The best answer to solving the problem is a simple one. We are allowing
crime and poverty to concentrate in very specific geographic areas.
We (as a city) need to look at ways to de-concentrate crime and poverty.
Push for having affordable housing built in safer, less-impoverished
neighborhoods, even if the residents of those neighborhoods don't want it
built.
The challenges and tribulations that a 12 year-old faces if they live in an
area such as the 26th Ave North corridor in North Minneapolis cannot begin
to be compared to the issues that a child living in most neigborhoods in
Minneapolis face. Yes, we're pushing for better schooling for children in
these areas, but what good does this do when they return to their "home"
from school and cannot live a normal life? Mind you, most of these family
units are under extrodinary stress to begin with. And most have come to
Minneapolis specifically to find a "better life" for themselves and their
children. Yet, we continue to implement policies of crime and poverty
containment that places them in the very same set of circumstances they left
somewhere else.
It sort of reminds me of a boat-load of refugees sailing from
country-to-country and not being granted "admittance". We all feel for
their plight, yet we feel it is "someone elses problem" to deal with.
I contend that most of todays' crimminals and gang bangers would NOT have
chosen that path, had they been given a different environment in which to
grow-up.
dennis plante
lind-bohanon
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