The Low-Risk Way to Help At-Risk Kids

Perhaps the biggest danger for at-risk youth is the loss of social ties. Stranded by an absent family or an uncaring community, there’s usually no stopgap to prevent a young person from dropping out of school, turning to drugs or uncorking their anger with violence — unless a coach, pastor or neighbor steps in. In other words, these children need a mentor.

Too often, the kids most in need of reassurance and guidance aren’t connected with a mentor. Nearly one-third of America’s youth grow up without a trusted adult relationship outside their home. Of those, more than half — 9 million American kids, about the same size as all of New York City — are considered at-risk.

As the founder and CEO of MentorMe, a tech platform for youth and small business development, Brit Fitzpatrick is out to change that. “I can’t help but wonder what would happen if we shifted the way we view mentoring relationships from something formed by happenstance or as a product of privilege, to something that can be used as a tool to actually strengthen our communities,” she says. “What would happen if we shifted the focus of cities from attracting outside talent to actually investing in the young talent that’s already there? What if, along with great neighborhoods and great schools, every child was given a great mentor?”

The for-profit MentorMe, founded in 2014 in Memphis, Tenn., uses technology to better serve disconnected youth. Their cloud-based platform helps nonprofit organizations match their volunteers to the right child, manage the pair’s activities and then measure the impact of the relationship. As clients like Points of Light, the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce and the State of New York can vouch, MentorMe’s automated software program beats tracking each mentor and mentee on an Excel spreadsheet or, worse, with pen and paper. At Memphis Grizzlies Foundation, senior manager Desiree’ Robertson says the biggest boon has been the online application, particularly useful during the holidays when she might receive five or six requests a day. Fitzpatrick estimates that, for most clients, administrative time is cut by a quarter with the platform.

“The way mentoring programs are traditionally run is not scalable, as they rely on paperwork, spreadsheets and half-baked solutions,” Fitzpatrick says. “Unfortunately, most people underestimate the time needed to run mentoring programs successfully, and while they roll out to great fanfare, most fizzle out before gaining significant traction.”

Why is a streamlined process so important? Matching a kid with the wrong mentor can actually do significant damage. A mentoring relationship that lasts for less than six months actually degrades a young person’s feelings of self-worth and perceived performance in school. That’s why it’s essential to partner adults and children based on shared interests and expectations and to ensure they are meeting up at regular intervals, which MentorMe’s platform tracks.

If the pair jives, the results can be life-changing. Fitzpatrick, who herself benefited from mentoring, knows this firsthand. Raised by a single mom, she spent her after-school hours and summers at the Boys and Girls Club. Since graduating from Howard University in 2009, getting her first job in digital media marketing and founding a startup, she has given back by mentoring others. And her platform has helped another 6,000 volunteers find a young person to advise.

“As individuals, we may not be able to eradicate poverty; we may not be able to wipe out youth violence,” Fitzpatrick says. “But we can all start where we are, reach back and find a young person to invest in. Then, collectively, we can all be part of providing a brighter future for the next generation.”

Homepage photo courtesy of MentorMe.

Continue reading “The Low-Risk Way to Help At-Risk Kids”

Upstanders: The Mosque Across the Street

When an Islamic center purchased a plot of land opposite a church in Memphis, Tenn., the local Muslim community expected hostility. Pastor Steve Stone had something else in mind.
Upstanders is a collection of short stories celebrating ordinary people doing extraordinary things to create positive change in their communities produced by Howard Schultz and Rajiv Chandrasekaran. These stories of humanity remind us that we all have the power to make a difference.

Participants Claim This Program Boosts Them out of Poverty. Should Other Cities Implement It?

