Special Feature

Editor's note: Anniston Star reporter Nick Cenegy, area resident Gary Mason and the Rev. Frederick Durant recently visited several of the Anniston's housing communities. Mason and Durant are involved in Stop the Violence, a community-based effort to curb crime in Anniston. Today is Part 2 of a two-part series about what they heard from residents.

A challenge for churches

Within a few blocks of Cooper Homes in any direction, you can see churches.

But Ontario "Terry" Collins, 25, said pastors aren't nearly as visible.

The roots of Anniston's crime problem include poverty, discontent, fear, lack of opportunity, and idleness, all mixed with drugs and a lack of education.

The tangible sign of a community's social conscience isn't as visible as it once was. A generation or two ago, the church — with its choirs, suppers and prayer meetings — served as a guidepost for young people and their families.

Its absence in spirit — despite the number of steeples — has been missed.

The Rev. Fred Durant and area resident Gary Mason are part of a community-based Stop the Violence effort hoping to mobilize local ministers and make churches more of a presence, as in the past. Durant and Mason spoke with Collins during a recent tour of Anniston's housing communities.

Collins said today's disconnect with churches stems from a lack of respect and trust for ministers.

"All everyone's hearing is how crooked the pastors around here are," Collins said.

He points at Durant, "You are about the first pastor I've seen get out of the car. It makes me wonder if the pastors are scared to come out here."

Collins' perception may not be far from the truth, said the Rev. Curtis Johnson, pastor of Haven United Methodist Church on West 17th Street.

"Everybody is so afraid of these young folks," he said. "You don't know what kind of rage it's going to bring trying to talk to them."

Johnson admitted that his church doesn't have a particularly strong outreach ministry or presence in troubled parts of the community. The church instead supports Community Enabler, Meals on Wheels and other existing programs that work with the needy.

To complicate the issue, young people aren't seeking out religious services because churches are no longer at the center of the black community, Johnson said.

"Young men don't trust ministerial leadership anymore," he said. "We've lost our identity with these kids."

Ministers caught in scandals involving molestation, infidelity, alcoholism, drugs, or embezzlement — even if it didn't occur locally — have eroded the trust with youth, Johnson said.

"Once the street sees you do something, they lose trust in you," he said.

In Johnson's view, the only way for the church to re-emerge as the focal point for the community is to return to basics.

"The church must stand boldly and proclaim what it is to society," he said.

'They see it all'

To avoid the nearly nightly routine of gunshots, Collins said he tries to stay inside as much as he can.

"I really don't go outside at night anymore, and I started staying in the house during the day," he said.

But Collins said the children who live in Cooper Homes can't bear to do that.

"You see them out here running around and watching everything. They see it all."

That means they witness the good and the bad, the violence, and the drug deals, he said.

Kevin Fowler, executive director of Anniston Housing Authority, said his organization offers services for residents and teams up with other area nonprofits to offer more, but sees shortcomings in programs for kids.

Funding comes from Washington, D.C., and it's down about 20 percent compared with 10 years ago, Fowler said. The housing authority is constantly looking for more grants, but their highest priority is to maintain the dwellings and structures; then surpluses can be used for programs and activities, he said.

Fowler said one thing he has seen in common in his experiences in Anniston, Birmingham and Nashville is that there are fewer and fewer dollars for youth.

"There is certainly a lack of things for them to do," he said.

Many of the youth used to play basketball at Carver Center under the direction of its director, Steven Folks, Collins said.

"Mr. Folks was everything to us," he said.

But since Folks took on a higher position in the Anniston Parks and Recreation Department, the boys have lost a guiding beacon, he said.

The sports and activities didn't stop completely; they just slowed down.

Folks said Carver Center is still an active place.

"Any time there is a change of guard, [kids] are a little reluctant to go," he said.

The new director is Frazier Burroughs, a man Folks described as a "strong guy" who comes from the same background.

"I will not allow our standards to change," Folks said.

Folks said he, too, was a product of the housing projects, and he credits athletics and recreation with helping him through times of violence.

That violence has a name and a face for Collins, who knew almost all of the men who have been murdered this year, as well as most of the men arrested as suspects in those murders.

He grew up with some of them.

Despite the issues surrounding public housing, it is important to recognize that none of this year's victims or alleged assailants was from the housing projects, Fowler said.

In fact, the housing authority historically has had a cooperative relationship with police and other authorities to ensure the safety of residents, he said.

Recently, more money has been put into policing efforts in the housing communities, including four new patrol cars that are being outfitted for duty, he said.

'Gated' community

But Collins said he sees problems not easily solved by police. The 25-year-old's greatest concern is the generation immediately after his. He said they are more fickle, territorial, and reactionary.

Groups of youth will get together, call themselves a "crew" and almost automatically have a problem with other crews in the area. Then they are ready to fight over their "differences," said Collins.

Mason said some of the crews' territories are less than one mile in area. Conflict between the groups is inevitable, he said.

At Cooper Homes, this is one of the first generations that grew up within the "gate" around the projects, Collins said.

The "gate" is a fence of heavy-gauge iron bars 6 to 8 feet tall that surrounds the property. It was installed about eight years ago, because the thought then was that much of the crime in the area was a product not of those who lived there but outsiders coming in.

In slightly less than a decade, the perception among residents has changed.

"The only thing they talk about is looking around at the gates," Collins said. Young people feel like the bars were put up to keep them in.

"They pried the bars so they can get through when the police come," he said.

Fowler said the housing units were fenced because people who didn't live in the community were using it as a thoroughway to cross between 14th and 15th streets.

When the $150,000 bars went up, crime within went down dramatically, he said.

In fact, the occupancy of Cooper Homes increased by a little more than 10 percent because people viewed it as a safety feature, he said.

Fences surrounding other housing complexes are not likely anytime soon, not because of a lack of public approval, but because of the cost of iron. A recent survey of Constantine Homes estimated that fences there would cost $600,000.

Regardless of price or intention, Collins said youth feel like they are trapped in a cage.

"If you treat them like animals, they going to act like animals," he said.

'The village is gone'

There is an overwhelming sentiment in these communities that there has been a breakdown in the homes, at the church, and among the business people.

"The village is gone," General Jackson said.

More kids than ever are being raised by grandparents, Jackson said — people who don't have the energy that young men, and the community at large, could offer to help cultivate a healthy future.

At the Stop the Violence meetings and in other venues, some in the community have resigned themselves publicly to the loss of one generation of young people, in favor of focusing their efforts on saving the next.

But Mason sees only sickly roots in need of redirection and care.

"The kids are not a lost cause," he said. "When you talked to those kids right there, they still had respect. We've just got to show them love."