TAKE A WALK ON HER STREETS

Vikki Martin is the force behind the crime-fighting Ferguson Road Initiative, which has become a national model for community building

In 1992, someone stole Vikki Martin9s bike out of her garage in the Claremont neighborhood.

AIt ticked me off, so I started a crime watch,D she says.

That neighborhood crime watch eventually blossomed into the Ferguson Road Initiative, the crime-fighting, community-building organization in East Dallas that has become a national example of how to build a community.

Since the Ferguson Road Initiative was established in 1998, violent crime has dropped 70 percent, and overall crime has dropped about 40 percent in the area that now includes 20 neighborhood associations, including Little Forest Hills and Enclave at WhiteRock.

Crime reduction has accelerated especially since 2000, when the group received a Department of Justice grant for a Weed & Seed program.

AWe9re way ahead of the rest of DallasD on crime reduction, says Kerry Goodwin, the Ferguson Road Initiative9s Weed & Seed coordinator.

The federal Weed & Seed program AweedsD out crime and filth, and AseedsD beds of hope in the community.

AWe identify crime trends and address them before they get out of hand,D Goodwin says. AWe clean up trash in the schools, and make an effort to let schools know we9re there.D is now the favored spot to become the White Rock Hills recreation center and library.

After nearly three years of battling developers, the Claremont neighborhood and the Ferguson Road Initiative finally saw the Rosewood Apartments demolished.

Martin and the Ferguson Road Initiative have fought absentee landlords and the owners of sleazy, drugand prostitute-infested motels in the area surrounding Buckner from Oates to Interstate 30, which is known as HTwo PointsK.

When Martin notices that a motel or apartment complex has become a boil on the community, she will go after it for code violations, and make sure that police are training their attention on it, using grant money to pay police overtime.

Crime has gone down in the Two Points area for the first time in 10 years, thanks to their efforts.

HEveryone has a right to live in a clean, safe place,K she says. HYou shouldnQt have to be afraid to go out after dark. You shouldnQt be afraid to walk in the park.K

Martin has fought developers, who wanted to build apartments in the area, because the elementary schools are crowded R Truitt Elementary is at 200 percent capacity, for example R and the community cannot support new family populations.

Some developers have worked with the Ferguson Road Initiative in finding a compromise. One developer, who wanted to put in an upscale apartment complex, for example, wound up restricting the residential development to seniors only so that it wouldnQt stress the schools. And the complex is 100 percent leased.

Southwest Housing, the company that was at the center of a corruption scandal at City Hall a few years ago, bought the White Rock Town Homes on Ferguson Road just before that scandal broke. The property was abandoned, the windows were boarded up, and it looked like the property might be doomed to become a haven for unsavory activities. But then Wolcott Development bought the complex and invested in it.

“They were completely committed to our effort,” Martin says.

Now the Ferguson Road Initiative has its offices in the complex, which is home to 300 low-income families, mostly women and children.

Deputy Chief Tom Lawrence of the Dallas Northeast Police substation says he “would like to take credit” for crime reduction in the area, and officers have put in a lot of work there, but it’s really been the work of Martin and the community that has cleaned it up.

Improving the neighborhood really comes down to residents taking responsibility for their own neighborhoods, Martin says.

“You can’t have a police officer behind every stop sign,” Martin says. “But you can have residents who are vigilant.”

Martin recently won the “community motivator award” from the Annual Governor’s Volunteer Awards for her success in rallying neighbors to get behind her cause.

She’s proud of the award, and she’s proud of the changes that the Ferguson Road Initiative has spawned. But there’s still work to do, and she wants everyone in the White Rock Lake area to know it. Individuals and businesses should donate and get involved, she says.

“We need their help,” she says. “We always look at the pretty side of the lake, and we’re not paying attention to what’s happening on the other side.”

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Matthew Glenn grew up in East Dallas and went abroad as soon as he could.

The 2003 Woodrow Wilson High School grad went to Shanghai after college and explored as much of the continent as possible in the two years he was there, including Thailand, Tibet and Korea. But last summer, he got the chance of a globetrotter’s lifetime. Having just been accepted to the South Texas College of Law, he heard about a film project in Africa.

The crew, sponsored by a nonprofit organization called What Took You So Long?, would travel for several months throughout Africa, documenting grassroots organizations fighting against poverty and for change in health and education. They would use public transportation, working and eating with the locals and living as much like them as possible.

“I was about to start law school, and I realized that my life was going to be boring and repetitive for many years to come,” he says.

So he decided to go for it.

The director asked Glenn to come on board, and he recruited a photographer friend, Jessica Sherrell, who lives in East Dallas.

There was a general plan to move north to south, but day-to-day, it was spontaneous, Glenn says.

>We were constantly moving because the goal was to go from Morocco to South Africa in a few months,F he says.

>So every day was a new place, a new food, a new language spoken.F

The diversity of cultures was one surprising aspect of the trip. Every town had its own culture. And the food varied wildly from place to place. In one town, the crew ate sandwiches filled with a concoction made from beetles.

>One guy on our team loved it,F Glenn says. >He kept craving these bug sandwiches.F

The trip was hard, and the travelers often would be tired, dry, hungry and unwashed. Their vehicles often broke down, and they hopped trains, hitchhiked and camped in the desert. But everywhere they went, people were eager to show hospitality and exchange ideas.

>The people we stayed with all gave us free housing, free food,F Glenn says. >The hospitality in Africa is on another level. So we wanted to give back by telling their story. WeNre producing and editing film from the Africa expedition, and we hope to make a feature-length movie.F

The goal is to create awareness about what Africans are doing to improve their neighborhoods, cities and nations in hopes that they will gain access to money and other resources they wouldnNt otherwise get. The film also could be a chance for grassroots organizations in Africa to see how others are dealing with similar situations.

?We would ask everyone pretty much the same questions,G he says. ?And it was really interesting, when you were traveling constantly, to see how those answers changed and see the similarities and differences. And hopefully there will be some answer to these pressing problems in these communities.G

Even though the Africa trip was lifechanging for Glenn, he says he rarely talks about it because most Americans have no interest in Africa, and even if they do, they have no idea what the continent is really like. And itJs hard to change peopleJs preconditioned ideas aboutAfrica, he says.

?It was really hard. A lot of people wouldnJt want to do it. But thatJs how people there live every day,G Glenn says.

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