LaKesha Griffin wanted to get as far from Memphis as she could. A self-described “hardheaded” teen, she ignored her mother’s pestering about college and found a job post-high school as a flight attendant for United Airlines. But in 2001, United Flight 175 brought down the South Tower of the World Trade Center and United Flight 93 crashed in a Pennsylvania field. The airline industry took a massive hit, and despite six years of seniority, Griffin was one of 20,000 people laid off from United. Unemployed, she returned home to Tennessee.
“It was an awful thing,” is how Griffin describes her experience of looking for work for three or four years. “I needed to start all over. It’s not like you walk into McDonalds and make $20 an hour.” She obtained a practical nursing certificate in 2002, but still struggled to find work. When the country fell into recession after the subprime mortgage crisis, Griffin realized she needed a college degree. But as she neared the 72-month lifetime limit on drawing welfare benefits, she realized that she was in a bind: without a full-time job, she couldn’t support herself and her teenage daughter; with full-time employment, she wouldn’t have time to focus on her schooling. That’s when, seemingly by chance, a savior called her on the phone.
Five years later, Griffin has a daughter in college (who’s preparing to attend law school) and a master’s degree of her own. She’s been employed consistently since May 2012, most recently as a social worker for the Mississippi Department of Family and Children’s Services. How did a family that subsided on food stamps become so successful in such a short period?

LaKesha Griffin received her Master’s Degree from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in May of 2014.

Family Rewards is a bold attempt to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty, but it’s rooted in a simple premise: pay parents small amounts of money so they don’t have to scramble to make ends meet, but make those funds conditional on bettering the next generation’s chances of escaping poverty. (In other words, pay a hungry person to teach their kids to fish.) Known as a conditional cash transfer, the three-year program (which concluded in 2014) recruited 1,200 families relying on public assistance in the Bronx and Memphis. Many were led by single mothers, and all included at least one child of high school age. Family Rewards offered eight incentives, ranging from $40 to $500, for these families to improve their employment, education and health. A full study is forthcoming next year, but early data that the program’s organizers shared with NationSwell reveals that this new model could redefine our country’s welfare system.
In Memphis, out of the 613 families enrolled, 99 percent earned at least one of the eight rewards, according to data provided to NationSwell by the Children’s Aid Society, which is the lead agency operating Family Rewards. Nine out of every 10 families improved their health by getting an annual physical ($100 per family member) or dental care twice yearly (another $100 per visit). Ninety-six percent of the 1,097 Memphis high school students who participated received at least one cash reward for having a 95 percent attendance rate ($40 a month), taking the SAT or ACT exam (a one-time $50), getting higher grades ($30 per A, $20 per B and $10 per C) and passing their final exams ($200 each for up to seven tests). The most difficult category, by far, was entering the workforce: only half — 53 percent — earned a reward for sustaining full-time employment ($150 a month) or earning a GED certificate (a lump sum of $400).
To some, these achievements might seem laughably easy, but try passing the GED when your car won’t run, public transit is delayed and you need to get from Memphis to a test prep class across the state line. Add to that scenario the stress of doing it while also worrying about making it back in time to go to work. A monthly $150 reward goes far, especially for a family earning $17,000. But it requires an immeasurable amount of grit and determination to earn.
Family Rewards paid Griffin and her daughter to get better grades in school, go to the doctor’s office and boost working hours — all cash deposited directly to her bank account. “I get excited every time I tell people my story because of where I came from, from having no job to starting over, building myself from the ground up. I don’t think I ever have to worry again,” Griffin gushed as she ran out of the library, where she was studying, to speak to NationSwell by phone. “I don’t know how [Family Rewards] ever got my name, but it was the best thing that ever could have happened to me at that time in my life.”
LaKesha Griffin and her daughter, who graduated high school earlier this year.

Critics of the program say that its effectiveness at changing behaviors may be overstated. But anecdotally, participants say they aren’t working for the rewards; it’s the rewards that help them work. Echoing Griffin’s story, one participant tells Politico, “Motivate me? I was already motivated,” says Sheena Lyons, a school cafeteria worker. “I did most of this stuff anyway. My problem is money, not work. I always work.”

Tonya Melton, director of education and employment for youth empowerment programs at Children’s Aid Society, recalled another case of a family struggling with homelessness. Case workers could barely keep track of them as they moved from couches and floors to shelters to apartments. But once the family fully participated in the rewards program, the high schooler earned $530 one year and started community college this fall.
“With welfare, food stamps, [Temporary Assistance for Needy Families], I think there’s constant exploration of the question, ‘How can we maximize the use of funds to motivate people to move out of poverty?’” Melton says. “Does that create long-term change?”

