CBS 5 Investigates With Anna Werner

Oakland Finds Solution For Nuisance Neighbors

OAKLAND (CBS 5) ― It only takes that one house on the block with loud parties, loose garbage and criminal activity to make life miserable for everyone else. So what can you do when your neighbor is a public nuisance?

Last June, neighbors in Santa Rosa showed CBS 5 Investigates surveillance video they had shot of one notorious house in their community. The tape showed people who appeared drunk or on drugs, parties day and night, possible prostitution, and a lot of what looked like drug dealing.

"You do what you've been told to do: call the police," said neighborhood association representative Lea Thomas. But even though police made dozens of arrests, for crimes like narcotics possession and assault, neighbors say nothing changed.

"It's like calling to put a fire out," said Tyson Ducker, who lives close by. "And the fire gets put out, but it just goes ablaze the moment the police leave again."

And Santa Rosa city manager Jeff Kolin told CBS 5 that beyond those police calls, "We're limited in the amount of resources that we're able to provide."

That's a common refrain coming from cities all over the country. They say they just don't have enough money to do more. But one Bay Area city said it has found a low-cost solution that's gaining national recognition. That city is Oakland, and the solution is called Neighborhood Law Corps.

Neighborhood Law Corps is a team of young lawyers, who go directly from law school to the front lines of Oakland's most troubled neighborhoods. CBS 5 Investigates spent a day recently with Law Corps attorney Sheena Wadhawan as she toured several troubled properties.

"Yet another unsecured window, broken windows, grafittied," Wadhawan pointed out as she entered an unlocked apartment she suspects was being used by drug dealers.

"You know," Wadhawan commented as she snaps photos of the spray-painted walls, "what you're doing when you leave units like this unsecured is, you're attracting criminals and drug nuisances. You're attracting crime and violence."

Residents of the complex, many of them families, are worried about safety after a recent shooting and stabbing. Sheena is suing the owner to fix the locks and other building code violations. As she tours the apartments she snaps more photos: holes in ceilings from leaky plumbing, rat holes, more broken windows and doors. The photos, along with testimony from residents, will bolster her court case.

So how does a beginning lawyer get so much clout? Wadhawan works for Oakland City Attorney John Russo, who started Neighborhood Law Corps six years ago.

"It's actually a pretty inexpensive program," said Russo, "in part because the Law Corps is modeled on the Peace Corps." Young lawyers work for two years, making just $40,000 a year—rock-bottom wages for a top law grad like Sheena.

"Sometimes it's hard," Wadhawan said, "when my friends and colleagues I graduated with are making three or four times what I'm making income wise. But I'm happy in my work. I feel proud about what I'm doing."

Russo said, "They're here for an experience that you know they can't get by being in a library in a big law firm or conference room in San Francisco or Oakland or Walnut Creek."

It's an experience that can be dangerous. Half a dozen bullet holes pattern the window in one building on our tour. That's why Wadhawan sometimes gets a police escort as she investigates neighbor complaints.

So how is the program working? Law Corps' website claims to have prosecuted more than 81 drug-house abatement cases since its inception. That compares to 21 cases in the five years prior.

Oakland police officer Jack Doolittle says it makes his job that much easier. "I can arrest people all day long," said Doolittle, "but if that location still exists, where that crime's allowed to flourish, someone else is gonna move right in and take that person's place."

The problems never really end, Wadhawan, but at least neighbors now have someone to turn to when there's trouble.

"It's an incredible power," she said. "And I'd really encourage municipalities to take advantage of that—and to bring those resources and that power to the community to improve the quality of life."

So why aren't other cities doing this? It's back to the same problem: they say even getting a low-cost solution started takes money. But Oakland City Attorney John Russo said their program got a jump start using private donations and now is part of the city's budget.

(© MMVIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)