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I am 72 years old and reading this all is the same repeat story of what I heard as a child. We were ok in Gary for years, then we did the white flight to Merrillville. My Father bought a house right next to the high school. I walked through my backyard into the side door of the High School. Kept that house until 15 years ago, sold it and really did a flight to Northern California.
Crown Point is a nice city but just to close to Merrillville-since I am one of those Flighters as someone here said I would recommend to not buy property in CP because I believe this movie has been played a few times with the same ending. If I still lived in CP I would move to Valpo or even Bloomington...
What I find interesting is that although The Times published this article, they did not post the article on their Facebook page...Crown Point police seek tips about robberies. With the way social media reaches people these days, posting to their Facebook page is important...just like they did with the ATM tampering matter in Saint John & Hammond.
When something happens in Munster, the Times posts the article on Facebook and it usually has HUNDREDS of comments because people know its truly a shock...some folks seem to wish things would happen there in order to "bring the town off its high horse". Almost the same thing in Tri-Town. But I have a feeling that with CP growth and popularity, the Times (which also has an office there) might be in cahoots with CP city officials/mayor to make sure the image of the city is as polished as possible especially with the city being populated by mostly white-flighters from Merrillville and some other areas and way more susceptible to flight than Munster and other towns are.
What I find interesting is that although The Times published this article, they did not post the article on their Facebook page...Crown Point police seek tips about robberies. With the way social media reaches people these days, posting to their Facebook page is important...just like they did with the ATM tampering matter in Saint John & Hammond.
When something happens in Munster, the Times posts the article on Facebook and it usually has HUNDREDS of comments because people know its truly a shock...some folks seem to wish things would happen there in order to "bring the town off its high horse". Almost the same thing in Tri-Town. But I have a feeling that with CP growth and popularity, the Times (which also has an office there) might be in cahoots with CP city officials/mayor to make sure the image of the city is as polished as possible especially with the city being populated by mostly white-flighters from Merrillville and some other areas and way more susceptible to flight than Munster and other towns are.
The Times CP office is at 2800 N Main St which is in Ross Twp and right down the road from both of these robberies. Interesting how they didn't post anything, and neither did the NWI Crime Watch FB page, which usually covers things pretty well on there.
What do people think? Will it follow the path of Munster or Merrillville?
Will it remain desirable or it will it see declines?
As long as CP permits Section 8 housing, the decline of that beautiful little town will decline. Born and raised in CP, I am appalled at the crime that is occurring. Are there any safe spaces anymore?
Watching what is going on in Michigan City and LaPorte, the crime came in through the I-94 corridor and the battle continues against the drugs and criminals from Chicago and Gary. Allowing hundreds of Section 8 apartments encouraged this influx of criminals and the schools are suffering. Crown Point: Beware. You reap what you sow.
As long as CP permits Section 8 housing, the decline of that beautiful little town will decline. Born and raised in CP, I am appalled at the crime that is occurring. Are there any safe spaces anymore?
Watching what is going on in Michigan City and LaPorte, the crime came in through the I-94 corridor and the battle continues against the drugs and criminals from Chicago and Gary. Allowing hundreds of Section 8 apartments encouraged this influx of criminals and the schools are suffering. Crown Point: Beware. You reap what you sow.
You must be confusing "section 8" with "low-income housing". A municipality cannot legally determine whether a landlord accepts housing choice vouchers (aka "section 8"). Municipalities also legally have to have "affordable housing" components included in their planning. This does not mean low-income housing necessarily. CP pretty much already satisfies the "affordable part" as many of their apartments are generally affordable. However, if a developer comes in and decides they want to develop land that is zoned already to accommodate residential and they choose to make it affordable, as long as they are within design guidelines, they cannot legally be prevented from doing so UNLESS municipalities zone areas as Planned Unit Developments (which offer the municipality more control). In many other places such as Munster, the main thing preventing affordable housing from being developed is that land prices are at a premium so even with the tax credits usually offered to those developers, it would not make sense financially to build low-income housing there or to even purchase existing housing to convert to low-income. Now in Crown Point where land is more readily available, this is more of a threat.