In Memphis, Jessica Taylor participates in Family Appreciation Day, along with program advisors Darrel Davis and Coasy Hale.

In its current form, the American social safety net is an all-or-nothing system. Unemployment insurance only covers someone until they’re back to work, even if it’s a dead-end, minimum-wage job; there’s little public aid for someone, like Griffin, who wants to rise to middle-class status but needs a second chance at schooling to attain it. The amount of aid ranges from state to state, from a high of $49,175 for a Hawaiian family participating in more than 90 federal anti-poverty programs to a low of $16,984 for the same family in Mississippi, according to a 2013 report by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. A family like Griffin’s in Tennessee is eligible for $17,413 in benefits — about $8.37 an hour if you divide the total over 260 work days, which is higher than the $7.25 minimum wage in the Volunteer State. (Tennessee’s legislature has not adopted a minimum wage, so the federal rate applies.)

Why, some ask, would a person get a job when traditional welfare programs offer significant cash benefits? Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson, on The View last year, said, ”You rob someone of their incentive to go out there and improve themselves.” Contrast that with a small group on the left, like the Food Research & Action Center, who claim our system doesn’t provide enough financial assistance to propel a family out of poverty.

Katrel Jones was a participant in the Family Rewards program in Memphis.

Across the globe, however, conditional cash transfers are becoming the preferred social safety net. After witnessing the inefficiency of distributing staples like milk and tortillas, Mexico rolled out the world’s first conditional cash transfer program in 1997, offering steady payments to roughly 6 million households on the condition that families meet certain requirements, like keeping their children in school and visiting health clinics for regular checkups. Our southern neighbor’s model has since been replicated in 52 countries, including Colombia, Brazil and the Philippines.
Tying progressives’ concern for the poor with conservatives’ emphasis on rejoining the workforce, the model interested Michael Bloomberg, then-mayor of New York City. His thinking: that conditional cash transfers weren’t so different from the Earned Income Tax Credit for working families, and that $40 in the bank each month might prove a more tangible incentive than a distant $1,250 credit next April. Bloomberg decided to test the idea, and in 2007, the Big Apple launched three demonstration projects in six hard-hit neighborhoods.

“The worst thing that can happen is it won’t work and we’ll have to try something else,” Bloomberg reportedly told advisors, wagering millions of dollars from his own foundation and soliciting private funding from big-name groups like the Rockefeller Foundation, insurance giant AIG, Robin Hood Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society Institute and more to back $40 million in potential conditional cash transfers.

In Memphis, community members helped by the Family Rewards program enjoy Family Appreciation Day.

The initial program distributed only $20.6 million to families. While it achieved had modest gains, particularly in healthcare, opponents said they didn’t justify the cost. “A welfare mother in Central Harlem is not poor for the same reasons that a subsistence corn farmer in Mexico is poor,” Heather MacDonald, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research wrote in a scathing takedown, entitled “Bribery Strikes Out.”

Family Rewards, the most comprehensive of the three pilots, was picked for a second iteration in 2011, in which Griffin was a participant. To focus on achievable results, the number of rewards was pared down from 22. Funded by a Social Innovation Fund grant, the program underwent a rigorous, three-year randomized control trial  in which half of the participants received no aid. In Memphis, those receiving rewards had their incomes boosted by $5,442, on average.
Griffin says she’s “furious” the project ended so abruptly last year. She still refers people she meets to Family Rewards, telling them to call any of the caseworkers because she’s sure they would offer some help, like they did when she was at her “breaking point.” While the program may not be a cure-all for poverty’s grip on American cities, it’s a start, especially for motivated mothers like Griffin. “I’m gonna make it. I could make my rent up. I could pay my tuition,” Griffin thought with relief, when she signed up. “I’m going to be okay.”

