On Tuesday, August 3, 2004, at 06:18 PM, Michelle Martin wrote:
Our purpose is to bring awareness and resources from
the broader community to areas facing disparities of crime and violence.
I'm already all too aware of these problems, and Peace Foundation's couple hundred thousand dollars isn't going to relieve much economic disparity.
As
we raise resources, we will begin to identify solutions to violence at the
street-level
I'll save you a couple years work- the solutions are already quite well known. You simply put the criminals in jail and provide jobs for the next generation of potential criminals so they don't have time or reason to become criminals.
and support efforts that have the capacity to address the root of the problem, including economic development initiatives
Again, a couple hundred thousand dollars will fund a couple staff positions at Peace for a couple years and that's it.... We have literally thousands of unemployed folks here on the Northside.
and projects that create better social networks in areas where violence has taken ahold.
Those social networks won't accomplish much and won't even happen until it's safe to go outside and visit with your neighbors.
We
have been looking at comprehensive and successful models such as the Boston
Strategies for Violence Prevention
If that program is so successful, why were the citizens of Boston's 'hoods complaining to assembled media circus last week about the violence that has plauged Boston's 'hoods for 3 decades now?
and the Harlem Project to guide us as we
work to establish a better support network in Minneapolis for empowering
citizens and preventing violence.
The average citizen is not violent, so "better support network"s will have little effect on violence.
As a first attempt to seek solutions at the street-level, we are
implementing a pilot project this month. We have defined 10 blocks along
26th Ave, at the heart of the crime and drug problem on the northside, as a
PEACE Foundation empowerment area. We have recruited over 30 volunteers
from the broader community and are partnering with multiple organizations in
the area to empower neighbors to take back 26th Avenue.
No thanks for chasing the gangbangers the couple blocks over to my 'hood.
Utilizing these
resources with an aligned purpose, we will help neighbors organize
themselves until they increase community involvement and decrease violence.
Again, this strategy only works in the mind of folks who don't really understand crime in the 'hood.
We will work with neighbors trying to prevent specific problem situations on
their blocks,
How?
provide resources and options to individuals and families facing challenges,
Again, a couple hundred thousand won't accomplish much.
and help residents in the area to develop their own solutions to the violence that faces them right on their own streets.
Actually, for a few thousand Peace could rent a front end loader with a big steel bucket (armor to protect the operator) and long forks (to pick up criminals rolling disorderly houses with). Give me some body armor and I'll be glad to clear the Northside of the criminal's clunkers. With the change left over you could by the law abiding residents some body armor too and maybe even some weaponry to assist MPD in keeping the criminals in line.
This
will be a pilot project that we intend to evaluate and use to build a model
to replicate in other areas searching for solutions.
Peace's strategy has already been piloted and failed.
For more information about this first-step effort, go to this PEACE Foundation website link: http://www.citypeace.org/foundation/26thAve.html
Been there, done that...
I believe as we continue to build the Foundation, engage the broader
community, and focus resources to the areas that need them most, we will
begin to develop solutions that haven't been seen before to ending local
violence.
Much of this post sounds like it is the airy language of a grant application. That may BS the big foundations, but the veteran crack alley denizens can see right through it. Peace's strategy makes even less sense than the nonprofit that tried to save my block by rehabbing 4 117 year old fourplexes. They've gutted the buildings and disappeared, while the drug dealing and prostitution persists on the very corner they thought they'd clean up.
Thanks for your inquiry and please continue to check back with us on our
progress. Or, join up and lend your own ideas and assets to this effort.
With all due respect Michele, my meager assets would be better spent elsewhere, and probably outside this dying city. When our police are stretched so thin that they can't even drag a drug dealers car with plates that expired months ago to the impound lot there's not much hope here. And inviting folks to a picnic in the park when it's not even safe to walk there is pretty ridiculous.
Before you can drain the swamp you have to clear out the alligators.That will require a couple hundred cops we don't have any more and at least a couple hundred jail cells Hennipen County can't afford to staff. Then we'll need thousands of jobs to give kids an alternative to the gangs. With our city trying to chase jobs away to make way for luxury condos and townhouses, that's not gonna happen.
Best of luck, and hopefully the Peace Foundation will at least provide you and your staff a couple years of steady employment. For those of us that live here in Hawthorne, we're just hangin' on 'til we can get out.
Dyna Sluyter
p.s.: For anyone needing a garage but knowing better than to make a substantial fixed investment in Minneapolis, Fleet Farm has steel garages on sale this week. If building inspections catches on to it or you finally manage to move to better environs, just unbolt it and take it with you.!
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