Amy Fountain has lived in 3200 S. Washington apartments for a little over a year.
"When I moved in here, I personally was scared to live here, scared to come out of my apartment," Fountain said. "I would stay over at my daughter's house for weeks at a time. And then there was a murder in February."
That's when she decided she'd had enough and wanted to be part of the solution. 'We pretty much got together and said, 'We want to take our building back,'" Fountain said.
She volunteered to represent her floor in the newly former resident council.
"It's a hundred percent better than what it was a year ago thanks to [council member] Adam Hussein," Fountain said. "He actually stepped up to the plate put the issues out there that they had to be addressed."
The Lansing City Council Public Safety Committee has gotten more involved in the low-income housing apartment complex, but Council Member Adam Hussein says it's the residents who have made the difference.
"The residents here are starting to take some ownership, and they're starting to come together and brainstorm and reach out to individuals throughout the community to try to figure out a way to kind of navigate some pretty murky waters at this point so that we can move this property forward," Hussein said.
Still on the council, management, and the residents' to-do list - finish installing new security cameras, get deadbolts on doors, and install an industrial-sized dryer to help residents kill bed bugs. All three of those things are in the process of getting done.
"We are not going to stop, we are going to continue to push forward, we're going to try to do this right and we're going to learn from history and going to try to keep the focus here on the residents," Hussein said.
The Lansing Public Safety Committee has decided it will meet at 3200 S. Washington every three months to check in. It's next meeting in the building will be at the end of January, beginning of February.