This Urban School District Is Promising Free Meals For Every Child

A bologna sandwich: That’s what students of Shelby County Schools in Memphis, Tenn., received for lunch if they forgot to bring the $2 or so to pay for their food.

Nothing: That’s what some impoverished students (80 percent qualify for free lunch) would rather sit with in the cafeteria than be revealed as the “poor kid” to their classmates.

“We see kids every day that don’t go through the lunch line because they don’t want to be identified as that kid who gets a free meal. That stigma is huge,” Tony Geraci, the executive director of Shelby County Schools’ nutrition program, tells The Commercial Appeal.

But come this school year, that will all change. The school system will be serving three meals to every single student in the district — breakfast, lunch and dinner — all for free, regardless of how wealthy their family may be.

It’s due to a federal program that’s changing the way cash reimbursements for school lunches are distributed. Rather than judging individual families in relation to the poverty line, the government is now looking at the economic well-being of entire cities. Known as the “community eligibility provision,” the program kicks in once 40 percent of the school district’s population is considered low-income (largely based on signups for food stamps). Reimbursements in Memphis will now doled out based on how many meals are served in a cafeteria rather than how many poor kids attend a school, creating an incentive to serve additional meals.

Nutritious meals had been (and continue to be) correlated with academic performance. One 2002 study undertaken by a Harvard Medical School professor found that students “at nutritional risk” missed more days of school and expressed more anxiety and aggression — areas that all showed improvement six months later when a free breakfast program was implemented. It may sound simplistic, but a plate of chicken or lasagna could the difference between kids who pay attention to their teacher and the ones who focus on their empty stomach, a divide that largely falls on economic lines.

America’s subsidized school lunch programs date back to World War II, when many young men were rejected from the draft due to the lingering physical consequences of childhood malnutrition. The National School Lunch Act, passed in 1946 as a “measure of national security,” got a major update in 1998 when Congress agreed to start paying for snacks for youngsters in certain after-school extracurriculars. Launched experimentally in 2010, the latest expansion goes even farther, ensuring there’s food on every child’s plate at every meal. It’s part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s signature “Let’s Move!” campaign to end childhood obesity.

Supporters say the latest plan is essential to preventing hunger in classrooms in Memphis and across the country — Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, parts of New York City and elsewhere. Not only does “community eligibility” eliminate stigma for children who’d otherwise qualify for free or reduced lunch, it also ensures that other students — the ones who didn’t file their annual paperwork, others who may be just above the poverty cutoff or some of the growing number of homeless youth — don’t fall through the gap. For several kids, not eating a healthy meal at school means not eating at all.

“Kids won’t be going home and saying, ‘I’m hungry,’ and their mother just says, ‘I don’t have anything for you to eat,’ and not enough money to go to the market maybe,” one student in Baltimore, Adria Johnson, told the local news station when her district qualified. All together, nearly 6.4 million students across 13,800 districts are now being fed by the expanded criteria. In Memphis alone, parents will save $1.8 million they previously forked over for lunch.

“Stigma really overshadows a lot of the great things we do,” Geraci says. “For once, we’ll be able to have a program where we can say, now it’s time to learn, now it’s time to eat, now it’s time to play. That’s huge for this district.”

America’s 10 Best Bike Lanes

It was just seven short years ago that that New York City created the United States’s first protected bike lane. Since them, as part of an effort to get more cyclists on the road, more communities across the country have embraced safer bike lanes.
Currently,  there are 183 projects throughout the U.S., according to PeopleForBikes, an advocacy group based in Colorado. The organization recently mapped out the best projects and designs cropping up; as protected bike lanes become the norm, smaller cities should take note of these standout designs.
“Last year there were only a handful of cities building protected bike lanes. It was really the cool cities — the innovative, creative leaders,”says Martha Roskowski, head of the Green Lane Project program. “Now, we’re seeing a lot of other cities are getting on-board and implementing them.”
Among the top is San Francisco’s Polk Street, which is distinguished by its separation from cars and opposite flow of traffic, according to Martha Roskowski, who heads PeopleForBike’s Green Lane Project program.
Here are the top 10 projects, according to PeopleForBikes:

