The first time Jeff Tangeman noticed something had changed in his neighborhood, he was walking home from a game.

It was around 9 p.m. when he got to 12th and E streets.

“I got this weird feeling something wasn’t right,” he says.

He high-tailed it home. That was more than 10 years ago.

He’s lived in the Everett Neighborhood for 22 years, since his mother bought a sage bungalow at 12th and Peach when he was in college.

He considers his immediate neighborhood safer than those farther north, closer to the Capitol.

North of A Street, the neighborhood takes a turn for the worse, he says. From A to D it’s not too bad. But from D Street to downtown – that area worries him.

“It has the potential to be our own little north Omaha if something isn’t done,” he says. “How long is it gonna be before these knuckleheads start shooting each other?”

Surprising words from the president of the Everett Neighborhood Association.

But city officials are preoccupied with building a new arena, balancing the budget, figuring out where to get money for roads, he says. Problems in core neighborhoods don’t get much attention, except in police blotters.

“It doesn’t seem like anybody, outside of our police department, seems to care,” Tangeman says.

Criminals take over an apartment building, police put the heat on, and the bad guys move to another building and the cycle begins again.

“It just seems like in this part of town we’re playing whack-a-mole.”

However, core issues finally have the attention of at least some city leaders. Most notably, the mayor.

An uneasy feeling

It’s tough to say what Tangeman’s gut was telling him that day near 12th and E, but he’s not the only one feeling uneasy about core neighborhoods south and east of the Capitol.

Most Lincolnites’ only exposure to the neighborhoods likely comes as they zip by on one of four one-ways.

They may notice the houses aren’t as tidy as in their neighborhood. That there are more minorities on porches and streets. The ubiquitous “for sale” and “for rent” signs.

Less obvious is the fact that these neighborhoods experience more police incidents per capita that make them less desirable places to live.

The area is medically underserved, has lower birth weight rates and a higher poverty rate and death rate than the rest of the city.

A 2006 study concluded that of the city’s older neighborhoods, the one with the greatest need for city investment is a census tract in the Everett Neighborhood and portions of Near South and downtown. That’s based on building permits, home purchase and improvement loans and median home sale prices.

The data was intended to help city leaders decide where to devote resources. Tangeman sees little evidence the city paid heed.

The city and 2015 Vision, a private business group, are much more focused on economic development projects they hope will entice young professionals to stay in Lincoln.

“But if this area… is left to rot, do you think young professionals are going to want to live there?” Tangeman asks.

Of course, some college students and professionals are still drawn to the area’s cheap housing, diversity, vibrancy.

They don’t mind the occasional eccentric neighbor, the squirrels fattened by generous neighbors, the grit of living in a somewhat urban area.

Some don’t mind the occasional siren or dust-up down the street. They take common-sense precautions, like not walking around alone after dark. Locking their doors.

But when prostitutes start harassing them or crime comes too close, their patience wears thin.

At the tipping point?

One of the first things Michael Snodgrass’ teenage son noticed after moving to Lincoln this summer was how quiet it was at night. No gunshots.

Snodgrass had lived and worked for 15 years in one of the roughest parts of Kansas City. At his job, where he worked to improve the inner-city, most people called him White Guy.

He’d hear gunfire while walking from his car to his house.

He once came across the body of a man shot to death in an intersection.

As he was contemplating whether to return to Nebraska to lead NeighborWorks Lincoln, a 2-year-old in his neighborhood was accidentally killed in a drive-by shooting.

And while Lincoln’s inner city is nothing compared to Kansas City’s, Snodgrass immediately saw some big red flags after he arrived here. He’s surprised that so few Lincoln residents own their homes, particularly in older neighborhoods.

The average state and national homeownership rate is about 68 percent. Lincoln’s is 60 percent.

Experts say any neighborhood with less than 55 percent homeownership has reached a “tipping point,” meaning things could tip one way or another, for better or worse.

