Mar/Apr 1997
Issue #92
Community Policing
Without safe streets, decent housing is nothing more than a comfortable prison. In many low-income neighborhoods, community organizations have tackled the problems that crime and open air drug markets bring. Some work independently, some work with other organizations and police, and some work at odds with the police – the very organizations whose mission is to protect and serve. In this issue, we present a range of strategies that individuals and groups should consider as they attempt to make their neighborhoods better places to live. In organizing against crime, however, neighborhood groups should always proceed with caution.
Restoring Order
Community Residents Lead the Way to Safer Neighborhoods In towns and cities across America, community residents fed up with escalating crime have banded together to take back their neighborhoods. Residents […]
Partners in Policing
When Nutley, New Jersey, Police Chief Robert DeLitta and Sgt. Steve Rogers saw a letter in the local newspaper from an African-American woman who was having trouble renting an apartment […]
Drug War in St. Paul
Tenants, Cops, and Community Organizing On the night of February 25 1995, St. Paul police and a city housing inspector arrived at the home of Louise and Carl with their […]
Organization Profile
REACH of Portland, Oregon In the early 1980s, REACH, a fledgling community development corporation (CDC) in Portland, Oregon, formed a complicated limited partnership to buy a vacant lot and several […]
Remembering Rights
Without safe streets, decent housing is nothing more than a comfortable prison. In many low-income neighborhoods, community organizations have tackled the problems that crime and open air drug markets bring. […]
Shelter Shorts / Short Takes
Rent War Rages in New York City A pitched battle is underway in New York State, as landlord and tenant advocates square off over the expiration of rent regulations this […]
Gaining Ground by Holding Back
Late last year, St. Louis ACORN members learned that Regional Hospital – the city’s only “safety net” hospital that guaranteed care regardless of ability to pay – was going to […]
Everything I Know About Fundraising
In 1980, a few weeks after Ronald Reagan was elected President, I answered a classified ad in the Portland Oregonian. The first word was ACTIVIST. I can’t remember the rest […]
Book Review (Revitalizing Urban Neighborhoods, Reinventing Cities)
The Last Best Hope: Planners and Organizers Work To Empower Residents Revitalizing Urban Neighborhoods, edited by W. Dennis Keating, Norman Krumholtz, Philip Star. 1996, University Press of Kansas. Reinventing Cities: […]
Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street
Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street , 58 minute video produced by Leah Mahan and Mark Lipman, Holding Ground Productions, will be aired on public television beginning in […]
Creating Better Futures
On February 28, 1997, over 50 homeless advocates, service providers, public housing residents, organizers, developers, government officials, academics, and others met for a forum on housing that began the Creating […]