If there’s one thing we’ve noticed this summer at the Parkside Village low-income apartment complex near Dewey Park, it’s that most residents we’ve spoken with are all grins about steps by the federal government to shut this place down.

We well understand the relief. Often, whenever there’s been a shooting or fight or drug complaint, we’ve been out there at Parkside right along with the police. The community long ago wearied of this crime-ridden public eyesore. As a 24-year-old tenant, mother of three, told us while taking a break from packing boxes for the move out: “It’s bad here. I’d never seen anybody get shot until I moved here.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in July severed its Section 8 contract with Parkside Village after the owners repeatedly failed to pass HUD requirements amid other problems, including bankruptcy. While some longtime tenants are understandably nervous about new lodgings, federal and local officials are smoothly assisting with relocation of tenants eager to flee Parkside and find somewhere safe that accepts Section 8 vouchers, including apartments and single-family homes.

The pitfalls of Parkside Village are there to see: insufficient security and poor management unable to keep troublemakers out, plus an unwillingness to put money into this operation, which soon went into decline, hardly aiding a spunky neighborhood so resolved to move in different directions. Certainly it highlights the need for strict zero-tolerance policies in which tenants get the boot if they, their family members or visiting friends get out of control and ruin life for all.

The best course is to raze this place and start anew. If it’s housing, let it be for mixed-income residents rather than concentrating those of one income level in the same spot. And consider this: Whatever the future, the much-touted master plan for downtown growth now in final stages of approval seeks to pull into its orbit neighborhoods just like that in the Dewey Park area — which is why all of us should focus hard on whatever one day arises from the rubble of Parkside Village.