But let's also be clear - while a lot of crime has been influenced from outsiders, CP has a lot of homegrown criminals and terrorists. Not everything can be blamed on Chicago, Gary, and Merrillville.
Okay...how about everyone take a step back and reread this thread replacing the words "white flight" with "racism" and "white flighters" with "racists" because under the current economic circumstances of the region that is absolutely the issue at hand here.
STOP KIDDING YOURSELVES!
Can racism destroy a soild middle class community...ABSOLUTELY!!!
What people can't seem to fully grasp is the responsibility for this falls on the people who make the choice to run rather than invest in their community.
You must be confusing "section 8" with "low-income housing". A municipality cannot legally determine whether a landlord accepts housing choice vouchers (aka "section 8"). Municipalities also legally have to have "affordable housing" components included in their planning. This does not mean low-income housing necessarily. CP pretty much already satisfies the "affordable part" as many of their apartments are generally affordable. However, if a developer comes in and decides they want to develop land that is zoned already to accommodate residential and they choose to make it affordable, as long as they are within design guidelines, they cannot legally be prevented from doing so UNLESS municipalities zone areas as Planned Unit Developments (which offer the municipality more control). In many other places such as Munster, the main thing preventing affordable housing from being developed is that land prices are at a premium so even with the tax credits usually offered to those developers, it would not make sense financially to build low-income housing there or to even purchase existing housing to convert to low-income. Now in Crown Point where land is more readily available, this is more of a threat.
But let's also be clear - while a lot of crime has been influenced from outsiders, CP has a lot of homegrown criminals and terrorists. Not everything can be blamed on Chicago, Gary, and Merrillville.
After quite some research, there is no difference between "low-income housing" and Section 8 housing. It is one and the same. Applicants need proper ID and an income not to exceed 50% of same-job incomes by others. "Affordable" housing is determined by the owners and by what the "traffic will bear".
Land developers MUST have local approval to build Section 8 PUD housing as it may impact and impede many facilities such as fire, police, schools, water and sewer and traffic flow. A simple real estate class will explain that.
Having lived in the area for many, many years, I have seen the influx of crime coming in on the I-94 corridor. Locally, it has egregiously impacted our schools whereby test scores have dropped precipitously over the past 10 years and graduation levels have dropped. Whereas, they never "policed" the schools before, a uniformed officer is now present at all times AND he is kept very busy. And, whereas, murders and robberies were a rarity, they are now common and there is a backlog in the court system.
I would hope that Crown Point would not follow the example of nearby towns experiencing this intrusion of crime as this criminal behavior began and proliferated with low income/Section 8 housing.
Okay...how about everyone take a step back and reread this thread replacing the words "white flight" with "racism" and "white flighters" with "racists" because under the current economic circumstances of the region that is absolutely the issue at hand here.
STOP KIDDING YOURSELVES!
Can racism destroy a soild middle class community...ABSOLUTELY!!!
What people can't seem to fully grasp is the responsibility for this falls on the people who make the choice to run rather than invest in their community.
Call it whatever you want, but we've seen this movie play out time and time again. A solid white, crime-free neighborhood starts taking in trash and before you know it the schools go to hell, crime rises and property values drop. Places like the South Side of Chicago, Riverdale, Harvey, Hazel Crest, Calumet City, Dolton, Merrillville, etc. all used to be really nice places to live. Would you want to live there today?
So why can't these communities remain stable after white people flee and why is it somehow the responsibility of white people to stick around? It's a free country after all. When these communities were all white, crime was low, schools were rated high and property values were on the rise, but when they transition to black, they collapse. Why? Seriously, Why? Maybe the problem isn't the white people fleeing, but a cultural issue within the black community? I realize that's a tough pill to swallow, but it is what it is unless you have a plausible explanation as to why the South Side of Chicago all the way to Merrillville has gone to hell over the last 50 years?
And after seeing this occur over and over and over, you suggest that white people should just suck it up and stick around?
After quite some research, there is no difference between "low-income housing" and Section 8 housing. It is one and the same. Applicants need proper ID and an income not to exceed 50% of same-job incomes by others. "Affordable" housing is determined by the owners and by what the "traffic will bear".
