Before the managers of Trailside Apartments & Townhomes in Albert Lea remodeled and joined the city’s new Safe & Crime-Free Rental Housing Program, they could describe their property as one with a lot of crime.

“We had police here every night, a couple times a night,” said Manager Jack Potts.

However, that’s not the case any longer.

Potts said people who live in the complex, off East Front Street, are happier and feel more secure about where they live.

“I think it’s changed the whole complexion of this complex,” said Albert Lea Police Cpl. Tim Matson. “We had drug sales, we had drive-by shootings, we had a stabbing and always vandalism there.”

Matson said police officers began training in the summer of 2006 for the Safe & Crime Free Rental Housing Program.

“We wanted to put a program in place right along the community policing lines,” Matson said. “Just because you live in a rental property doesn’t mean you have to have less than a homeowner. You have the same concerns.”

He said the program has proven to not only reduce crime but to also improve the quality of life.

Thus far, Trailside is the first and only rental property that has completed the program; however, the Police Department hopes to do its next round of Safe & Crime-Free Rental Housing training in July. Any rental property can apply, whether it’s a complex with dozens of apartments or a single-family home.

The Safe & Crime-Free Rental Housing Program is a multi-phase program for all rental property owners and managers where they work with their local police in screening tenant applications and improving security issues.

How is the program organized?

According to the city’s website, if a rental property owner or property manager wants to obtain and maintain certification in the Safe & Crime-Free Rental Housing Program, they must complete and implement four components within two years after they apply to the program.

The first phase includes training property owners and managers about good tenant screening and how to remove criminal tenants with the use of a Safe & Crime-Free Rental Housing lease addendum.

Matson said the Police Department can provide an incident history of a tenant from their previous addresses to find out if they’ve had contact with police in the past.
The training also incorporates topics such as manager and owner policies, unlawful detainers and evictions, to name a few.

Matson said the training in 2009 included presentations from the fire department, an officer from the St. Cloud Police Department, representatives from the Drug Task Force, and other deputies and officers on various topics.

Housing and Redevelopment Authority Executive Director Jon Ford also spoke.

“We give them all the tools to use,” Matson said.

The second phase requires rental properties to meet eight basic safety requirements, including using appropriate landscaping that does not block visibility, making sure that all address numbers are visible from the street with the use of at least 4-inch numbers, complying with minimum housing code requirements, and providing adequate security lighting to illuminate grounds, to name a few.

It’s basically crime prevention through environmental design.

The third phase requires property managers and owners to provide training from the police department for their tenants every 12 months about crime concerns and crime prevention, including the application of a neighborhood watch program.

Lastly, the fourth phase includes the implementation and enforcement of the Safe & Crime-Free Rental Housing lease addendum.

After property owners and managers have completed these components, they attend annual retraining classes and are required to keep up with all the security standards.

“A lot of being crime-free is that you have to get your neighbors involved with each other,” Potts said. “It’s kind of like a neighborhood watch team. They watch out for each other.”

He said when Lloyd Management took over the apartment complex in 2006 and started remodeling in 2007, some of the things that had to be done to comply with the Safe & Crime-Free program were to improve the lighting in the parking lots and common areas, cut bushes to a certain height to improve visibility, install peepholes out the door of every residence to allow for improved security and to install cameras in all the common areas, to name a few.

A curfew was also set to 9:30 p.m., when everyone has to be off the common areas, Potts said.

In return for completing the program, the apartments’ managers work closely with the police in prevention of crime.

Potts said every night officers walk through the grounds, and there have been very few, if any, problems.

“If people know you’re going to enforce the laws, they won’t do anything,” Jack Potts’ wife, Krys, said.

Sometimes when people come into fill out an application and find out it’s a crime-free facility, they turn around and walk away.

“Then you really know you didn’t want them there anyway,” she said.

To get involved with the program contact Matson by phone at 377-5154 or by e-mail at tim.matson@co.freeborn.mn.us.