grabbed the petition forms and hit the block. The first group of people were some neighbors who several months ago had collected signatures for speed humps for our block. It’s been a while since anyone has heard anything about the progress of the humps. So that tempers/ clouds my perception of how useful the Dunbar petition will be. While collecting I was able to reconnect with neighbors I haven’t seen for a while because in Winter we all hide out, so this was an opportunity to catch up.
So far everyone is still employed! Woot!
However, with the few warm days we’ve had we’ve noticed our friendly neighborhood drug dealers (who I thought had left) back scoping out the corners. Looking at it from with a long view, things have gotten better. But not so much better that the block is drug free. It depresses me that there is still something about neighborhood that makes it an environment that the dealers think they can still profit around here.
As a neighborhood we’ve chipped away at the things that would make it too easy for the dealers. We’ve gotten residential parking for many of the blocks, which is annoying when you have long term guests and short term roommates. We call the cops. We clean up and eliminated most of the opportunities for dumping, as huge piles of trash make for good drug stashes. We work with the city’s elected officials and its agencies. We voted and contributed to campaigns. We turned on our front porch lights to brighten the block and reported street lights that were out so dealers would have less dark to hide in.
Not a credit to the neighbors but a change that makes the neighborhood less welcoming to dealers is there are fewer vacant houses and shells. Despite the slow down in housing, there has been a slight increase in owner occupied housing on my block, with a promise of more owner occupiers to come. More people to fight the good fight, or at least not be part of the problem. Though not so great for affordable housing, the amount of market rate rentals have outnumbered the “Section 8” houses. I hate to say that some of our drug fighting problems can be linked to a few of the “Section 8” houses. There is probably now only one or two houses on the block where the boyz may find safe harbor. It will be a brighter day when that number is 0.
A friend of mine who visits occasionally tell me how the neighborhood gets better and better in little increments. A new paint job here, a cleaned up yard there and fewer dealers on the corner.
Maybe in the near future we’ll have our street humps and access to the Dunbar track, and when the dealers come around to scope out the block they’ll decide it’s no good and move on.

Despite the fact that the individual in question moved, well his mother moved, a month or so ago, he still haunts the block like he still lives there. The individual is a teenager who hangs out with the crowd of other males wandering the streets. Occasionally, they will hang in one spot.
They used to hang out in the yard of the house where he used to live, but the owner put up a no trespassing sign, well something more detailed than just “NO TRESSPASSING” but with the same gist. This helped when calling the cops because before, the cruiser would slowly drive by, look at them, then speed off. Big whoop. Now the sign is there in the window, they don’t hold court in the yard no more.
Last night they opted to hang in front of B. and IT’s house. I was home playing CIV III when I heard the crowd. I came out because I was concerned. Sometimes B. leaves his bike out on the sidewalk. He locks it, but they were all leaning in the spot where he leaves it. So I came out and decided that my yard needed attention.
I don’t care for confrontation, unless you’re on my fence then I’ll say something, and so I did not speak to the crowd. I just puttered. Visible, noticeable, puttering. If needed, I could have engaged in my impression of loudmouth bubbie lawyer and get on my cell and scream like a crazy person. It is my front yard and I can do whatever the hell I want. Just then some neighbors came walking by, an end to their evening constitutional and we had a chat while the group of young men sauntered away. Seconds later, another neighbor came out and we gave a friendly holler at each other. We stayed out there till the crowd had settled down on the other, deserted end of the block.

I want to note it, but I’m not too sure about it. A neighborhood character who I used to call Drama Mamma (then dropped the name when the blog readership when up) moved. I think she moved. There was a U-Haul, and the lights haven’t been on for a few days. The landlord has been trying to sell the house and there is little love between him and DM. She may be gone, however, she forgot to tell some relatives she relocated (if she did relocate) and they’ve been knocking.
Neighborhood characters do make the place interesting. However, sometimes it is a kind of interesting that gets tiresome and occasionally dangerous. We are not out of neighborhood characters on the block, however the adults (kids whole ‘nother package of nuts) weren’t as out there as she and her associates were. So with the exception of buppie lawyers who like to wildly emote with their cell phones and the screaming kids, the block may get quieter.