Housing Authority CEO Looks To Residents To Help Curb Gun Violence
Police are investigating the shooting death of a man Thursday night in Birmingham’s Tom Brown Village, just two days after another public housing shooting in Gate City, which claimed the life of 33-year-old Andreas Kashif Brown. Such incidents are not uncommon. But as Birmingham Housing Authority CEO Michael Lundy wraps up his first year on the job, he’s looking to make public housing safer.
More than 5,000 families live in Birmingham public housing. Lundy says too many residents are either killed, wounded or affected by guns and violence.
“Part of it is the fact that some would-be criminals have a sense of a safe haven when they go to certain communities because they feel comfortable in being able to perpetrate some of their criminal activities,” Lundy says. “We’re here to say that day has passed us by.”
Lundy came to Birmingham from Huntsville. Here he’s turning to residents of public housing to help battle the crime and violence with simple measures.
“What we’ve asked the residents to do is to volunteer information, to be eyes and ears to our police patrols and to the housing authority when you see negative activity in the community,” Lundy says.
But he acknowledges snitching in the inner city isn’t popular. At a recent community forum in the Kingston community, Eldridge Knighton had a message for those who might think about causing trouble around the place he calls home.
“I’m not fixing to lose my apartment for you because I need some place for me to stay,” Knighton says. “We may not have the best, but you’ve got a roof over your head.”
Residents of public housing who get nabbed for illegal activity can get kicked out. And if friends or family come over and break the law, that could also lead to eviction.
Lundy says guns are often the source of the problem. So the Housing Authority recently offered money in exchange for guns. The recent gun buyback in Kingston and Gate City netted 30 weapons.
“We received .22 calibers, .45, .44 calibers, pumps. We received them all,” says Windham Sommerville, property manager at Gate City. “They could be fired by mistake or be in the wrong hands of someone.”
He says it has really helped to get some illegal weapons off the street.
Housing officials say registered weapons stored safely are okay. Resident Betty Covington says she’s holding on to her registered gun for her own protection.
“I’ve had it since 1997 and I haven’t had to use it, and thank God,” Covington says.
Housing officials say if they meet their goal of providing safe and clean public housing, Covington can keep her gun, and people with illegal weapons will be kept out of public housing.
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