The Fenimore Hotel, often referred to by SU students as the "crack house," sits adjacent to Campion Hall. Photo: Braden VanDragt

Empty beer cans and used syringes litter the sidewalk and street. Homeless people loiter, panhandle and sometimes sleep on the sidewalk. People yell to upstairs apartments at all hours of the night, and all of this is only what is most easily observed.

The apartment building immediately west of Campion Hall—separated from the residence only by a fence—has been dubbed the “crack house” by students who have reportedly seen everything from drug deals to fights. But just how much validity do those rumors have? Is it mere hyperbole or is significant crime actually taking place?

An investigation by The Spectator has shown the “crack house,” which is officially named the Fenimore Hotel at 510 Broadway, and the entire 500 block of Broadway is a hot spot for crime, drugs and violence and is a regular stop for Seattle Police, whose officers responded to more than 200 calls to the block in 2007 and 2008 alone. During that time, there wasn’t a period longer than a week without at least one police visit.
“The 500 block of Broadway has been a source of on-going narcotics calls, vice activity and violent crimes,” reads a police report by officer Michael Conners. “I have contacted many admitted drug addicts and prostitutes who tell me they come to this area with the sole purpose of purchasing or using narcotics, and to engage in vice activity.”

An itemized police report of 2007 and 2008 calls to 500 Broadway alone shows almost daily calls for the detox van, seven narcotics-related calls, 10 assault calls and 36 “disturbance” calls, an umbrella term including violations like “aggressive panhandling.” These numbers only include calls to specific addresses and could be higher due to calls to the block in general.

In addition, documents from the Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development indicate 24 medical aid responses in the same time to the block, including two overdoses and two attempted suicides.

Business owners on the block are very aware of the crime, and some point fingers at the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Center, not the Fenimore Hotel, as the main source of crime and disturbances. Our Lady of Mt. Carmel is a nonprofit daytime homeless shelter and soup kitchen that provides a warm place for the homeless. Larry Walter, executive director of Mt. Carmel, and Josh Kroeg, a live-in staff member, agreed that the center attracts a large amount of the negative behavior even after it closes for business for the day.

“The staff people live here, and they were at one time these same [homeless] people,” Kroeg says. “They might have friends out there and then after hours when we’re closed their friends might want to come over. They’re the same people as the drug addicts and alcoholics in here [during the day].”

Tenants living in the apartments on the block also contribute to crime. In addition to the Fenimore Hotel, which is owned by Linda Onishi and her family, there are other buildings on the block owned by Daniel Rubin and Yasuko Conner. Rubin says the Ohashi family brings in low-income tenants who create problems for the immediate neighborhood. The rent at the Fenimore Hotel for a studio is around $300 monthly, hundreds lower than anything else close by. A studio in the adjacent building rents for $800.

“Those kind of people are bad for the area,” Rubin says. “We want a younger crowd.”

In addition, Gideon Oyeleke, owner of American Healthcare Services, says the Fenimore Hotel isn’t managed effectively, and the landlord is oblivious to the problems going on in the building. Fire Department inspection records show issues like holes in the floor of the shared bathrooms on each floor as well as leaky pipes.

“The owner doesn’t do a lot of supervision,” Oyleke says. “They do whatever they want up there.”

One of the largest problems affecting the Fenimore Hotel and the block is drug dealing and use. Drug arrests are concentrated at the Fenimore Hotel more than the other apartments and are documented in police records.

“There was an open brown paper bag on the floor that contained additional green leafy buds consistent with the appearance of marijuana,” reads a police report by officers James Britt and Sam Byrd. According to the report, after the suspect had been arrested “[the suspect] stated he had been selling marijuana for two years to ‘make ends meet.’”

“There are drugs being sold out of the Ohashi’s,” Rubin says. “There are people always coming up to the windows and yelling up for drugs.”
Rubin and Conner are anxious to remove the Fenimore Hotel and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel from the block. There have been efforts to sell the entire property to a developer to build a medical complex, but the Ohashi family has been resistant to the idea.

“Developers want it. It’s going to happen. It’s just gonna,” Rubin says. “They’re going to knock the whole block down.”

“We would like to get rid of the Fenimore,” Conner says.

