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Just Released: Officer Next Door (OND) And Teachers Next Door (TND) Program Evaluation

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If a police officer lives in the neighborhood where they
work, will there be a reduction in crime in that
neighborhood? If teachers live where they work, would
their positive example rub off on the families living as
their neighbors? The recently released Officer Next Door
OND) and Teachers Next Door (TND) Program Evaluation,
conducted by HUD's Office of Policy Development and
Research (PD&R), provides insights about these and other
compelling questions about the two programs, which were
created in the late 1990s to strengthen America's
communities by encouraging law enforcement officers and
school teachers to live in low- and moderate-income
neighborhoods designated as Revitalization Zones by the
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Researchers selected neighborhoods in two cities where
clusters of OND/TND homes could be identified: Rialto,
California, and Spokane, Washington. The study examined
crime levels before the initiation of home sales
(calendar year 1999) and after the included homes were
purchased (calendar year 2002). Researchers compared
crime counts in the cluster parcels to neighborhoods near
clusters and also to crime counts in other geographic
areas within the cities and in the cities as whole.

The evaluation employed Geographic Information Systems
(GIS) as the primary data organizing and analytical tool.
GIS allowed the researchers to determine the map
locations of individual crimes and OND/TND properties
given their street addresses, and then to map these in
relation to one another and in relation the city and
revitalization zone boundaries. GIS was also used to
define clusters of OND/TND properties and similar-sized
control areas within the revitalization.

The density of OND/TND homes was found to be a crucial
factor with respect to the impact of the program on crime
levels. The Rialto Revitalization Zone has 90 program
homes compared to Spokane's 28 program homes in a
revitalization zone of nearly identical size. A
significant positive impact was noted in Rialto, where
the density of program homes was relatively high, but no
similar benefit was seen in Spokane, where the program
homes are much more widely dispersed.

Neither city experienced consistent trends in crime
counts for drug crimes when comparing counts within
clusters of officer's and teacher's homes to counts in
other areas of the respective cities. This may be due to
the fact that drug crime arrests are often a function of
discretionary police enforcement activity. In contrast,
most reports of Part I crimes are initiated by crime
victims or their families and therefore better reflect
actual concentrations of predatory activity.

Although only two OND/TND sites were involved in the
evaluation, the findings suggest that when sufficient
numbers of home sales take place in a particular
neighborhood, crime levels will be suppressed. Further
validation will come with more research in areas where
similarly dense concentrations of OND/TND homes can be
identified.

"Officer Next Door (OND) And Teachers Next Door (TND)
Program Evaluation" is available as a free download from
HUD USER at
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/publications/COMMDEVL/OND_TNDProgEval.html
or in printed form for a nominal charge by calling HUD
USER at 1-800-245-2691.
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1-800-245-2691
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