  1. Polk Street, San Francisco
  2. 2nd Avenue, Seattle
  3. Riverside Drive, Memphis, Tenn.
  4. Rosemead Boulevard, Temple City, Calif.
  5. Furness Drive, Austin, Texas
  6. Broadway, Seattle
  7. SW Multnomah Boulevard, Portland, Ore.
  8. Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh
  9. King Street, Honolulu
  10. Broadway, Chicago

While many Dutch and European bike lanes are uniform design, Roskowski notes that American projects have taken on distinct characteristics based on each city. Chicago and Seattle have prioritized low-cost strategies, while San Francisco bike lanes are focused more on aesthetic. But each design has its benefits. For example, the cheaper model, she adds, helps cities get more residents to adapt the model.

“As you get more people riding, it builds support to go back and do more robust facilities,” Roskowski tells Fast Company. “The big jump in ridership happens when you really make those connections — point A to point B — and people can get where they want to go.”

MORE: The Verdict on Protected Bike Lanes
 

The All-Hands-on-Desk Initiative to Improve Low-Performing Schools in Tennessee

If several educators have their say, teachers, not Elvis, will come to mind when you think about Memphis. That’s because they have a bold plan to turn the Tennessee city into Teacher Town, USA.
The Shelby County school district (where Memphis is located) has identified 68 schools in its purview performing in the bottom 5 percent of the state. Pledging to bring these failing Memphis schools into the top 25 percent of Tennessee educational facilities (an unprecedented turnaround challenge proposed by the Achievement School District and Shelby County) in five years, superintendents Dorsey Hopson and Chris Barbic are using every lesson plan they can find to do right by their kids.
To create the best classroom environments, Shelby is taking a three-pronged approach for “1) retaining great teachers, 2) developing local teacher talent, and 3) recruiting national talent,” according to the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
As Sara Solar, portfolio director of the Teacher Town USA funding initiative explains, “We know that transforming Memphis … will require that we work at every stage of the teacher life cycle — from novices to our strongest teacher leaders.”
As a part of this initiative, they’re focusing on cultivating young teachers with the leadership and guidance of older educators and encouraging them to build a strong, personal and lasting bond with the community.
Knowing that big changes always come up against entrenched political, economical and racial tensions, Shelby started bringing together representatives from the schools (public and charter), civic organizations, non-profits, universities and others  to start a discussion on “how to make Memphis the best place in America for great teachers.” Consulting the philosophy of “high-stakes donor collaborations,” Shelby’s school district is using the newest and best ideas out there to push the envelope into the future and secure long-range funding and philanthropy for their school programs.
One of the funders, Jim Boyd, sums up the initiative very nicely: “We know we have this moment in time, and something concrete and specific to work on together…And so we partner even when it’s hard. Perhaps because what makes it hard is also what makes it powerful.”