Land developers MUST have local approval to build Section 8 PUD housing as it may impact and impede many facilities such as fire, police, schools, water and sewer and traffic flow. A simple real estate class will explain that.
Having lived in the area for many, many years, I have seen the influx of crime coming in on the I-94 corridor. Locally, it has egregiously impacted our schools whereby test scores have dropped precipitously over the past 10 years and graduation levels have dropped. Whereas, they never "policed" the schools before, a uniformed officer is now present at all times AND he is kept very busy. And, whereas, murders and robberies were a rarity, they are now common and there is a backlog in the court system.
I would hope that Crown Point would not follow the example of nearby towns experiencing this intrusion of crime as this criminal behavior began and proliferated with low income/Section 8 housing.
Section 8 can either be tenant-based (which most is and allows tenants to move anywhere and even apply monthly vouchers towards the purchase of a home) or project-based (where a developer can reserve some units dedicated to Section 8 aka "The Projects"). When I was talking about "low-income" I was referring to developments that are essentially 100% project-based Section 8. While people and municipalities do care about whether projects may have section 8 or not due to horror stories associated with Section 8, on a LEGAL basis, the only factor that municipalities can use to deny projects are how it impacts various community services as you stated whether Section 8 will be part of the development or not. However, if a community explicitly states "We do not want section 8" they may have a lawsuit on their hands. Notice, communities will say "We do not want more multi-family housing" but they will be careful not to specify "section 8" because that is housing discrimination.
On a fundamental basis, whether section 8 or not, the construction of a multi-family dwelling is going to cause the use of municipal services to increase. However, most of the growth in housing choice vouchers in NWI has not been due to the construction of projects specifically for section 8. Most of the growth in Section 8 has been with the use of tenant-based vouchers. So if you want to blame anything for the increase, blame your neighbors whom have rented out their homes to Section 8 holders. Landlord participation in Section 8 is voluntary; however, municipal participation is really not voluntary. If I as a landlord decide to build multi-family dwellings in a community that believes that I may rent them out to Section 8, the local government cannot legally disapprove of the project due to "he may accept Section 8 and we don't want that". That is illegal. And as I stated, that is not really how the growth in Section 8 in the area has occurred anyway. It is through the use of tenant-based vouchers. The only project-based vouchers have been the "projects" in Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago. The only examples recently of "new" project-based housing has either been the redevelopment of current housing (such as Columbia Center in Hammond) or the acquisition of housing by a housing authority (such as the Gary Housing Authority acquiring Concord Commons on the west side and Woodlake Village in Miller).
What has happened in NWI in general is that as multi-family dwellings get old and less desirable, landlords may have trouble renting out their units for a higher dollar amount so rents cannot be increased. Also, lower-income folks tend to have worse credit which seriously impacts the ability to qualify for rentals as well as coming up with the larger deposits typically required of those with bad credit. Then the landlord decides to become a section 8 property and while the standards of properties become stricter because of government requirements, they end up on top because they can market the rents the same (or higher) because the government will pay most of it.
What has also happened is that landlords have built some developments will the full intention NOT to rent to Section 8 but because projected rents were too high, they run into a financial issue. The only way they can be prevented from possibly renting out to Section 8 holders is in the community contributed financially (whether through contributing funds or donating land) AND there is a written agreement that the landlord is not to voluntarily join the program or else they face forfeiture of the funding from that community. However, depending on the situation, the forfeiture of the funding may be less costly then the landlord not accepting Section 8. Overall, there is very little recourse that communities have. The only "communities" that can really prevent Section 8 housing are typically HOAs that have written into their bylaws that housing cannot be rented out under any circumstances.
In Crown Point, the only complex I am aware of is the Cedar Springs complex (basically in Cedar Lake but Crown Point schools) that is actually a Section 515 "rural rental" property that was built to house low-income residents in rural areas. This is essentially the exact same thing as Section 8 with the exception that it is completely project-based and only for areas categorized by the federal government as rural.
