Salvatore Oliveri and his wife have had their dogs shot and
covered with human feces, their miniature Statue of Liberty smashed
and the bathrooms in their family pizza parlor trashed over the
past few years. The list goes on, and they worry it will only get
worse as a local nonprofit
– which relies on city money and has vowed to investigate the
alleged crimes – expands a low-income housing complex next door to
the couple.
Salvatore Oliveri and his wife have had their dogs shot and covered with human feces, their miniature Statue of Liberty smashed and the bathrooms in their family pizza parlor trashed over the past few years. The list goes on, and they worry it will only get worse as a local nonprofit – which relies on city money and has vowed to investigate the alleged crimes – expands a low-income housing complex next door to the couple.
“Our paradise has turned into a hell,” Oliveri said in a thick Italian accent as he sipped espresso and fingered the gold cross around his neck.
Outside his kitchen, through the iron bars covering his windows, his three dogs ran around the driveway, visible from a black-and-white security monitor on the counter. Oliveri’s Labrador retriever recently survived a shot to the head from a pellet gun, and another unknown suspect flung human feces onto Bingo, the family Chihuahua, he said.
A locked driveway gate and Oliveri’s 31-year-old business, Pinocchio’s Pizza, seal off his front yard, leaving only one way for someone to get inside – by hopping an eight-foot concrete wall that divides Oliveri’s home and business from the Sobrato Transitional Apartments off Monterey Road near Farrell Avenue. The city council recently extended funding to add more apartments, but the Oliveris fear more people mean more crime. After a recent salami theft at the pizza parlor, someone urinating on the building threatened Oliveri’s son, Sal Junior, when he went to intervene. Other unwanted guests have trashed the bathrooms, stolen the family lawnmower and even left a switchblade knife in the tomato garden next to the fence.
“Even my wife can’t go outside, or they’ll steal her,” said Oliveri, 79, as his wife, Margarita, nodded her head and cracked a smile. “What I need is a tiger instead of dogs.”
Finding humor in the situation is all Oliveri feels he can do sometimes. Family members said they do not blame the police or city officials for their frequent troubles, but admitted they no longer call authorities as often because by the time an officer arrives, the suspects have fled, leaving nothing for the officer to file in a report. Year to date, Gilroy police have responded to 50 calls in the immediate area ranging from alarms, burglaries, molestation, disturbances, drugs and reckless driving, Sgt. Jim Gillio said. Officers have also conducted 16 patrol checks in the area, up from eight during the same period last year, Gillio said. The apartments lay just outside the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office jurisdiction.
Troubled by the Oliveris’ plight, South County Housing President and CEO Dennis Lalor – the man in charge of finishing the Sobrato complex – said he would sit down with the family, police and council members to create a solution. Until three generations of the Oliveris showed up at Monday night’s council meeting with photos of their troubles, Lalor said he had no idea such crime existed. With the promise of a meeting, the family left before the council voted 4-2 – with council members Dion Bracco and Craig Gartman dissenting – to allow South County to assume a defaulted loan given to Sobrato’s original developer, EHC LifeBuilders, in 2003.
“This is serious and shocking, but it’s news to us,” Lalor said.
Currently, the center consists of 60 two- and three-bedroom apartments for as low as $505 per month. South County will have to return to the planning commission and city council to add 35 units to Sobrato beginning in 2011. The final phase will also include classrooms and on-site case workers to help chronically homeless people get back on their feet. If tenants commit crimes, they are evicted, Lalor said.
To get a sense of Sobrato’s environment, Lalor said he regularly talks with the on-site manager and other supervisors who conduct routine security checks around the property. The employees declined to comment, but Lalor said they have not reported any crimes to him and neither have police.
“I don’t believe the Oliveris’ problems are emanating from our tenants, but I do believe them,” Lalor said, adding that there was a liquor store around the corner and other homes all around.
A cul-de-sac on Trimble Court sits beyond another concrete wall wrapping around Sobrato’s west end. Both developments were built about five years ago, and Barry Trumble’s home sits against the wall shaded by tall cypress trees. For the past year he has lived there, Trumble said kids have thrown metal scraps and water-filled Christmas ornaments onto his roof and property, irking him so much that last month he stood on the hood of his Chevy Bronco to yell at vandals, who haven’t acted since, he said.
Other neighbors bemoaned sporadic auto burglaries and strewn drug paraphernalia, but most just complained about kids jumping the fence to get to and from school – nothing resembling the Oliveris’ horrors. Residents also mentioned cop cars occasionally cruising the area – spotted with neighborhood watch signs – but folks said they rarely see the private security truck Lalor said South County hired three years ago to comb Trimble Court three times a night.
While security may placate some residents, St. Joseph’s Family Center Executive Director David Cox said the homeless people South County tries to help are often victims of crime more often than the families in homes.
“One segment of the population that is preyed upon the most are the homeless and un-housed,” Cox said, adding that Gilroy has the highest per capita homeless rate compared to any other city in the county. “There needs to be strong communication between service providers like St. Joseph’s and those in the community, but I want to commend South County as being in the forefront of affordable housing in the area, because homelessness is not going to magically go away.”
During an recent afternoon at Sobrato, Lalor’s portrayal of the community played out: Children ran around playing in the well manicured complex as a few older tenants blared music from their rooms. Toys and bicycles crowded most porches. There was no sign of trouble.
On the other side of the fence, Sal Junior and his daughter Gina talked with hungry customers in the pizza parlor, praying in between conversations for the calm to continue.
“I hope this improves,” Sal Junior said as he knitted dough. “I really hope things get better.”
