Neighborhood Turns Around
By Stephen Wall, Staff Writer, San Bernardino Sun

RIALTO - Veada Pinkney remembers the dark days of one of the city's worst neighborhoods.

She moved into the crime-plagued neighborhood at Willow Avenue and Winchester Drive in 2003.

"It was a mess," said Pinkney, a 35-year-old mother of two. "There was a lot of shooting and everything. When I moved here, the first thing I said was, `I've got to get out of here."'

Five years later, gone are the trash, graffiti, boarded-up windows, exposed electrical wiring and dirty water in the swimming pool.

The blight has been replaced with fresh paint, as well as new floors, roofs, appliances, heating and cooling systems and wooden cabinets.

Pinkney stayed despite the problems.

On Friday, she joined dignitaries who celebrated the neighborhood's turnaround.

"I can breathe now. I feel at peace," said Pinkney, who last year moved out of her old residence into a new apartment in the neighborhood.

City, county and state officials participated in a tour of the four-block neighborhood formerly known as Willow- Winchester - now called Citrus Grove of Rialto.

The neighborhood transformation came as a result of a $37 million revitalization project by the city and National Community Renaissance, an affordable housing nonprofit.

Rialto invested about $15 million into the project, which took money from the state, San Bernardino County and federal tax-credit programs.

In 2005, the nonprofit and Rialto started redeveloping the aging neighborhood of deteriorating condominiums iinto 152 refurbished affordable apartments.

As the project was getting off the ground, most of the residents either left voluntarily or were evicted from the neighborhood for violating new rules designed to keep the area clean and safe.

The project is being built in phases, so the 26 families living there did not have to move elsewhere during construction.

National Community Renaissance and the city Redevelopment Agency bought the units - most of which had become rentals owned by more than 90 absentee landlords.

The lack of cohesive management left units in disrepair and inconsistent rental qualifications for tenants.

In the past, Willow-Winchester and the surrounding area each year generated the highest number of Rialto 's police service calls, officials said.

"Many years ago, you couldn't come into the area because it was infested with crime, drugs and gangs," Mayor Grace Vargas said Friday. "Moms couldn't tell their kids they could go outside and play because it was too dangerous."

Since the nonprofit took over ownership in 2005, the situation has dramatically improved, officials said.

Police Chief Mark Kling said calls for police service dropped from 1,839 in 2005 to 647 in 2007.

Violent crime in the area plunged 79 percent and overall crime fell 68 percent in that period, officials said.

"This was our substation at Willow-Winchester," Kling said, speaking in front of a refurbished apartment near the spot where a 16-year-old boy was fatally shot in 2005. "To have to put a substation in a neighborhood is totally unacceptable."

Police Lt. Joe Cirilo said residents used to complain about slow police response times in other parts of the city because so many resources were devoted to quelling violence in the neighborhood.

"We've taken resources we had to deploy here and redistributed them to the rest of the city," Kling said.

The makeover of the neighborhood is in its final stages.

Fifty of the 152 two- and three-bedroom apartments are occupied. The rest should be filled by July.

Rents are $351 to $864 per month.

To qualify, the average gross annual income for a family of four cannot exceed $29,600.

Tenants have to agree to take care of their units and not break any laws.

"We have a zero-tolerance policy toward crime and drugs," said Teri Hoerntlein, regional property manager for National Community Renaissance.

Residents will receive a variety of social services at a community center in the middle of the neighborhood.

When the center opens in June, a county Head Start program, after-school programs, tutoring, day care, adult education and other services will be available.

Jeffrey Burum, chairman and founder of National Community Renaissance, said the transformed neighborhood can become a model of hope for other cities.

"Rialto is putting this project on the map for the rest of California," state Sen. Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, said during the tour.