5 Ways to Strengthen Ties Between Cops and Citizens

During a tense confrontation between white police and a black man, officers drew their guns and fired, leaving a mourning mother and an enraged community.
Sounds familiar, right? But it’s not the story you’re thinking of.
In this case, the year was 1987; the place was Memphis, Tenn. And the man killed by cops? Joseph Dewayne Robinson.
His death has a lot in common with that of Michael Brown’s, the black teenager who was killed by an officer in Ferguson, Mo., last month. But while Brown’s passing was followed by the deployment of armored vehicles, rubber bullets and riot gear, Robinson’s led to community dialogue, partnership and, ultimately, a new national model of how police can de-escalate crisis situations. It’s one example of terrible tragedy leading to positive change.
It remains to be seen what will come out of the disastrous events in Ferguson. Brown’s death — and its turbulent aftermath — exposed a deep disconnect between the local police force and the community it serves. As the tear gas clears in the Missouri town and analysts consider how things went so horribly wrong there, here’s a look at five instances where police and communities have worked together successfully, building trust and making neighborhoods safer for both cops and the people they’re supposed to protect.
1) Memphis calms things down
Robinson, mentioned above, had struggled with mental illness and was just 27 years old when he was killed. On the day of his death, his mother had called the cops because her son — high on cocaine — was cutting himself with a large knife and threatening people around him.
The Memphis police arrived and, after a confrontation, shot Robinson 10 times.
The community was deeply disturbed, and people started coming together to look for solutions. “Family members meeting in the kitchen said there’s got to be a better way to deal with these things,” says Veronique Black, a family and consumer advocate at the Memphis chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), a nonprofit mental-health advocacy group.
Two members of Memphis NAMI approached the police department with a plan: Let’s train cops to safely defuse tense situations involving people with mental illness.
In response, the city’s mayor formed a task force and police met with families and mental health professionals. Together they came up with the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT): a 40-hour training program that teaches police to respond to mental illness emergencies in a calm, safe, caring fashion.
“The CIT officer is working very, very hard to slow things down,” says Maj. Sam Cochran, a former member of the Memphis Police Department who oversaw the city’s CIT program for 20 years. CIT members are trained to respond coolly and carefully in all situations — talking down agitated people using a clear, slow voice, defusing conflicts that might otherwise end in injury or death, and finding ways to reduce anxiety while avoiding the use of force.
They’re also specialists in controlling fear, whether it’s the person in crisis, others who happen to be around or even the officers, Cochran says. People who are afraid can be dangerous: “If you don’t get a handle on that fear, it can cause some very difficult challenges,” he says.
The training gives cops a safer way to respond not only to mental health emergencies, but also high-pressure situations of all kinds, like domestic disputes or confrontations between police and a suspect.
The program has worked well in Memphis. “We had something like a 40 to 50 percent decrease in officer injuries on call events related to mental illness,” Cochran says. And although the department didn’t keep statistics on civilian injuries stemming from those kinds of calls, he says, “we felt very confident that if officers weren’t getting hurt, people with mental illness weren’t getting hurt.”
Based on its success in Memphis, CIT has since become a national standard, adopted by about 2,800 police departments nationwide.
2) California cops chat over coffee
While police departments have been arming themselves in recent years with surplus military equipment from the federal government, there might be a much simpler way to make communities safer: over a cup of coffee.
Hawthorne, Calif., police detective John Dixon tried that tactic back in 2011. He convinced his department to set aside a single morning for Coffee With a Cop, an event where officers would sit in a local McDonald’s and talk with anyone who had a question or concern. The event was so popular that the department started holding it in a different area of the city every six weeks.
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These coffee talks allowed Hawthorne police to connect with their neighbors on a more personal level. The idea, Dixon says, is to reclaim “the small-town feel of knowing a cop on the corner.” They are also a way to break through the barriers that can separate cops and civilians (like the bulletproof glass at the front desk in the police station), Dixon says. “It opened up a lot of lines of communication.”
Previously, cops might only interact with civilians during calls for service, Dixon explains. “Officers tend to go to the call, handle the call and then leave.” But Coffee With a Cop lets officers and neighbors relate as people, to see each other as more than just a robbery victim or a law enforcer.
After the program’s initial success, Hawthorne police Sgt. Chris Cognac wrote about it in a federal newsletter on community policing, and the idea caught fire. The department received a grant and started training other police departments how to commune over a cup of joe.
