Despite concerns about drugs, violence and larceny in the Henderson Extension area, the neighborhood remains unable to get federal funds for community policing and revitalization because, paradoxically, its crime rate is too low.

The federal Weed & Seed program - which provides money for communities to ''weed'' out crime and ''seed'' areas with economic and social development opportunities - still hasn't provided any funds for the Hancock Corridor section of west Athens, an area that includes Henderson Extension, Athens-Clarke Police Chief Jack Lumpkin told neighborhood residents at a Saturday forum. The crime rate in the area has been steadily declining from the mid-1990s, when up to half of all the homicides in Athens happened there, Lumpkin said.

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