Groups Represented at the World Cafe: Hawthorne NA, EINPC, Worthington Park NA, Marquette NA, Neighborhood Design Center, Ridgewood NA, Hawthorne PTA, Brams Addition Neighborhood

Neighborhood Safety World Café Notes

• Get to know your neighborhood
  • ‘walk-about’ “what makes your neighborhood a special place”
    • can bring kids and family along to walk around the neighborhood
  • visual preference surveys – what people like and don’t like
    • development, needs, city
  • neighborhood modeling exercises
  • get to know your school
• Get to know your neighbors
  • How:
    • block parties
    • community gatherings
    • neighborhood garage sale
    • people out in their yards
    • meet your neighbors and get their phone numbers
    • have a welcome sheet for new neighbors/families
    • exit interviews if they are leaving, find out why?
  • Why:
    • you know who is out of place
    • hope that others will treat you well if they know you
    • make connections with others
• Increase engagement
  • Questions:
    • how do we engage people pro-actively?
    • how do you combat the “cocooning”
      • people work hard and then just want to come home and ‘cocoon’
  • What we need to do:
    • build pride in our neighborhood
    • build capacity
    • build community
    • get to know the kids and get them involved
  • Concerns:
    • there has been a cultural shift away from involvement
    • people don’t do anything until they feel threatened
    • people think they can just pay someone else to take care of their problems
    • it is difficult to engage renters
    • we need to include non-English speakers
  • How:
    • Fun
      • games, parade/bike/costumes
      • varied events, mixed-age activities
      • kid’s activities
        • build capacity in kids, help them take pride in their neighborhood
      • have fun activities that draw people and bring neighbors together
        • no one wants to come to ‘board meetings’
    • Food brings people together
      • weed-and-feed
      • ethnic food festivals
    • School engagement
      • interact with kids at the school, use the school for meetings and game nights
      • positive things to do at schools to show what a good neighborhood is, good neighbors are, etc.
    • Meet people
      • talk to people in the neighborhood
      • help each other out with yards and empty water
      • offer assistance when someone looks like they need help
    • information dissemination
      • “block captains”
      • email list
      • phone calls
      • newsletter
      • reporting what you see to neighbors right when it occurs
      • communicate through block captains
  • Why:
    • people want to help out and will help their neighbors when asked
    • “barn-raising” “many hands make light work”
    • if everyone did something, a lot would get done
• Safety
  • Health
    • mosquitoes and pools of water
    • aggressive dogs
      • also dog waste
  • Traffic:
    • aggressive drivers
    • speeding-learn how to ID cars (not just license #) and which phone number to call
    • slow down traffic
    • speed-control islands
    • speed reporting sign
    • bike and street crossing safety
  • School safety
  • Police safety
    • can’t get a hold of cops
    • police aren’t helpful
    • people fear retaliation: when the cops come they stop by the house of the person who called them and that person then feels like a target for the violators
    • self reporting
      • they don’t call you back
    • there isn’t enough money to hire enough police, the police are not the answer
  • Snow shoveling
    • wheelchairs and strollers
  • Block captains-alders-police
    • block captains could be a central place for people to complain so that they won’t be targeted for reporting crimes
    • emails to neighbors about crimes going on so they can be aware (the police newsletters are too long after things have already occurred)
  • Feeling Safe:
    • you feel safer when you know who people are, when you know your neighbors
    • tunnel under East Wash. doesn’t feel safe
    • “neighborhood” brings a feeling of safety
  • Trash
  • Crime never goes away

Final comments from participants:

• Block captain system works well and can also work in apartment buildings
  • “organized” information/communication
• We need to combat apathy and increase involvement
• We need to do community building across divides (include the Hmong population)
• Community connections are important, we need to bridge divides, include food, kids and fun
• We should be bringing neighbors together, helping our neighbors in need with snow removal or lawn mowing
• Besides crime prevention we should also address traffic and snow removal concerns, we should have block captains with email and phone
• Glad we could come together
• Knowing your neighbors is important, assessing specific issues at the neighborhood level, many different approaches to events: flower exchange, ethnic food festivals, etc., use additional communication methods besides email
• School connections are important, building relationships with the kids
• Maybe we should have every other month social gatherings instead of just meetings
• A next step is to get your neighbors’ phone numbers so you can call them in situations where you are unsure about calling the police