Some 680 departments in the United States as well as forces in Canada, Australia and Nigeria have held Coffee With a Cop events, Dixon says.
Dixon says police departments often ask what kind of return, in numbers, they’ll get from holding a Coffee With a Cop event — How many arrests will it lead to? How many guns will be seized? But the effect of the events isn’t quantifiable in that way, Dixon says. It’s about relationship-building, not crime stats.
At the events, people often talk about problems that they wouldn’t think to call 911 about, but that add up to diminishing a neighborhood’s safety, Dixon says. One neighbor, for instance, complained to a cop about an abandoned couch in an alleyway, where people were hanging out and doing drugs, he says. The officer immediately pulled out his phone and called the city to have public works haul away the sofa.
3) Boston makes a miracle
Cops and neighbors can bond over a hot beverage — or they can come together to confront violent gang members and convince them to put down their guns.
That’s what the work of David Kennedy, criminologist and author of two books on crime prevention, has shown.
Kennedy is the mastermind behind the so-called “Boston Miracle,” which drastically reduced youth homicides in the city in the 1990s. The method is one of the most high-profile models of police and neighborhood leaders working together to end street violence.
Kennedy’s approach is based on the understanding that most urban violence is caused by a small number of people. Therefore, police shouldn’t treat whole communities as problematic simply because some members are violent, and residents should work with cops who are willing to focus on tackling the troublemakers.
Under Kennedy’s model, cops, probation officers and others identify the people responsible for most of the shootings. These people are invited to a call-in, where they’re given straight talk by neighbors, police, prosecutors, street-outreach workers and clergy. The message: Keep doing what you’re doing and we’ll come down on you hard, prosecuting you in federal court if possible. Or, put the guns down, and we’ll help you secure jobs, find housing and access other social services.
At a call-in, gang members learn that the cops and the community already know who they are and what they’re up to — and most important — that they want to help them make a change.
This tactic, which has since spread to dozens of other communities, isn’t a silver bullet. Boston’s homicide rates crept back up in the 2000s, but Kennedy argues that his approach needs to be an ongoing process with continued investment on both sides.
4) New Haven welcomes newcomers
Almost 10 years ago, leaders in the city of New Haven, Conn., noticed a problem. Undocumented immigrants, who can be among the most vulnerable to crime, were afraid to talk to police.
The solution? A new ID card for all city residents — regardless of their citizenship status.
DON’T MISS: Here’s a Smart Solution That Stops Immigrants From Being Robbery Victims
“Prior to it coming out, undocumented immigrants were often afraid to report violations for fear of deportation,” says Luiz Casanova, New Haven’s assistant police chief. “We had a number of crimes go unreported. Witnesses of crimes did not come forward. Horrific crimes — sexual assaults, rapes, home invasions.”
And while immigrants were avoiding police by not reporting crimes they witnessed or experienced, they were often the ones most in need of police protection. Why? Many undocumented immigrants couldn’t open bank accounts, so they carried around large amounts of cash, leading to a reputation among muggers that they were “walking ATMs.”
In 2007, New Haven addressed these problems when, under the leadership of former Mayor John DeStefano Jr., the city council voted to create the Elm City Resident Card. Additionally, New Haven issued a general order prohibiting police from asking victims or witnesses of crimes about their immigration status.
The ID card helps people open bank accounts and access public services. It also imparts to immigrants a sense of belonging, leading to a new feeling of trust with the police. After the card was introduced, Casanova says, crime went down in immigrant neighborhoods by about 20 percent — despite the fact that more people were reporting crimes.
Other cities, including San Francisco and Trenton, N.J., have since followed New Haven’s lead, rolling out their own municipal identification cards.
5) Detroit tries to bring cops home
Sometimes cops and communities feel disconnected because they actually are, geographically speaking, far away from one another. Many police officers don’t live in the cities they serve, but commute from other towns.
In an effort to encourage members of the force to live in the communities in which they work, Detroit began offering tax-foreclosed homes to cops for $1,000 and grants of up to $150,000 for renovations in 2011.
Programs like this stem from the theory that cops may be more invested in a community if they see it as their home not just their workplace. They also increase the likelihood that community members develop stronger relationships with officers who also happen to be their neighbors.
It’s difficult, however, for a city to force cops to live in town. Courts across the country have struck down lots of residency requirements. And police officers argue that, in an already dangerous job, it’s safer for them to live away from the people they arrest.
That hasn’t stopped cities like Detroit from trying, though. Atlanta offers discounted apartment rentals to cops, plus incentives to buy homes and bonuses for those that relocate. And Baltimore also offers cash to police officers who buy homes.
The latest town to consider such incentives? Ferguson, Mo.
 
