2005 Award Winners Neighborhood Revitalization
The Swope Community Builders CSI/Development Partnership matured from a cooperative relationship between a CDC and a police department to a mutually beneficial partnership that produced significant accomplishments in a high-crime Kansas City, MO neighborhood. Through their work together, the Kansas City Police Department and Swope Community Builders reached new heights: the involvement of the police has strengthened and advanced SCB’s development agenda; and SCB has bolstered KCPD’s resources dedicated to neighborhood safety. The KCPD has been actively involved in SCB’s development process, offering input around Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles on all SCB developments. At a new commercial development, The Shops on Blue Parkway, the police were integral in the integration of safety-enhancing design elements and even used crime statistics to help attract skeptical merchants.
In El Cajon, CA, El Cajon CDC and the El Cajon Police Department (CPD) forged a partnership in response to surveys that proved safe streets were key to successful revitalization. Their multi-tiered partnership ranged from strategic conversations about the design of new businesses, to the daily operations of an Ambassadors Program to increase the eyes and ears on the street, report code violations, and maintain the cleanliness of the Downtown commercial area. By addressing safety issues and focusing on design and economic development together, the partnership achieved a true downtown revitalization. The partners’ success is evident in the new homeownership opportunities, large-scale clean up projects, falling crime rates, and an influx of new businesses. Now, new restaurants, shops and increased pedestrian traffic have replaced the empty storefronts and criminal elements that once hindered development in downtown El Cajon.
In Delray Beach, FL, the Delray Beach Weed & Seed Project, a multi-agency collaborative with the Delray Beach Police Department, found creative solutions to neighborhood crime problems. The partnership initiated a special task force of various city agencies to address code violations and other crime concerns in the area. These enforcement techniques were paired with community clean-up days, home rehabilitation, and a significant new mixed-use development, the Atlantic Grove project, which includes both commercial and residential uses. The Weed & Seed collaborative also developed innovative educational and recreational alternatives for area youth, including the Delray Youth Vocational Charter School, which provides training in automotive repairs for teens who have not found success in traditional schools.
Twelfth Street Heritage Development Corporation (TSHDC) and the Kansas City Police Department partnered to improve several core residential developments in Kansas City, MO through a combination of enforcement and revitalization activities. Prospect Park, one of Kansas City’s most popular open-air drug markets, was having a significant negative impact on the apartments that bordered the park. Through the efforts of TSHDC’s police partnership, prostitution, public inebriation, drug dealing, and violent crime at the park were replaced by baseball leagues, Easter Egg Hunts, and design elements that improved lighting and visibility. As a result, a neighborhood resource was restored, and residents feel safer in their community. One of the program’s strengths was its ability to get community stakeholders involved in the process and then apply the lessons it learned at Prospect Park to address crime in other nearby neighborhoods. The partners employed these strategies with the Jazz Hill Homes complex, and other previously crime-ridden locations.
Lincoln Free to Grow is a partnership based on a comprehensive idea of a strong community. This Lincoln, NE collaboration worked in a concentrated area of its target neighborhood to improve the physical environment, increase resident leadership and social cohesion, and develop strong families. Partnership staff initiated “knock-and-talks” throughout the neighborhood and was successful in bringing residents together to address the community’s issues of crime and property maintenance. Through residential clean-up days and social events such as block parties and barbecues, community members developed stronger relationships and took responsibility for their neighborhood’s health. At the same time, teams of service providers and law enforcement officers worked together to address the social needs of the neighborhood. As a result of police and resident collaboration through Free to Grow, crime rates in the neighborhood dropped significantly.
In Winston Salem, NC, the Winston-Salem Weed and Seed, administered by the Center for Community Safety at Winston-Salem State University, used a community-police partnership to realize significant crime reduction and neighborhood revitalization accomplishments. The partnership successfully leveraged diverse resources from the University to enhance and coordinate existing community organizations’ capacities, and the result was significant change on a neighborhood-wide basis. Through Operation Impact, one of the Weed and Seed’s revitalization activities, residents were encouraged to nominate homes and businesses with public safety or code violations for a multi-agency team to address. The program’s success in the Southside neighborhood fostered a city-wide replication of the strategy. Falling crime rates and increased police presence furthered other neighborhood improvement efforts, including new homeownership and historic rehabilitation. |
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