Today (May 15 2009) I heard Priscilla Lisicich from Safe Streets in Tacoma speak about her organization. Safe Streets works with communities in the Tacoma area to help communities organize and mobilize to tackle challenges such as gang presence, the acceptability of drug use and crime in their neighborhoods through community empowerment and positive support structures. They have a very interesting program that allows them to demonstrate the success of their program through measures of community connectedness and crime reduction. It appears that a program similar to Safe Streets would greatly benefit the Central District. A Safe Streets program for our neighborhood would require a focused, selfless and dedicated community leader and a large group of committed volunteers. It has the potential to bring structure and specific tools to an already congregated and impassioned community.

If one of you in the community has the energy and time to dedicate to getting a program in place in the neighborhood I would be a dedicated volunteer. I’m guessing that there would be many additional dedicated volunteers to be found in the CD News community. It also seems that we’ve been blessed with a valuable community organization tool, the CD news (Yes, I love the CD news). Is there anyone interested in taking action? The Safe Streets phone number in Tacoma is (253) 272-6824. http://www.safest.org/