01.12.08

Anti-Graffiti Fundraiser, 9am-noon

Posted in Events, GHDC Blog at 2:33 am by M Beauregard

Paper: Houston Chronicle
Date: Thu 08/10/2006

HEIGHTS ANTI-GRAFFITI SQUAD

By TOM MANNING, Houston Chronicle Correspondent

ON Sunday mornings, when most people are relaxing and enjoying the weekend, Paul Luccia is hard at work.

Armed with an industrial-sized sprayer, a generator and about 40 gallons of paint, the Heights resident is out on the street, covering every piece of graffiti he can find.

It’s something Luccia, 43, has been doing since May, when he finally got fed up enough with the increase in graffiti he’d seen in the Heights to do something about it.

"I just got tired of looking at graffiti in my neighborhood all the time," said Luccia, a contractor and seven-year Heights resident. "I noticed a sharp increase last fall in the Heights. I had always seen it in Montrose and it had been a problem there for years, but it was starting to spread into our neighborhood."

So Luccia made a few phone calls, first to Keep Houston Beautiful, which gave him a power generator for his cleanup efforts.

He then contacted the Houston Police Department’s Neighborhood Protection Corps, which gave him the green light to abate graffiti in his neighborhood.

Luccia has since gone on 10 missions on Sundays to remove graffiti, about every other week since his first trip on May 5.

During the course of the last few months, Luccia has received increasing support from members of the Heights community.

A group of about a dozen members of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church joined his Clean Heights Team last month, covering up graffiti around Heights Boulevard and Yale Street. It was the largest anti-graffiti gathering to date.

Luccia covers up graffiti on businesses, public property and private homes. He said the key is not being afraid to approach people about vandalism on their property.

"When I see it on somebody’s home I make a note, wait about a month and then just knock on the door," he said. "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they say OK. It comes down to them either letting me do it for free, or eventually having the city come do it and charging them."

Another benefit to Luccia painting over graffiti is that while the city uses standard gray paint for its abatement, Luccia brings a number of different colors and can mix paint on the spot to try to match the building’s aesthetics.

"I pick colors that fit more with the Heights," he said.

While Luccia has been fighting graffiti in the Heights, City Council members Adrian Garcia and Sue Lovell have been steering a strengthened graffiti ordinance through the council.

Along with other items, the ordinance will reduce the amount of time people will be allowed to have graffiti on their property before the city removes it.

The city also appropriated more than $2 million in the recently passed budget for graffiti abatement and prevention.

Dean Swanson - a Heights resident who also has been at the forefront of the community’s fight against graffiti - said individual efforts such as Luccia’s remain crucial in the battle against taggers.

"What he’s doing is very important," Swanson said. "The city is slow and meticulous. He’s fast. He can also focus specifically on this neighborhood because he knows where the problem areas are.

"Paul can literally do in a couple of hours what it would take the city weeks to do. It’s much more efficient with him at the forefront."

Said Luccia, "The city just put $2.2 million in the budget for it and that’s great, but I’m not holding my breath. The most effective thing to do is for the community to just get rid of it immediately."

Luccia said most graffiti artists, or taggers, hit the Heights on Sundays between 2-5 a.m. So he goes out later in the morning and immediately removes any new graffiti he sees, spending between six to eight hours in the area each time.

It’s been effective so far, he said.

"The No. 1 place is abandoned properties that don’t look like they’re in good shape but that face a street or will give them a lot of visibility," he said. "We’ve had places that were getting hit every week that have now been clean for a month or two.

"It’s a war of attrition, and eventually we win if they know that whatever they do isn’t going to stay up."

He said that since he’s become a fixture in the area on Sunday mornings, people have begun to take notice.

"People stop me and ask me how they can help and what they can do in their own neighborhoods," he said. "If people want to help, the first thing is to report graffiti to 3-1-1. Don’t be afraid to knock on doors, and when you walk or bike or are just around the neighborhood, carry a can and cover what you can. Those are three pretty simple ways to contribute."

He hopes to get some financial help for his cause. Each excursion costs Luccia about $50, mostly for gasoline.

He estimates his expenses for a year of graffiti abatement will be about $5,000. Businesses have contributed, such as Spanish Flower Mexican Restaurant, which purchased a new sprayer for Luccia.

"We’d been wanting to be more aggressive in fighting (graffiti) in the North Main area," said Eli Rodriguez, owner of Spanish Flower. "This became the ideal thing and we saw this as a way to do our part. When we heard about what Paul was doing, it was something we wanted to help with."

Luccia said while he expects that with time his graffiti-fighting excursions in the neighborhood will decline, he hopes other neighborhoods will form similar groups.

"What it’s done is raise awareness in the area," he said. "I want to encourage neighborhoods to do the same thing I’m doing. If anyone wants to talk to me, I’ll tell them everything I know. My goal is that my neighborhood and the surrounding area is completely free of graffiti and that other neighborhoods will do the same thing."

…

FIGHTING GRAFFITI

To learn more about Paul Luccia’s efforts to rid the Heights of graffiti, send e-mail to CleanHeights@aol.com.

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