MORE: 7 Ways to Help the Residents of Ferguson

Can $45 Million Worth of Data and Technology Improve U.S. Cities?

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has long supported civic innovation, but the philanthropist is ramping up efforts to help local governments through his charitable foundation’s Innovation Delivery grants.
Bloomberg Philanthropies pledged $45 million to American cities looking to use big data and digital tools to help municipalities solve urban issues like economic development or infrastructure.

“We’re asking cities to do so much more,” says James Anderson, who heads up the innovation programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies. “We need cities to come up with bigger, better ideas more often, and we don’t want to leave innovation to chance.”

More than 80 prospective cities were invited to apply for a grant, which can range from $250,000 to $1 million annually for three years. Candidates must have at least 100,000 residents and a mayor in office for at least two years.

The Innovation Delivery grants will also come with a team of experts to help roll out the charity’s data-driven model, which has been developed based on programs in Chicago, Louisville, Atlanta, Memphis and New Orleans. The teams will serve as an in-house consultant agency for the recipients.

Touting success in the aforementioned cities, Bloomberg notes that using the Innovation Delivery model has led to Atlanta moving 1,022 homeless individuals into permanent housing and New Orleans reducing its murder rate to 19 percent in 2013. Meanwhile, retail vacancies in Memphis’s central economic corridor dropped 30 percent while Louisville was able to cut back the amount of ambulance responses redirecting 26 percent of 911 medical calls to immediate care centers or a doctor’s office.

“Innovation Delivery has been an essential part of our effort to bring innovation, efficiency and improved services to our customers,” Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer says in a press release. “Philanthropy can play an important role in expanding the capacity of cities to deliver better, bolder results. Bloomberg Philanthropies is one of few foundations investing in this area, and it has truly been a game changer for our city.”

Bloomberg Philanthropies will also fund any research, technical assistance and partnerships with other organizations that could expand the foundation’s model, according to the release. For cities that may not qualify or other interested lawmakers, the foundation has also compiled the Innovation Delivery Playbook, which outlines the approach through successful examples in the pilot cities.

Grant winners are expected to be announced this fall with the initiatives planned to kick off in spring 2015.

MORE: Watch: Rachel Haot on How Governments Should Adopt New Technology

Memphis Houses of Worship Create a Magical Night for People with Disabilities

Buoyant bubbles drifted through the air as guests — clad in tuxedos and formal dresses— arrived, walking down a red carpet. The scene is familiar to anyone who’s attended a prom, but on April 25, the remarkable night was hosted not for a high school but for Memphis residents with disabilities.
The Joy Prom, sponsored by a group of local churches, was cooked up by Ashley Parks and Ginna Rauls, both active members in the Memphis special needs community, according to Good Morning America. The two wanted to give people with disabilities a chance to experience a night of primping, pampering and dancing.
They decided to call the evening the Joy Prom because “we decided we like ‘joy’ because that’s what we hope to bring,” Parks told the Huffington Post.
Parks, the special needs ministry director for Christ United Methodist Church, enlisted the help of 350 volunteers to collect donations that would be used to create the quintessential prom experience. Back in March, the duo hosted a prom dress donation drive, and a church member offered to foot the bill for tuxedo rentals from Men’s Warehouse. The community pooled together and even bought an ice sculpture and confectionary bar for the evening.
Guests were greeted on the red carpet by Memphis Grizzlies basketball team announcer Rick Trotter, who recognized them as they arrived by limo. Each host was given a card with their date’s allergies and a list of everything he or she wanted to experience that night.
Female guests could have their nails painted or makeup done while men were able to have their shoes polished. The crowd glittered with tiaras while guests danced the night away. “We didn’t miss anything,” Parks said.
But perhaps what made this prom more special than any other is the age range of its guests. Teenagers as young at 16 mingled alongside a couple in their 60s, giving everyone a chance to experience a night to remember.
“At a certain point people phase out of things but we said, you know what, lets open this up for people over the age of 22 and think of those who may not have experienced an event like this before,” Parks said.
The night was so successful, planning for next year’s prom is already underway. We’re guessing that the 2015 prom will be just as memorable.