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View ProfilesPublished March 6, 2024 at 10:00 a.m.
Recent weeks have brought a flurry of attention to the safety debacle at Decker Towers, the Burlington Housing Authority high-rise for elderly and disabled residents. But so far, the 11-story building continues to serve as a de facto homeless shelter and a hub for drug use, leaving some residents afraid to venture from their apartments.
Since a February 14 Seven Days cover story depicted the plight of the building's low-income tenants, city leaders have been scrambling to show their concern and said they'll work with the housing authority on a plan to improve security.
Outgoing Mayor Miro Weinberger visited Decker Towers on February 25 — his birthday — for the first time since residents began raising concerns more than a year ago. Ten of 12 city councilors, too, have toured the building in recent weeks. They also invited Decker residents and housing authority officials to testify during a 90-minute city council hearing last week.
Meanwhile, a new, Weinberger-picked majority has assumed control of the housing authority's board of commissioners, which has begun to cobble together a plan of action that it will soon ask the city to help fund. As a first step, the housing authority hired the Chittenden County Sheriff's Department to conduct nightly sweeps of Decker's common areas and stairwells.
The surge of interest follows the Seven Days story that depicted the combustible situation inside Decker, where some vulnerable residents are barricading themselves inside their apartments and others have turned to vigilantism to combat near-constant trespassing by scores of people who can't find shelter, are addicted to drugs or both.
"I feel like Burlington finally woke up," tenant activist David Foss said after the February 26 council hearing.
Yet the most pressing questions remain unanswered: Who is going to pay for the around-the-clock security guards that tenants and housing authority leaders agree are needed to control entry to Decker? And, if the people who have sought the warmth of its stairwells are forced out, where are they expected to go in a city whose shelters are full?
As housing authority and city officials seek to put their recent clashes behind them and instead work cooperatively, the chaos inside Decker continues.
On February 17, Burlington police chased a wanted man through the hallways and wrestled him into custody after they say he dropped an open-blade knife during their pursuit. A few days later, cops arrested a woman on an unrelated warrant after they discovered her sleeping in a laundry room.
Last week, a resident named Brandon Luther, 32, confronted a couple of transient people in the building. An argument ensued, and eventually the two people disappeared into an interior stairwell. Luther followed them, cracked open the door to the fifth-floor stairwell and released a cloud of the pepper spray that he carries as part of a personal self-defense arsenal.
"I heard a scream," Luther said in an interview. "I thought maybe I got a junkie."
In fact, an 18-year-old janitor was standing behind the door. She called the police, and Luther was charged with assault. Luther, who pleaded not guilty, said he feels "absolutely fucking horrible" about the incident.
When Luther unwittingly hurt the woman, he was employing a technique that some Decker residents have quietly adopted in recent weeks. Residents have found that by spraying stairwell landings with the harmful irritants, they can deter squatters and drug users from using them for several hours, Luther explained to Seven Days. "It's a normal thing for us," he said. Seven Days previously reported a homeless woman's account of being hit with pepper spray while she was sleeping on a stairwell landing.
A more organized version of the "neighborhood watch" that tenants voted to create on February 8 has not begun its patrols, resident Cathy Foley said. The group is still developing its "rules of engagement" and arranging a training session for would-be patrollers. A volunteer recruitment poster was taped to the front doors this week. "Regardless of your age or physical ability, we can find a spot for you!" the poster reads.
"We want to do it right," Foley said.
Foley sees the neighborhood watch as a stand-in for a professional security detail that housing authority executive director Steven Murray has said his agency cannot afford on its own.
Nevertheless, a little more than a month ago, the agency hired a private firm, Censor Security, to conduct sweeps of the stairwells and hallways three times each night. Around the same time, Burlington police also pledged to conduct more walk-throughs of the building, during which they kick out people known to be trespassing and arrest those who have active warrants.
In late February, the housing authority agreed to pay for seven additional nightly walk-throughs: another three by Censor Security, which have not yet begun, and four by the Chittenden County Sheriff's Department, which began its patrols on February 28.
Sheriff Dan Gamelin said he offered the service, at more than $100 per hour, after learning that the housing authority had begun hiring some private security. One of Gamelin's deputies already patrols a nearby rail yard where homeless people sometimes sleep in boxcars, and the same deputy has added Decker to his circuit.
The walking patrols are helpful, housing authority officials say, but their effects, so far, have been limited and fleeting. People trespassing have learned how to evade officers and guards during their periodic rounds — or they simply leave and reenter the building a few minutes later.
On Tuesday morning, however, when Chittenden County Sheriff's Office Cpl. Jeffry Turner conducted his midnight patrol, the stairwells and common areas were unusually quiet. Turner stepped around some drug paraphernalia, clothes and a bottle of urine, but no one was sheltering in the stairwells at the time.
Unlike private security guards, Turner can make arrests and issue trespass notices on behalf of the housing authority. When someone loitering in a common area claims to be visiting a tenant, Turner said, he escorts the person to the tenant's unit to verify whether they are really an invited guest.
Turner was cautiously optimistic that, after one week on patrol, fewer people seemed to be using the stairwells overnight.
Bolstering the professional patrols was the quickest tangible step that the agency could take, housing authority board chair Jane Knodell said.
Knodell, a former city council president, and Weinberger's two newly appointed board members, Brian Lowe and Kirby Dunn, flexed some muscle during a February 27 meeting of the board. The trio sat together in a basement conference room at the agency's Main Street headquarters and made clear that the board would work cooperatively with the mayor's office.
They did not move to oust executive director Murray, who has criticized the mayor for not doing more to help the housing authority. Murray previously told Seven Days that Weinberger's appointments of Lowe and Dunn — and the mayor's decision not to reappoint longtime board chair Mike Knauer — were made in retaliation for his public criticisms of Burlington police.
Knodell, in an interview, said she believes Murray and his management team are up to the task of resolving problems at Decker. But she also said the board needs to provide more "oversight and accountability" of agency leaders than it has in years past.
"We needed to become a stronger board within the organization," Knodell said.
Murray and the mayor's office have been at odds over how to resolve the security problems at Decker. The mayor's team, led by Community & Economic Development Office director Brian Pine, wants the housing authority to better secure the building, such as by disabling a feature that allows infirm residents to buzz in a visitor without going downstairs. Murray wants more policing services and financial help.
The mayor had described Murray's most recent proposal to his office, which called for two 24-7 security guards at a cost of $600,000 to $800,000 per year without adopting the administration's ideas, as "kind of absurd." He is willing to consider some financial support for the housing authority, though his administration has not said how much.
The housing authority board is now revising Murray's initial proposal, giving renewed consideration to the mayor's suggestions. Knodell, however, agreed that stationary security guards — if not 24-7, at least some of the time — must anchor any funding deal between the housing authority and the city.
That could mean the city pays for physical improvements or capital projects, perhaps out of its housing trust fund, relieving pressure on the housing authority budget in the process. One idea that emerged from the February 27 board meeting: renovating the front entry to create a bulletproof booth where a security guard could act as a doorperson.
Knodell said the commissioners hope to submit a formal proposal to the mayor following a March 12 board meeting. At the same time, they're taking a crash course on the housing authority's complex budget. Fixing Decker, Knodell said, will not be cheap.
"We understand there needs to be a very significant increase in investment in the short term," she said.
The original print version of this article was headlined "The Decker Dilemma | Officials scramble to find security solutions for Burlington's embattled high-rise"
Tags: City, Burlington, Decker Towers, crime
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