There Goes The Neighborhood East Sprague Residents Hope Crooks Move Out When Cop Moves In

Rob Cunningham makes his living enforcing the law, so the problems plaguing Spokane’s East Sprague neighborhood have always bothered him.

Drug dealers, prostitutes and a serial killer have been known to frequent the neighborhood east of downtown, especially after dark.

Now, the nine-year veteran of the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department has even more reason to care about what happens in the East Sprague area.

He’s going to live there.

Cunningham and his wife, Tara, just bought a house in the neighborhood.

The Cunninghams took advantage of a federal program that gives law enforcement officers a 50-percent discount on homes they buy in inner-city neighborhoods.

Cops who use the discount agree to live in the house for at least three years.

The program is administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. It is aimed at reducing crime and revitalizing areas suffering from blight, said Bob Santos, a HUD official.

“When police move into a community, criminals move out,” Santos said Friday.

The federal government hopes to help at least 1,000 police officers buy houses in inner-city neighborhoods during the program’s first year, he said.

Cunningham is the first Spokane law enforcement officer to take advantage of “The Officer Next Door” project. Three other Washington state cops also are enrolled in the program.

The Cunninghams and their three children currently are living in a mobile home in Stevens County.

With a fourth child on the way, the couple decided it was time for a bigger house, Tara Cunningham said. The HUD discount made it possible for them to purchase the three-bedroom brick house in East Sprague, she said.

The trade-off is the Cunninghams are moving into an area regarded as one of the most dangerous in Spokane.

More than 80 percent of all prostitution arrests in the city occur in the East Sprague neighborhood, according to police records, and last winter two men were shot to death there.

In addition, detectives believe many of the victims of Spokane’s serial killer were snatched off the streets of East Sprague.

“We were a little scared at first,” said Tara Cunningham, whose new home sits next to a boarded-up house with a trash-strewn yard.

But the Cunninghams hope things will get better when word spreads that a cop is living in the neighborhood.

“Being a father, I’m concerned about my family,” said Deputy Cunningham, who plans to join Block Watch and other crime-prevention activities in his off time.

“But programs like this one bring in people who can help change a neighborhood - and hopefully squeeze out people who don’t want to obey the law. The East Sprague community, our neighborhood, could use what I have to offer.”

Spokane Police Chief Alan Chertok, Mayor John Talbott and Sheriff Mark Sterk said the project fits into Spokane’s community-oriented policing philosophy.

“Making police officers stakeholders in the neighborhoods says a lot to the people living there,” Chertok said.

On Friday, people who already live and work in East Sprague welcomed the news that a cop and his family are moving into the neighborhood.

“I think having good people in the neighborhood is going to help the image,” said Giles Macmurchie, who lives down the street from the Cunninghams’ house. “But we need more like them. That’s what’s going to do it, not just one person moving in.”