Section 8 cannot and will not be completely prevented; however, the best action that municipalities can take to try to minimize the negative effects that concern so many about section 8 is to limit the number of low-quality-built residential projects in the city. In Crown Point, it seems that the most stringent development requirements is in the Broadway Corridor where the "Williamsburg Style" is mandated. However, as far as housing, while the city has very nice developments where the developer has mandated certain styles and materials to be used, the city as a whole does not have any requirements such as an anti-monotony code. Residents tried to get one enforced in 2004 but the city ultimately denied this due to concern that "costs would increase that would limit young couples and senior citizens from staying in the city (Source: Commission to create anti-monotony building ordinance). The only municipalities that I know to have established anti-monotony codes are Merrillville and St. John. Merrillville's was reactive and St. John's was preventative. While housing costs in St. John have always been higher overall than in Crown Point, this move has ensured that housing values in St. John will be more protected as there will be more diversity in housing styles in a neighborhood at best and at worst, at least the same exact elevation/floor plan will only be repeated every 5 homes instead of every home. Here is a more recent article on the matter: Some communities set standards for residential construction.
Crown Point has shown again and again that overall, they value the growth of the community over the long-term niceness of the community. They had a moratorium on approving new multi-family developments from 2010 to 2012 and after it expired (Mayor lifts moratorium on new multifamily housing in Crown Point), new projects were approved and are booming. There IS demand for cheap multi-family housing in Crown Point and even more demand for cheap rental housing and therein lies the problem that residents are faced with. I guess the hope is that the housing values would start out lower but then drastically increase due to the successes of the schools and safety of the community. Crown Point on its fringes is "new and shiny" and attractive to younger home buyers whom would not be affordable to afford that same home in another desirable community as well as to modest-income older home buyers whom may be moving from an older home to a newer home that they may have never thought they could afford in their lifetime and they figure they may be gone by the time serious maintenance issues arise. I truly think that Crown Point has made some big mistakes essentially allowing vinyl villages to line I-65. In the long-term, some of these developments such as Hamilton Square on the west side of I-65 and Edgewater on the east side of I-65 will be future Section 8 rentals that people fear. Why? Because they started out low-quality to begin with. The shininess in these developments will rub off within a few years (as compared to a development such as Copper Creek or Ellendale Farm). If Crown Point was as truly desirable as many people claim for it to be, they would have no issue making nearly all new developments being as upscale as possible. You talk about the crime increase along I-94 but this hasn't deterred development in Park West in Munster which was started after Morningside in Crown Point (a comparable subdivsion) and has more expensive lots and has been developed faster with Million Dollar homes. And Morningside has less overall lots as well. Crown Point has also been billed both as "reasonable commute to Chicago" (even though its not that nice of a commute) as well as "further out from the hustle & bustle (read: crime) from Chicago". But not only is Gary not too far away, Merrillville is directly north and many of the issues there are impacting Crown Point as well, especially on the north side.
At the end of the day, can we really say that the issues BEGAN with section 8/low income housing? Or did it begin with folks fleeing an area because they thought their new minority neighbor would cause problems (even though they had a higher income than them) but due to block busting and fear mongering, folks sold as seriously depressed prices to "get out" thus allowing homes to be picked up for far cheaper by homeowners and investors? Most of the issues in Merrillville for example are in north Merrillville which is predominantly single-family homes. There are more multi-family properties in the southwest quadrant of Merrillville than any other area and this is the newest area of the town as well. Additionally, these properties (with the exception of one development specifically geared towards lower-income Seniors) were not developed as "low income properties" and many do not even accept Section 8. (Apartment complex proposed in Merrillville, M'ville targets apartment clusters, & ward map). So it goes back to my original point that while low-quality projects may not bode well for an area, the real "blame" is on John and Jane Doe whom decide to rent their ranch home to Section 8 because there are more private owners doing this than developers. I have even known people who do this under the radar because they know they would be a target in their neighborhood.
Last edited by Northwest Indiana; 01-02-2017 at 05:15 AM..
Call it whatever you want, but we've seen this movie play out time and time again. A solid white, crime-free neighborhood starts taking in trash and before you know it the schools go to hell, crime rises and property values drop. Places like the South Side of Chicago, Riverdale, Harvey, Hazel Crest, Calumet City, Dolton, Merrillville, etc. all used to be really nice places to live. Would you want to live there today?
