Harvest at risk

Over the past 15 years, the federal government's Weed and Seed program has helped demolish 240 abandoned homes in North Charleston -- places where drug-users and prostitutes are known to hang out.

And most every time one of those houses disappears, North Charleston Weed and Seed coordinator Paul Fish gets a positive vibe from the neighbors.

"I've seen such a change," Fish said Tuesday standing near an empty lot on Dalton Street in the Ferndale area, one of the city's more impoverished communities. "You don't see the drug dealers. You don't see as many shootings as there were four or five years ago."

As part of the Obama administration's upcoming budget, officials are proposing to eliminate Weed and Seed, zeroing out an initiative that started in the early 1990s as part of the Justice Department's community-based war on drugs.

If the program is cut, North Charleston could lose access to a source of funds that's turned lives around. For young people, Weed and Seed has provided summer camp opportunities and jobs programs. For adults, there have been home-ownership classes.

On the police front, Weed and Seed has paid for officers to flood crime zones, provided cash for undercover drug buys and helped acquire a camera to monitor crime-ridden street corners.

But one vital part of the entire effort, officials said, is that Weed and Seed also got community members out from behind locked doors.

"It's not so much about the money as it is in trying to get the neighborhoods involved," said Shannon Praete, North Charleston's grants administrator.

As envisioned nearly two decades ago, Weed and Seed was meant to be a two-pronged approach: heightened policing that targeted criminals -- the "weeds" -- followed by community involvement -- the "seeds." Once the criminals were moved out, the community was expected to reclaim their streets through a variety of locally produced initiatives.

"It was a real subtle thing," Fish said of some of the progress made so far, adding that something as simple as organizing a cleanup effort was enough to rekindle interest in neighborhoods.

North Charleston's Weed and Seed areas include some of the poorest in the city: Liberty Park, Highland Terrace, Russelldale, Ferndale, Charleston Farms and Singing Pines.

Only two other South Carolina cities are still in the federal program, Spartanburg and Rock Hill. The city of Charleston had been a federal Weed and Seed territory until it "graduated" out in 2006.

For this year, North Charleston is applying for a $140,000 Weed and Seed grant, mainly to pay for continuing its police efforts. That's a significant drop-off from when the program first started and North Charleston received $1 million in Weed and Seed money.

Bill Ellis, president of the city's Weed and Seed steering committee, said the money being sought this year may not be much when compared to other years but the impact remains significant, based on what's been accomplished and what needs to be protected.

Statistics show there has been measurable improvement. The number of murders recorded in the Weed and Seed zone went from five in 2007 to zero last year, city numbers show.

Other violent crimes also decreased, with assaults dropping from 111 to 77, and robbery going from 83 to 48, during the same period.

"It would be quite a loss for some of the neighborhoods" if the money were cut off, Ellis said.

Nationally, some groups already have started to lobby Congress to keep the program alive. But if it does get chopped, Ellis said he wants to see that North Charleston doesn't give up on what's been gained. "Even if Weed and Seed goes away, I pray we can find a way to do something," he said.

Reach Schuyler Kropf at 937-5551 or skropf@postandcourier.com.