Neighborhood to take back control; starts with cleanup

Residents of Fremont Villa apartments and nearby neighborhoods want to take control of their streets.

Recently, they started a Neighborhood Watch program. Today, they are cleaning up trash from the streets and alleys.

On Monday, they march.

"We're tired of the drug dealers, prostitutes and violent criminals," organizer Earl White said.

Marchers will meet at the low-income apartment complex, 121 N. 15th St., and begin a walk at 5:30 p.m. that will take them down Ogden Avenue, Maryland Parkway, and Fremont and Bruce streets.

They're calling Monday's event "Take Back Our Neighborhood Night," a step they hope will lead to reducing crime in the area by focusing attention on the issue.

"This is really a grass-roots effort. There will be mothers, homemakers. You don't have your typical community activists. This is something new to them," said White, residence-services coordinator for the YMCA's northeast extension.

White, in addition to several other responsibilities such as Scoutmaster for an inner-urban troop of Boy Scouts, is adviser to the Fremont Villa Residents Council.

After a Metro Police representative explained what police and citizens could and couldn't do to combat crime, White said council members decided they would focus the public's attention on the problem.

"People like living in the area, they're just tired of drug dealers," White said. "They want to live in a drug-free area."

People are tired of not being able to walk to a nearby convenience store without seeing drug dealers on every corner, White said.

"We can't pull into an alley without seeing them," he said. "We're fed up with it. If you walk down Fremont, all you see is (drug dealers) walking around, waiting for customers."

Today, the residents council is holding hold a neighborhood cleanup.

"With the help of the city, we will clean up our alleys, beginning at 9 a.m.," White said.

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