While violent crime is down, some City Council members still get many complaints about graffiti, open-air drug markets and other crimes from citizens concerned about the safety of their neighborhoods.

So Seattle Council member Tim Burgess submitted the Safer Streets Initiative to the Public Safety, Human Services, and Education Committee for discussion.

The initiative is a series of 12 steps intended to cut down crime citywide through the coordination of the government and the private sector.

With city funds already tight, Burgess said the initiative should be able to be put into effect with existing city resources and money from the King County Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Fund.

"Most of the steps in the initiative can be carried out without any additional funding," he said. "We were very careful when we prepared it. We recognized there's not new money available."

One of the main steps of the initiative is the addition of two mental health professionals to the police department's Crisis Intervention Team.

These professionals would be utilized largely in the downtown area, though occasionally in the rest of the city, to handle situations that fall into what Burgess calls a "gray area" - a situation involving an individual suffering from a mental illness whose level of criminal activity is not appropriate for jail and whose mental health issues are not severe enough for hospitalization.

Though the Safer Streets Initiative is eliciting a largely positive response throughout the city, Burgess said there has been some opposition to it, specifically from advocacy groups for the homeless.

"They see it as an excuse to go after homeless people and I totally reject that," he said.

John Fox, coordinator for the Seattle Displacement Coalition, said his primary concern is with the 12th step of the initiative, which expands the Metropolitan Improvement District from the downtown core north into Belltown.

The Metropolitan Improvement District was started in downtown Seattle in 1999 and relies on hired employees to provide security, information and other services in the area.

Fox said the security team hired by the Metropolitan Improvement District has little to no experience dealing with the homeless, treats the homeless community insensitively, and serves to simply move individuals along.

"That's the role they take on," he said. "Harassing the homeless in places they tend to congregate."

Burgess said that will not be the case under the initiative.

"We're targeting criminal behavior and criminal behavior only," he said.

He said homeless advocacy groups have also shown concern about sections of the initiative that call for more assertive policing and separate prosecutors for repeat offenders.

Step six encourages the police to be more aggressive and conduct emphasis patrols in areas that are seen as trouble spots.

Step nine calls for the re-establishment of a fulltime prosecutor for individuals with 10 or more prior misdemeanor or felony convictions.

Tim Harris, director of Real Change, said he finds some steps in the initiative disturbing, but he does support other aspects of it, such as the addition of mental health professionals to the police force.

Under the current system, Harris said it is difficult for homeless people to find mental health help unless they are a danger to themselves or others.

Harris said he is concerned because the initiative does little to address the root causes of crime and homelessness. Instead, it aims to sweep the problem under the rug by giving more power to police and private security forces.

"The proposal sounds humane in some respects," he said. "But, when you really look at it, it's about increased policing and coercion. I'm afraid that a lot of the human services aspects of it are just window dressing."

Burgess said the Safer Streets Initiative is something that will be implemented over time, rather than with one vote, because of its wide scope and because each step is dealt with individually.

A number of steps may be voted on soon, such step 10 calling for an increase the maximum fine for soliciting a prostitute from $500 to $1,000, he said.

Burgess said other steps might have to wait until the city can turn its attention away from the budget early next year.

Michael Harthorne may be reached at 782.1244 or michaelh@robinsonnews.com.