wfn.org | Tampa deals with arson epidemic

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Feb. 23, 2000  News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally?(615)742-5470?Nashville, Tenn.  10-32-71B{091}

By Daniel R. Gangler*
TAMPA, Fla. (UMNS) - Arsonists are burning about a house a week in two Tampa
neighborhoods. 
No one has been killed or seriously injured, but 70 houses in the last two
years have been destroyed by fire in the historic Tampa Heights and Ybor
neighborhoods. 
"My greatest fear is the loss of life," said Roger Leseney, coordinator of
housing for the Tampa United Methodist Centers. "People are going to get
hurt." 
Leseney's office is in the Ybor area, and three other Tampa United Methodist
Centers also are in the same historic area where fires have been occurring. 
"The once-thriving neighborhoods are now a mix of houses, which are somewhat
isolated," Leseney said. "Clusters of two or three houses are boarded up.
Many lots, once occupied, are now vacant."
He estimates that 100 houses are vacant in the area today. The city and
nonprofit organizations buy the older properties, restore or move homes that
are salvageable to different locations, and demolish those deemed
unsalvageable. 
Most if not all of the fires destroying the vacant houses have been
purposely set. Most of the arson cases are unresolved. Only a couple of
people have been arrested for arson in the area. No one has been convicted. 
Of the houses that were set on fire, all were boarded up. Some were owned by
the city, and others were owned by United Methodist Centers and other
nonprofit organizations, according to Leseney. 
The epidemic of fires has been ongoing for about six years, the same length
of time that the city has been pursuing an extensive urban renewal plan. 
City officials and residents report that the neighborhoods are more
vulnerable because of their transient population, that abandoned areas are
often frequented by vagrants and homeless people, and that evidence of
alcohol and drug abuse has been found there. 
To make the area more habitable, Tampa United Methodist Centers works with
the city government to purchase houses with government funds, renovate the
houses and make them available with low-interest loans to people who cannot
otherwise buy a home.
Last summer, the Barrio Latino Commission of the Ybor neighborhood
criticized city officials for bulldozing a burned house that was deemed
historic without first checking with the commission. 
Such tension has added to the stress of neighborhood association leaders
because the city wants a great deal of Tampa Heights to be renovated.
Officials want to attract higher-income residents to expensive homes in a
renaissance-type of urban renewal project. City plans also call for
developing nonresidential riverfront real estate, including a marina, a
hotel, business offices and shops. 
Tampa Heights, the city's oldest neighborhood, suffers from urban decay,
pollution and the now-common urban exodus to the suburbs. Tampa Mayor Dick
Creco hopes to change the trend and reclaim the historic area with an $84
million revitalization plan. 
Ybor and Tampa Heights activists are struggling to keep their neighborhood
intact for its remaining residents, many of whom have low incomes and no
option of moving elsewhere. Cuban residents originally settled Ybor at the
turn of the last century. Now residents in the two neighborhoods say they
feel threatened by the ongoing fires. 
The threat of arson is a problem in many other major U.S. cities as well. 
Some 16,000 residential dwellings are set on fire every year, claiming
nearly 140 lives and costing $237 million, according to the National Fire
Data Center, a part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). 
In early February, a man was arrested in New Orleans on suspicion of
splashing a flammable liquid on an apartment floor and sparking a blaze that
killed four children. 
Investigators of the deadly Jan. 19 fire in a Seton Hall University
dormitory believed the fire was set, and police reported recently that at
least four suspects were identified in the blaze that killed three freshmen.

A national increase in such fires in the mid-1990s caused FEMA to ask
President Clinton to establish the National Arson Prevention Initiative. At
that time, FEMA reported as many as 250,000 fires were set each year by
people under age 18, killing more than 500 people and destroying some $3
billion worth of property. The report stated juveniles started more than
half of arson fires, and that one in four fires is intentionally set. 
# # #
*Gangler is a writer for Disaster News Network on the World Wide Web at
www.disasternews.net.

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United Methodist News Service
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