2002 Award Winners Neighborhood Revitalization
The East Side Neighborhood Development Company in St. Paul, Minnesota, launched the Crime and Safety Committee in 1998 to take back its commercial district along Payne Avenue in East Side. Using their three self-defined tenets of community policing-community empowerment, relationship building and crime reduction-the committee brought together local stakeholders including members of the St. Paul Police Department, business owners, residents and area employees, and succeed in meeting all three goals. The fusion of expertise and focus on relationship building has resulted in significant changes for Payne Avenue.
Fed up with illegal drug activities and a notorious neighborhood reputation, the Hilltop and Wright Park/Stadium community in Tacoma, Washington and the Tacoma Police Department's Sector 1 formed the Drug House Elimination Task Force (DHETF) in 1989 to operate through a multi-departmental and multi-jurisdictional cooperation. This sustained public/private partnership has been working together ever since to revitalize the neighborhood and bring private investment back to the community. This model program worked in partnership to shut down and rehab close to 95 drug houses. Because of the Task Force’s early inroads, other efforts have followed, bringing with them unprecedented levels of new investment. In addition, DHETF has evolved into a nationally recognized program that has trained others from New York to Arizona.
Burlington's Old North End (ONE) is the city's most historic, diverse, and impoverished neighborhood. This case study illustrates how the City's Community and Economic Development Office (CEDO) and Police Department (BPD) convened nonprofit agencies, neighborhood residents, city staff, the University of Vermont, and elected officials to effectively tackle such complex and persistent issues as drug use, abandoned buildings, and unsupervised children and youth in ONE. By creating the Public Safety Project, they aggressively addressed the actual and perceived crime and quality of life conditions block by block in the target neighborhood, and eventually expanded their services citywide.
In 1995, The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department and several city-wide and community-based agencies joined local residents to form the Grier Heights Neighborhood Initiative, to address crime and community development issues in one of Charlotte's challenged inner city neighborhoods. Substandard housing, high crime rates and open-air drug markets contributed to neighborhood decline. Along with improved resident participation in local organizations, the partnership resulted in the arrest of several drug dealers, volunteer-remodeled homes, a new urban park and youth programs. In addition, a leadership program afforded residents the opportunity to assert their vision of Grier Heights as a proud, multi ethnic cohesive community whose self-sustaining residents enjoy a wealth of resources.
Founded in 1972 by those concerned with the future of the South Bronx, the South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation (SOBRO) has long pursued a simple mission: reverse the flight of businesses, jobs, and opportunities from this most challenged community. SOBRO, in collaboration with the New York City Police Department and through a Weed and Seed designation has been able to address a myriad issues of public safety and pervasive disorder in an attempt to create a stronger backdrop against which the organization could play out its economic development strategies. The project relies upon promoting trust and fostering collaboration on community development projects that include designs for public safety. Outdoor activities like street clean ups, block parties and summer play streets increase positive activity, reduce criminal elements, and encourage ownership of the neighborhood. Community development successes planned with the help of police, are now magnets for economic development and job creation in the community.
Crime, substandard housing, drug houses and gang and youth violence plagued Phoenix’s Garfield neighborhood. In 1994, Garfield was designated a Weed & Seed site and began to reap the benefits of a coordinated and integrated approach to traditional law enforcement and development. Collaboration between various city agencies, neighborhood residents, and private and nonprofit groups, under the direction of the City's Neighborhood Services Department and Phoenix Police Department, has lead to several noteworthy improvements and measurable and intangible gains in public safety, physical development, and social services. Since its inception, program partners and residents have shut down drug houses, rehabilitated housing units, planted trees, installed streetlights and encouraged residents to participate in block watches and neighborhood patrols. |
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