So why can't these communities remain stable after white people flee and why is it somehow the responsibility of white people to stick around? It's a free country after all. When these communities were all white, crime was low, schools were rated high and property values were on the rise, but when they transition to black, they collapse. Why? Seriously, Why? Maybe the problem isn't the white people fleeing, but a cultural issue within the black community? I realize that's a tough pill to swallow, but it is what it is unless you have a plausible explanation as to why the South Side of Chicago all the way to Merrillville has gone to hell over the last 50 years?
And after seeing this occur over and over and over, you suggest that white people should just suck it up and stick around?
Perhaps you are right, but were any of those communities actually ever "really nice" in and of themselves or were they "nice because it was White"? If the places you listed were all really truly desirable places to begin with, then they would not have declined as hard as they have. With the exception of Chicago and Riverdale, most of those places grew due to White flight from Chicago and many further out places in the southwest suburbs and NWI have grown due to White flight from those suburbs. As far as Merrillville goes, was it ever "really nice" or just "nicer than Gary?". Look at the post I made above about a place being shiny, cheap, and new. That is what Merrillville was and taking into consideration that Merrillville was established in 1971 due to a new law allowing for its creation, this is how Merrillville grew. Merrillville in and of itself was never truly a "top community". It just allowed people a place to go get new housing. That's essentially it. As the town grew, desirability did not grow with it and when the perception became that the community was looking tired and "allowing undesirables" (read: Blacks were moving in), then there was a SHARP decrease in Whites moving in, followed by a decrease in Whites sending kids to the public schools there (as the area is still generally safe but the schools--where the future demographics of an area are typically seen first--started to decline), and then followed by White flight from the community overall.
You ask "after seeing this occur over and over and over, you suggest that white people should just suck it up and stick around?" and my answer is "If they truly desire to see their community thrive, then yes". The fact is that Whites outnumber any other group in the area. If they stay put ad reinvest in a community, it is likely that values would rise which would discourage low quality development and encourage higher quality development. This alone would provide a financial barrier to entering the area. This is one of the main differences between a place like Munster and a place like Merrillville. Areas in Munster were getting older and susceptible to becoming blighted. Instead of fleeing again (as a lot of the growth in Munster was due to south suburban White flight and some Hammond White flight), residents demanded to see growth and redevelopment in town and the town demanded that new developments be of high quality and upscale. Now look at the town. Aside from some school funding issues (even though the district remains highly rated with the highest rated high school consistently in Northwest Indiana), there is a lot of redevelopment going on and most of it is upscale. Residents overall are staying. The decline in some of the White population is mainly due to older Whites dying off and not being replaced fast enough by younger Whites (primarily due to financial barriers). Some folks may see this as a loss but in the long run, while a city like Crown Point may have attracted that young White couple, will they stay and support the city in its highs and lows or will they "flee" to Hebron and Lowell? It appears like the latter is more likely. Look at Merrillville. Merrillville has seen the most dramatic suburban demographic changes out of any area in NWI. Most of the residents in Merrillville were from Gary and that is the case now. Most of the residents in Crown Point were from Merrillville. Many of the folks moving to Lowell and Hebron now are from Merrillville and Crown Point many of whom from CP are moving "in anticipation of change" as the city has "lost its small-town charm".
This is not the perfect example, but I'm sure you know about the steps that Oak Park, IL took to stop White Flight. And it pretty much worked (and yes, I am also aware that Oak Park also had more desirable housing than CP to begin with and higher income and educated populace).
Now, having said all of this...my overall opinion is that while a lot of the responsibility lies on current residents AND municipal leaders to make the town as desirable as possible overall (and not just through implementing strict commercial design standards on ONE corridor in the city), just as much responsibility lies on new residents to contribute to the towns desirability. I also do believe that if more and more people introduced themselves to their neighbors, a lot of issues would be reduced with knowing that people are not only watching out for one another but also watching one another.
Last edited by Northwest Indiana; 01-02-2017 at 04:43 AM..
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Robberies on north side of Crown Point