Onishi declined to comment on her family’s plans for their property but did say that her brother, Monte Ohashi, has been living in the apartment building.

As for the crime on the block, Onishi says, “I don’t know; I don’t live there.”

Mike Sletten, director of Public Safety at Seattle University, says the parking lot in the middle of the block is often what draws emergency personnel. He notes that since a community task force led by a Seattle Police crime prevention team focused their attention on the block, illegal activity has decreased. Improvement has been noticeable, he says, since last spring, and the area draws the attention of Public Safety around twice a month.

Romando Nash, director of Seattle U’s Housing and Residence Life, says complaints from residents about the area have dropped in the last two years.

There are also reports of violence on the block, and while they are mostly between the homeless and loiterers, there is a documented case of a resident of the apartments being involved in an altercation.

After refusing to give a stranger a cigarette, “the male then hit me several times in the face with his fist,” a resident of the Fenimore Hotel said in a statement to SPD. “I chased him [away]…I returned to the corner and was trying to get in my building when I saw him coming toward me with a two-by-four.”

“Entire economy is in danger,” read the front page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sept. 25, quoting George W. Bush. Five days later the headline read “Economy in shock,” in response to the 700 point drop in the DOW Jones Industrial Average that occurred the day before. The next day, a headline in the Wall Street Journal referred to this meltdown as “the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression,” and the United States government began talking about using 700 billion dollars of the taxpayers’ money to “fix” the problem.

But what is the problem, exactly?

Much like the great depression of the 1930s, there are many factors that have lead to this economic downturn. However, it largely boils down to one overarching issue: credit. People are spending more money than they have, and banks are losing money when people can’t pay their loans back. In the ’30s it was largely credit used to buy consumer goods and cars that caused the problem; this time it’s home ownership.

According to an article in the New York Times, between 2000 and 2006 home prices rose fairly sharply every year. Because of this, the demand for mortgage backed securities -a kind of investment that relies on multiple mortgages- increased greatly. Small banks were encouraged to create as many loans as possible, even if it meant giving loans to people who might not be able to pay for them.

“[The loan originators] started lowering their requirements for loans. They didn’t require 20 percent down. They didn’t verify people’s income. They took people’s word for how much income they earned, even though they weren’t earning that income,” said Fred DeKay, associate professor of Economics. “The people were willing to lie, because they wanted to get into that house.”

The risk for the bank itself was very little -after originating the loans they would then sell them to a larger bank or mortgage firm like Freddie Mac who would use them to create those mortgage-backed securities. On the other hand, the people getting the loans assumed that their house would rise in price and they could refinance if they started not being able to make their monthly payments.

“Some of these people got loans fully knowing that they wouldn’t be able to pay for them right now, but optimistically thinking they would be able to pay for them in the future because their incomes would rise or they could sell it back in a few years for more than they paid for it.” DeKay said.

The prices didn’t go up. Once the housing bubble popped in late 2007 people were sitting on mortgages that were worth a whole lot more than their house, and the idea of refinancing to get a lower monthly payment went out the window. People started defaulting on their loans, and the big banks and firms who bought up these loans started seeing a much lower rate of return on their investments than they were expecting. These banks started to fail, and since August 2007 there have been 15 bank failures, including Seattle’s own Washington Mutual.

Since all of these failures create stress among investors, the stock market is at risk of a sharp decline. The government’s solution to this risk is the “Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.” The bill, which was signed into law on Friday, is commonly referred to as a “bailout” of the United States financial system. The purpose of the bill is to purchase these bad mortgages from the large banks, essentially saving them from failure and hopefully restoring investors’ faith in credit markets. While it may seem like a necessary step to take, it was a hot issue in Washington.

“Democrats and Republicans in Congress have legitimate concerns about it. I know many Americans share these concerns,” said Sen. Barack Obama at a rally in Michigan, “but it is clear that this is what we must do right now to prevent a crisis from turning into a catastrophe.”

While this crisis is extremely large and complex, it shouldn’t affect the credit of an average college student. Banks will still be itching to give out credit cards, and people who have the financial resources to buy a house will still be able to. What should change with all of this is how careful banks are about lending money. They simply can’t afford to make the same mistakes again.

“You’re still going to get access to credit, just not as easily,” DeKay said.