It all starts with a broken window on a house in a nice, respectable neighborhood.

The neighbors see it, but don’t do anything. They believe that, eventually, the home’s owners will fix it themselves.

Then weeds begin to grow around the home, and still nothing is done. Soon, another neighbor’s home begins to look dilapidated and goes without a new paint job.

Or, it’s an older neighborhood, with older residents who might be unable to work on their yards, and the younger residents neglect their yards for bigger issues, like their jobs or families.

Sensing that the residents have become withdrawn from their neighborhood, new “neighbors” with questionable motives move in. They hang out on street corners or in alleys, or in the house with the broken window, which is now vacant. The residents withdraw even further and now the sense of fear that attracted the unwanted neighbors intensifies.

This once respectable neighborhood has deteriorated to a cesspool of crime and vandalism.

This process is called “The Broken Window Theory.” It was developed by professors James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in 1982 to explain the deterioration of a neighborhood. Gilda Montaño, the director of Keep Santa Fe Beautiful, and Joe Lobato, director of New Mexico Clean and Beautiful have seen it happen.

“There have been studies that have proven the theory to be correct,” Lobato said, who has been with NMCB for 15 years. “I’ve been to presentations where the studies were shown and they’re scary. You see this vacant house start the downward spiral of an entire neighborhood. It’s shocking to see.”

So Montaño and Lobato are doing what they can to make sure it doesn’t happen in your neighborhood, but they need your help.

A workforce of volunteers

On Saturday, KSFB hosts its annual Fall Trek For Trash. Volunteers are asked to spend the day cleaning up the city, whether in their own homes and neighborhoods or in empty lots that are labeled eyesores by KSFB board members. Volunteers should to go to the city’s operations and maintenance complex at 1142 Siler Road between 7 and 9 a.m. to pick up trash bags.

“There are some volunteers which are part of neighborhood associations who want to clean up their areas,” Montaño said. “And then we’ll get people we don’t know who show up asking to clean up areas around their homes.”

Montaño said the volunteer force is a necessity in dealing with the city’s litter and graffiti issues. She is the only full-time paid staff member, as the KSFB board of directors is made up of volunteers. Some of the responsibilities of the board include coordinating events like the Fall Trek For Trash.

“The biggest need is volunteers, and we’re always needing more,” Montaño said. “We see more people getting involved, and there are several neighborhood associations that we work with, but we still need more.”

Keep Santa Fe Beautiful is an affiliate of Keep America Beautiful, the largest community-improvement organization in the nation. In the 20 years KSFB has been in existence, Montaño said, the organization has created several events, like Saturday’s cleanup, to involve the community. KSFB has a calendar of events from April’s Great American Cleanup Day to giving out trash bags to Zozobra attendees.

Some of events are fundraisers, like a golf tournament or a wine tasting and silent auction. Other events promote awareness of the issues KSFB fights.

“We’re about education the community, litter eradication, beautification, recycling and helping the citizens take responsibility for keeping a community,” Montaño said.

A state of mind

Working at the state level, Lobato is one of two paid employees with New Mexico Clean and Beautiful, which is part of the New Mexico Tourism Department. While Montaño relies on volunteers, Lobato works with more than 21 Keep America Beautiful affiliates throughout the state to help with individual community projects.

NMCB receives 50 cents from each motor-vehicle registration fee, which is then given back in the form of grants to the affiliates. In June, NMCB announced that it had awarded $604,700 to 57 municipal, county and tribal governments in the state. The funds were based on a requested amount listed on each entity’s application.

“We send out grant money to those that are dealing with litter control, beautification, litter education, graffiti, weed eradication and just overall education about following waste handling,” Lobato said.

NMCB uses an educational program through Keep America Beautiful that targets children in kindergarten through sixth grades. Another program is for grades seven through 12.

“I am more familiar with the K-6 program because we actually go into the schools and work with the children,” Lobato said. “I have done that in conjunction with Keep Santa Fe Beautiful and other communities in the state. Our biggest focus is education. In order to get to this problem, you have to get people to be responsible for their actions.”

It’s these kinds of programs where Lobato met Pablo Ortega Jr., an elementary teacher at Nava Elementary and the education chairman for KSFB. He is a liaison between KSFB and the Santa Fe Public Schools and works with the after-school program. Ortega invited Lobato for an educational presentation to a dozen after-school programs on recycling.

“He provided little recycling kits for the kids to use,” Ortega said. “There has been such a focus on global warming that today’s children are more interested in knowing more. I think adults don’t give today’s kids enough credit on that. These kids are beginning to understand that this is their world too, and someday when they are older, they hope to have a planet to live on.”

Students plant trees as part of Arbor Day, and there is talk of building a greenhouse in order to provide landscaping around town.

“We’re here to keep Santa Fe beautiful, whether it be the medians in the streets, public areas or our schools,” Ortega said. “It is of utmost importance that we continue to educate our kids on things going on in our community, county and state. We have to get them involved.”

When it comes to educating adults, Lobato said, the state uses a proactive approach. Through the state’s hot line, residents can report drivers who throw trash from vehicle windows or people who are seen dumping illegally. The hot line asks for specific information, such as where and when the event took place, the vehicle’s make and model and license-plate number. From there, NMCB sends out a letter with a small litter bag to the guilty party.

“If it’s a cigarette offense, what we do is send out a pocket ash tray along with the litter bag,” Lobato said. “Cigarettes are a huge problem around any state buildings.

“It’s comprehensive, educational and requires involvement. Those three areas are what you need to do to be affective in a community.”

City or county?

The city of Santa Fe is growing, and the borders that separate The City Different from Santa Fe County land can be confusing. Lobato has noticed that some residents aren’t sure what category their property falls under: Are they on county or city land?

“We usually get phone calls from people around the Agua Fría and La Cienega areas,” Lobato said.

“We hope to have the hot line up and running sometime next month,” said Santa Fe County public-relations officer Stephen Ulibarri. “The hot line will be dedicated to all sorts of service requests, from graffiti and road clearing to complaints filed and illegal dumping.”

With the exception of the grafitti issue, illegal dumping and roadside litter are two top issues, according to Rick Salopek, coordinator of the Adopt-a-Road program through the Santa Fe County’s solid-waste department.

“We work closely with several programs with the state, federal services like the Forest Service and even the Bureau of Land Management,” Salopek said. “We also keep in touch with the pueblos.”

One way to fight roadside litter is through the Adopt-a-Road program, which asks businesses or individual volunteers adopt a stretch of road and keep it clear of litter. Salopek said that the county ties in the Adopt-a-Road program to the city and state’s Trek for Trash as one of two times a year volunteers clean their adopted roads. The other is the spring Great American Cleanup.

“It’s our way of contributing,” Salopek said. “We send out a brochure to our participating businesses and ask them to participate by working on their respective roads.”

Salopek also works on recycling. He says that while the national average of households that recycle is 32 percent, Santa Fe County is 5 percent. Of the seven drop-off centers in the county, Salopek said the Eldorado center sees the most action at approximately 8 percent.

“But we have seen an increase in participation in the last two to three years,” Salopek said. “There has been a push this year with the sorting and packaging recycling center on Buckman Road, and because of that information put out by the media.”

All work and then play

Following the Trek for Trash event, the city, county and state agencies have a picnic planned for the volunteers at Frenchy’s Field Park.

“It’s a way for us to thank those who volunteered their time,” Montaño said. “It’s really a time for friends and family and neighbors to all come together for a great cause. Keeping our city and state as beautiful as we can be achieved if we all work at it together.”