None of Lincoln’s core, older neighborhood rates are above 50 percent. And in one area south of the Capitol, only 6 percent of people own their homes.

Even given the impact of Lincoln’s college population, those are low numbers.

Renters aren’t bad people, but home ownership stabilizes neighborhoods. People who own their homes often take better care of the property and are concerned about property values.

Snodgrass says Lincoln is experiencing the doughnut effect — a hollowing out of the city core as people move to newer homes and apartments on the edge of the city. The rental-heavy city core is being pounded by vacancy rates in the double digits.

The effect is evident in the abundance of “for rent” signs. Apartment buildings that are half empty. Overgrown yards, broken windows, discarded furniture.

Some landlords are so desperate they’ll rent to almost anyone, says Lynn Fisher, who owns about 200 rental units and is head of the Real Estate Owners and Managers Association.

Criminal background checks fall by the wayside. Credit problems are overlooked. Sketchy renters move in, and scare away the good renters.

Landlords who can’t rent their apartments are less likely to be able to fix a leaky roof or moldy bathroom. Snodgrass says this “perfect storm” takes a toll on the heart of the city, where once-grand historic homes get neglected. Where the broken-window theory — that blighted property attracts crime —plays out.

The result of prolonged disinvestment and low homeownership rates can be seen in north Omaha and the core of Kansas City, Snodgrass says.

He figures Lincoln has about 10 years to reverse these trends or start losing neighborhoods. He and others have a few ideas about how to do that.

“I don’t think it’s too late yet,” he says.

Struggling landlords

Dai Nguyen watched things spiral out of control at one of his several apartment buildings.

When he first bought the 12-unit building at 1520 D St. five years ago, it was profitable. But as time went on it became tougher to rent. People fell behind on rent or refused to pay rent at all.

“I didn’t make any money,” he says.

He also didn’t do criminal background checks on renters, and soon his building became a magnet for drug dealers, prostitutes and pimps, according to police.

By November, police had pinned up the mug shots of the building’s occupants and their acquaintances on a bulletin board in the basement of police headquarters with a heading that said simply, “1520 D.”

Nguyen tried selling, but his first sale fell through after a man was accidentally stabbed to death in No. 3. He finally sold it in December, but for more than $100,000 less than he bought it for in 2002.

Fisher has felt the pinch, too. It was easy to keep his apartments full when he started out as a landlord in 1995. During his first decade in the business, his vacancy rate hovered between 3 and 5 percent, only because he had to clean apartments between renters.

But his vacancy rates have recently reached as high as 20 percent. According to a landlord survey by his property managers group, the city vacancy rate peaked at nearly 13 percent in the summer of 2005 and is now at about 11 percent.

The rental market soured around 2000 after the dot.com bust sent investors into the real estate market, he says, attracted by low interest rates. They built apartment buildings whether they were needed or not.

According to city records, 372 new apartment buildings — more than 4,000 new apartments — have been built in Lincoln since 1998.

Everett landlord John Bussey  says the city is now “grossly overbuilt” with apartments, which is causing the city to “rot from the inside out.”

The once bustling college student market dried up as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln built hundreds of new apartments.

The city core can’t compete with similarly priced new apartments with swimming pools, exercise rooms and garages, Bussey says.

Houses he once rented for $1,200 now go for $750. Sometimes renters negotiate lower rents or renovations.

And the city compounds the situation by encouraging developers to set aside land for apartments, Bussey says.

“There are many desperate landlords,” he says.

For Tangeman, crime has come uncomfortably close to his doorstep in the form of store robberies along South Street and a shootout near 10th and Peach around Thanksgiving.

Although he once disagreed with those who said the neighborhood was in decline, he’s become more concerned since marrying and becoming the father of a 2-year-old daughter.

“I’m noticing more things that could become a threat to my family,” he says.

Now when his daughter wants to go outside to play, he takes her to his parents’ acreage.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.