Friday, April 3, 1987/The Battalion/Page 7
I Warped
by Scott McCullar
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They throw rocks through win-
iows. They break into houses and
Iteal things. They tear apart play-
ounds.
“They” are teen-age vandals, and
recently completed Texas A&M
tudy shows that they are the No. 1
lause of slum conditions in public
[lousing.
| Dr. Damien Ejigiri, researcher of
[irban and regional science, said the
liigher the number of teen-a^ers in a
[omplex, the higher the rate of van-
ialism and crime leading to the de-
elopment of slum housing.
Ejigiri is doing research for A&M,
Ithough not in an official capacity,
le received his doctorate from
&M in December and worked on
[lie study as part of In.s'gfraclii'at^ t'e*-
iearch.
“Whenever you have a liigher
umber of teen-agers roaming
[round in a complex, uncontrolled
and with no activity to employ them,
■bviously they will do a lot of dama
ge,” Ejigiri said.
■ One way to control the damage
ilie teen-agers do is to have a strong
lenant organization, he said.
I Slum housing has three compo-
Jents: government, management
Hnd tenants. T he political compo
nent of the study was ignored be-
[ause of the difficulty in controlling
ii, Ejigiri said. T he focus was primar
ily on the tenants themselves.
| “If we can get the tenants to do
[heir own part, then we’ll have a
Inoral base to argue, ‘Hey, govern
ment, we’ve done our part, now
[bateau you do?’ ” Ejigiri said.
| Bryan apartment residents, in-
[luding those living in Mockingbird
Run Apartments, and Houston
Ipartment residents were surveyed
Hast year from June to August, he
laid.
■ Those surveyed were unem
ployed tenants, tenants perpetually
on welfare, tenants with a high per-
Hentage of teen-agers, and tenants
•ho don’t have any input with man-
Igement.
I "In any public housing where you
slave a high number of tenants that
Ire unemployed, such public units
lasily deteriorate into slum hou-
ling,” Ejigiri said.
I Many poor people cannot main-
Bain a clean home, the researcher
laid. Some don’t understand basic
House cleaning habits, such as put-
ling trasli in a can instead of leaving
ii on the floor.
I “What I discovered was that many
Hf them view the public housing as
[fiot having any kind of commitment
“Whenever you have a
higher number of teen
agers roaming around in a
complex, uncontrolled
and with no activity to em
ploy them, obviously they
will do a lot of damage. ”
— Dr. Damien Ejigiri,
> "researcher of urban
and regional science
that had a tenant organization were
dramatically dif ferent.
“The same number of teen-agers
we had in ‘Apartment X,’ where
crime was very high, was very low,
almost with the same demographic
factors,” he said.
The difference was that there was
a very effective tenant organization
“What I discovered was
that many of them view
the public housing as not
having any kind of com
mitment that it is their
house. ... I never heard
anyone of them say, ‘This
is my house. This is my
apartment.’ ”
— Dr. Damien Ejigiri
formed by the tenants themselves,
Ejigiri explained.
“When I spoke with a tenant, he
said, ‘Listen, this is our home. We
have very stiff penalties for any per
son who vandalizes,’ ” Ejigiri said.
Each block has a leader who keeps
an eye on what is happening on that
block, he said. The leaders share a
little power with the management,
which makes them f eel as if they are
com ribuling to their complex.
“ff 'you give them a little bit of
power and say, ‘Hey, look, this is
your apartment, my friend, If it goes
down, you go down. If it’s up, you’re
up,’ ” Ejigiri said, “they will police
themselves far more than the au
thorities will ever do.”
The leaders monitor tenants
going in and out. Parents are noti
fied and a stiff fine is slapped on
them if their teen-ager is vandaliz
ing. This forces them to discipline
their children, Ejigiri said.
Those caught several times are
ejected from the complex by the ten
ants themselves, not the managers.
Eligiri said this gives the tenants
some degree of control.
An effective tenant organization
reduces the rate of crime being com
mitted within the complex, he said.
But other complexes don’t have ten
ant organizations because they lack
needed organizational skills.
“It might sound simple to edu
cated people, but it is very confusing
to people who aren’t well-educated
who have never formed a group be
fore,” Ejigiri said. “They don’t un
derstand the concept of forming a
team to fight for their own good.”
The tenants need someone to or
ganize them, lecture them, prod
them, and involve them, he said. He
said tenants need to understand
there is something at stake.
“Some managers and housing au
thorities feel that tenants, if allowed
to form, might become very power
ful and compete with them,” he said.
Managers shouldn’t object to pro
jects which would help keep a com
plex clean and vandal-free, Ejigiri
said. Most of the managers don’t
even live in the complex because the
threat of vandalism is too great.
The tenants would only be shar
ing power at a very limited level, he
said.
“This is where most of them live
out their lives and, therefore, they
should have a say,” Ejigiri said. “Give
them something to contribute.”
Some of the tenants even men
tioned home ownership.
“Here is their American dream,”
Ejigiri said. “It’s not called a middle-
or upper-class dream.”
Ejigiri suggests that by having ten
ants fulfill requirements of behav
ing, working and cleaning, they
could graduate to a level of owning
an affordable home, thereby freeing
the government from looking after
them for the rest of their lives.
“I’m saying, ‘Hey, let’s draw a
line,’ ” Ejigiri said. “There should
be a time when government should
no longer be involved. ... If the cost
of giving them an opportunity to
share in an American dream is possi
ble, why not go for it?”
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