Houston apartment complex honored for low crime rate

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Another Houston-area apartment complex in the news, but in this case, for something you might not expect. Crestmont Village has been all over the news for its long history of crime, deplorable conditions and bad management, but this is a story you don’t often see. Residents at the Villa Madrid Apartments can celebrate having the lowest crime in an area notorious for it. Neighbors say it wasn’t always this way.

“I'd heard about in ’94, there was boy who was killed at this gate,” Roland Mathis says. Mathis has lived at the complex for more than 20 years. He says the turnaround is because of great management who live on site and monitor it closely as well as neighbors who look out for each other.

“We have good neighbors," Mathis said. "I know they do background checks that's why we have neighbors who lease and re-lease the same property.” 

Officials compared the crime statistics from 18 complexes in the historic Sharpstown District.

“Safety and security are at the heart of what we call quality of life issues," Councilman Mike Laster says. "Every family deserves to live in a home or an apartment or neighborhood in which they feel safe.” But community leaders say the end goal is educating everyone to know what crime is like before they move into an area.

“The taxpayers deserve to have the HPD crime stats in a consumer user useful usable format,” property owner Steven Moore says.

The results should be more examples like Villa Madrid Apartments and less like Crestmont Village.