ST. CLOUD — About a decade ago, there was a break-in at Brian Murphy’s rental property on Eighth Avenue South in St. Cloud.
Murphy, who has owned rental properties near St. Cloud State University campus for 17 years, said he thought he was doing everything right to keep his tenants safe.
As a former medic, Murphy had seen his share of loss of life and limb.
“I saw a lot of bad things and I wanted to make sure I did everything possible and reasonable to make sure when someone came into one of my houses, they were as safe as they were going to be,” he said.
Murphy reached out to a crime prevention specialist at St. Cloud Police Department, who offered Murphy suggestions on how to button up the house.
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While neighbors and officials have talked about blight and crime on the south side for years, there’s never been a scientific study looking at housing conditions.
“You need that data for decision-making,” said Luis Estévez, associate professor of planning and community development at SCSU.
Estévez has been working on a report assessing housing exteriors for the last two years. He and students in a planning and community development class rated the conditions of eight exterior assets as deteriorated, poor, average, good or excellent.
