NOMINEES ANNOUNCED: For CoMo crime-free housing awards

Large and small property managers take a bite out of crime

COLUMBIA, 10/19/12 (Beat Byte) -- Assaults, gun violence, SWAT busts, kidnapping, forgery, drug dealers, child pornographers. That was Columbia's Sodom-on-the-Hinkson, the former Gatehouse Apartments on Broadway. It kept police arresting, bailers bonding, and courts releasing day in and day out.

Not anymore. St. Louis-based Mills Properties purchased Gatehouse as part of a roughly 1,000 unit receivorship deal in 2010. Under a new name, new ownership, and complex-wide renovations, crime has plummeted, giving neighbors and law enforcement an overdue sigh of relief.

Mills Properties is among eight nominees for two first-time ever crime-free housing awards in conjunction with this year's Landlords Against Crime town hall summit: Most Successful Crime-Free Housing Strategy and Best Crime-Free Housing Success Story of 2012.

 

Nominees -- and winners -- are chosen based on arrest, outstanding warrant, and law enforcement call-for-service records related to their properties, before and after new strategies, new ownership, or during consistent, long-time crime-free housing practices.

 

The 2012 crime-free housing award nominees are:

 

Mills Properties

Kirk Mills, president

 

Warnken Properties

Philip and Denice Warnken, owners

 

Columbia Housing Authority

Phil Steinhaus, CEO

 

The Yarco Companies

Columbia Square Apartments
Clifton Cohn, chairman; Jonathan Cohn, CEO

A.Ziv Property Management

Amir Ziv, owner

 

Hostetler Properties

Lynn Hostetler, owner

 

Michael Jones Properties

Michael Jones, owner

 

The Raul Walters Companies

Roni Martin, manager

 

 

Recipients of the awards -- designed by Collegiate Awards on Buttonwood Drive -- will be announced at the Landlords Against Crime 2012 summit, October 25 at Parkade Center on the Business Loop, 7 pm.

The event is free and the public is invited to attend and participate.