A new program from YPD saving you thousands
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YAKIMA, Wash. -- A new program from the Yakima Police Department is saving thousands of dollars and getting results. It involves cleaning up troubled apartments. Something as simple as e-mail is making the difference.
Yakima landlord Enrique Jevons has a strict set of rules for his tenants, but they don't always follow them. At his complex off Willow, Yakima police show up more often than Jevons likes.
"As a landlord, we never actually find out that there was a problem and then if it keeps going on and on you end of losing all of your good tenants," he said.
Yakima's Crime Free Housing Program works with tenants to inform them about activity at their complexes. But their system of communication was weeks behind. They had officers filling out papers by hand and mailing them out.
Not anymore. A new program called Crime Free EZ Tracking allows them to do everything online. Now when officers go to a call they can input the info and send it to YPD, who sends it directly to the landlord.
Getting complaints used to take up to a week to get to YPD and another 7 to 10 days to make to landlords, but now with the new emails it's only taking minutes. So landlords like Jevons can evict trouble makers and clean up their units.
"With this, if the officers put that in, then I know that they went there on Friday they went there on Thursday and I'm coming back on the next week so then it wouldn't be just keep it down it would be something more of either issuing a ticket..."
The new system also saves thousands a year in postage. Saving time, money and making quick work of bad renters.
The program usually costs around $35,000.However, Yakima served as a test market and got it for free.
Yakima landlord Enrique Jevons has a strict set of rules for his tenants, but they don't always follow them. At his complex off Willow, Yakima police show up more often than Jevons likes.
"As a landlord, we never actually find out that there was a problem and then if it keeps going on and on you end of losing all of your good tenants," he said.
Yakima's Crime Free Housing Program works with tenants to inform them about activity at their complexes. But their system of communication was weeks behind. They had officers filling out papers by hand and mailing them out.
Not anymore. A new program called Crime Free EZ Tracking allows them to do everything online. Now when officers go to a call they can input the info and send it to YPD, who sends it directly to the landlord.
Getting complaints used to take up to a week to get to YPD and another 7 to 10 days to make to landlords, but now with the new emails it's only taking minutes. So landlords like Jevons can evict trouble makers and clean up their units.
"With this, if the officers put that in, then I know that they went there on Friday they went there on Thursday and I'm coming back on the next week so then it wouldn't be just keep it down it would be something more of either issuing a ticket..."
The new system also saves thousands a year in postage. Saving time, money and making quick work of bad renters.
The program usually costs around $35,000.However, Yakima served as a test market and got it for free.
