HOUSTON—We expect the basics from our neighbors — to mow the lawn, take out the trash, and generally keep their place up.
It’s not only about civic pride, it’s the law.
But when the City of Houston or Harris County is that neighbor, they’re not always following the same laws citizens are required to follow.
The 11 News Defenders analyzed three years' worth of violations written up by the City of Houston’s Neighborhood Protection Corps, a division of the Houston Police Department charged with enforcing local blight laws against overgrown weeds, junk motor vehicles and dangerous buildings. The analysis revealed more than 700 non-compliant properties, listed as owned by the City of Houston or Harris County agencies.
One of those is a jungle of an abandoned lot on the 4300 block of Bennington Street in northwest Houston.
The lot is right across the street from retiree Eileen Reese.
“It’s a health hazard, snakes and rats you name it,” Reese said.
Amid the overgrown weeds are campaign signs left over from the last local election. One candidate’s poster proclaims “leading by example.”
It makes no sense to Reese.
“When they come in they make owners clean up their property, but they’re not doing what they make other people do,” she said.
It’s the same City of Houston that spends millions of your tax dollars every year on its Neighborhood Protection Corps, which inspects, documents and writes up eyesore properties. But ironically, the city often ends up writing up itself or other local government agencies.
For example, city inspectors cited a Houston Independent School District building in the 2900 Block of Plum Creek Lane back in January of 2009. The violation for graffiti is still not corrected.
City inspectors slapped a dozen violations on a home in the 7800 block of Audubon Forest Drive nearly a year ago. It belongs to the Houston Housing Authority.
Even with one of the city’s blue-ribbon projects, there is a lack of attention to local blight laws. Houston Hope was one of former Mayor Bill White’s main housing initiatives, designed to clear away run-down properties and build new affordable housing on the lots.
But when it comes to overgrown weeds, Houston Hope needs help—with more than 400 Neighborhood Protection Corps violations on the books.
But Lynn Henson, administration manager with the City of Houston Planning and Development office, defended its property maintenance record.
Henson: “In the City of Houston, weeds grow very quickly.”
11 News: “And people are obligated under local law to cut them.”
Henson: “And we are responsive to cutting those lots.”
The definition of responsive? Mowing them once in the fall, and once in the spring, so 11 News had to ask: “Do you own a home?”
Henson: “I do.”
11 News: “Do you cut your lawn more than twice a year?”
Henson: “I do.”
11 News: “Why isn’t this city agency cutting it more than twice a year?”
Henson: “Well, we do have to be mindful of the city’s budget.”
But here’s the difference. If a citizen gets a blight violation and doesn’t take care of it, the city can take that property owner to court.
But the city won’t take itself -- or any other local government branch -- to court over this.
The result? No real enforcement. And in some cases, problems much, much bigger than weeds.
Case in point, drug activity just steps away from an elderly woman’s home in the 2600 block of Drew Street in the City’s Third Ward.
“Just the idea of them over there next door to you is scary,” said the woman, who out of fear, requested she not be identified.
“You’re scared to sit outside, you’re afraid to do anything,” she said.
A check of records show Houston police made 28 arrests, including several felony fugitives, between March 2008 and Sept. 2009. One police report called it a house “known for prostitution and drug usage.” The property, sitting in the shadow of Houston’s skyline, is littered with liquor bottles, some doubling as dope cooking devices. Inside, there are soiled mattresses, drug paraphernalia, condoms, and the smell of human waste.
“I think the people that own the property ought to tear it down so we can live in peace,” the neighbor said.
The owner then? Not the city of Houston, but this time, it was Harris County.
“The county has to apologize to those people,” said Jim Lemond, Chief Administrative Manager of Harris County’s Facility and Properties Management division.
“We don’t think it’s good government to let those properties sit that way,” Lemond said.
But according to Houston Neighborhood Protection records, there are hundreds sitting that way for months, sometimes even years.
How did it happen? They’re tax-delinquent properties that get put up for auction under court order. But if they don’t sell, it becomes the county’s obligation to maintain them. But Lemond admits, the county can’t even check them all.
“We have two inspectors whose primary function is to do many other things and not this,” Lemond said.
As for the violations the city writes, there’s another problem: The county claims for years, the city never told it about the violations.
“No that’s not acceptable. Obviously that’s not acceptable,” Lemond said.
He added that his office was puzzled when the city did send over a packet of violation notices in June 2009.
“What are these, and where did they come from and what’s this all about,” Lemond recalled of his reaction.
But Montecella Flaniken, Assistant Director of Field Operations with Neighborhood Protection Corps, maintains the city had been routinely e-mailing the county of violations all along.
11 News: “The county says the city was never telling them about these properties, is that true?”
Flaniken: “I don’t believe that’s true.”
11 News: “Why would he say that?”
Flaniken: “I would not know.”
11 News: "Can both branches of government be talking a little bit better here?”
Flaniken: “Communication can always be improved.”
All of it angers community organizers, like Jayne Junkin, with the Texas Organizing Project.
“It really is like the left hand doesn’t know what they right hand is doing,” Junkin said. “People want safe neighborhoods.”
When their neighbors are the county or city hall, she said, they expect leading by example, not leading like this.
“They’re fed up, they’re sick and tired, they tell us that they don’t have their voices heard, that no one listens to them,” Junkin said.
Harris County told 11 News it has cleaned up dozens of properties in violation, and is working with the City of Houston and the Houston Independent School District to draw from an inter-local fund to pay for maintenance of problem properties.
HISD said it did clean up the graffiti once last October at its building on Plum Creek Lane, but the graffiti has since reappeared. The Houston Housing Authority and the Land Assemblage Redevelopment Authority, which oversees Houston Hope properties, said it spends hundreds of thousands of dollars every year on upkeep and maintenance.
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