04:49 PM CST on Tuesday, January 24, 2006

By Wendell Edwards / 11 News

A new program has put more Houston Police officers out on the streets, and it’s making a difference according to Houston's mayor.

Houston policeman Jeffrey Oliver has only been on the force for three years, but in that short time he said he’s seen it all.

“You have a lot more aggravated robberies, carjackings, a lot of homicides a lot of shootings in progress... that we respond to out here,” Officer Oliver said.

He’s a part of the Neighborhood Enforcement Team Task force program.

“Working on the west side and coming over here is like night and day,” he said.

It’s a program that has put the equivalent of 150 additional officers on the street by paying overtime.

The N.E.T.T. Program is not even a month old yet, and Mayor Bill White said there is proof that it is working.

In the two and half weeks since it started, police have written more than 900 citations and arrested 169 people. That’s an average of 10 arrests a day.

“It’s a good start,” said community activist Jim Meyer. “This neighborhood has always been understaffed.”

Meyer lives in southwest Houston.

For the past three years, he’s been trying to get some abandoned condostorn down.

He said they are a haven for crime.

“When you have a slab, you don’t have squatters,” Meyer said. “You don’t have prostitutes hanging out. You don’t have drug dealers. They’ll go somewhere else.”

And he said that is where police come in. He said police need to keep hitting the streets to keep crime out of the community.