A brown-bag lunch discussion at City Hall embraced an idea from Boston for reducing violence: citizens walking the streets late at night to talk to the young men hanging out.
The lunch took place Wednesday, was organized by Mendi Blue of the Office of Development and Policy and drew employees from throughout city government.The employees watched Rev. Jeffrey Brown deliver a TED Talk lecture (above) about his groundbreaking community outreach in Boston. When the video ended, peopled talked with passion about how New Haven could reduce the violence and crime of its own youth.
“Young children grow up in a culture of violence,” said Clifton Graves, who leads city government’s Prison Reentry Program. “They have goals and dreams and aspirations, but somehow they’re crushed along the way.”
Brown’s story was groundbreaking at the time, but today many outreach organizations, including some in New Haven, use similar tactics to get young men off the streets.
Brown, troubled by the high rates of criminal activity among the young men in his neighborhood, took to walking the streets between the hours of 10 p.m. and 3 a.m.. He spoke with men — most of them aged 18 to 25 — whose priorities were not to commit crimes, but simply to stay alive.
“I’ve learned some of my most important life lessons from drug dealers, and gang members, and prostitutes,” said Brown in the video.
Youth violence in Boston fell by 79 percent during the 1990s and early 2000s, partly due to Brown’s work, he claimed. How could New Haven get results similar to Brown’s?
This was the third Brown Bag Lunch meeting this summer. The weekly series is an initiative from the Mayor’s Office of Development & Policy to spark conversation on topics pertinent to City Hall. More sessions are expected in the fall and winter of this year.
Employees at Wednesday’s meeting concluded that the causes (and solutions) of youth violence are relevant to the work of every department of city government. One voice among many that afternoon, Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson, called economic disparities as the larger cause of crime in poorer neighborhoods.
“This violence is the result of the impact of capitalism on geography,” he said. “These people were the result of the American system. This wasn’t an accident.”
Capital investments in New Haven go disproportionately to already affluent areas, leaving poorer, African American communities with high crime rates and bad schools, said Nemerson.
Photo Finnegan Schick
Nemerson (at right in photo, with Graves) argued that the city must be unapologetic about the larger causes of violence and not take responsibility for the violence when applying for outside grants. Violence is a consequence of unequal labor markets at the national level, as well as the distribution of goods in the greater New Haven area, he said.
Others at the meeting called education the solution to reducing violence.
Director of Arts, Culture, and Tourism Andrew Wolf said improving the school systems in violent areas of the city would give young men the opportunity to escape cycles of violence.
City Emergency Management Deputy Director Maggie Targove said sending people out in the night to walk the streets and meet with the city’s youth generates data, she said.
“[Data] is how we get funding,” she added. “I think we have a good start in New Haven.”
Clifton Graves said he speaks to many young people in town about violence, hears similar responses: “I wouldn’t be on the street corner if I had a place to go.” And: “All I really want to do is make it to 18.”
Graves praised the Support Teams for Employment Progress (STEP) program, and the work of the Youth Department. He also noted how a citizen group, Guns Down, Books Up, mentors youths ages 10 to 18.
These programs are preventative, intervening at an early stage. In Boston, Rev. Brown went to the people who had already committed crimes. He met them on the streets, not in the classroom.
Some groups do that in New Haven too, most notably New Haven Family Alliance’s street outreach program , which sends six to eight people to walk the streets each day. Family Alliance Executive Director Barbara Tinney said she is considering shifting the hours when her group walks the streets.
Another project, The Promised Land, visits troubled youth at night. The group, led by Pastor Minister Donald Morris, focuses on the Newhallville neighborhood.
Walking the streets is not dangerous once relationships are built, city Youth Services Director Jason Bartlett said.
“When you are trying to stop violence and come up with strategies it’s all about relationships,” said Bartlett.
Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson, called economic disparities as the larger cause of crime in poorer neighborhoods.
"This violence is the result of the impact of capitalism on geography," he said. "These people were the result of the American system. This wasn't an accident.Capital investments in New Haven go disproportionately to already affluent areas, leaving poorer, African American communities with high crime rates and bad schools, said Nemerson.
Give me a break.How come Nemerson will not talk about how with the help of the greedy, elite class and unscrupulous gentrification vampires and their friends in City Hall are part of this problem.
Developers have figured out the secret sauce for gentrifying neighborhoods.
But as much as gentrification is an organic process, fueled by opportunity seekers and bargain hunters, it's developers and financiers who have become the savvy midwives of change. Once they detect the early signs of gentrification, they bring on the serious money.
In the case of Crown Heights, the serious money came from BFC Partners and Goldman Sachs' Urban Investment Group,
http://qz.com/408986/developers-have-figured-out-the-secret-sauce-to-gentrification/
Nemerson was the number-two official in Science Park's early days. He noted how Yale has since moved operations to the complex, as well; and a developer is bringing a downtown-style patch of apartments and an outpost of the G Cafe coffee shop a block away on Munson. The blue-collar Winchester past has given way to a gentrified future.
Spoken like a true Industrial Oligarchy.
https://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=crmas&p=industrial oligarchy