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So...it's been a while since I've had a 15 hour day. I mean every day is 24 hours, but today was particularly filled with work and work type stuff for a very long time today.
Still the work done today was good work. It was necessary job work, it was positive steps in personal/professional work and it was community organizing. As long as today was, it's amazing how much better I feel at the moment for being mentally and emotional focused and engaged.
Tonight was the community meeting at the mental health facility. It was not, as I thought at first, organized by Mental Health Services, it was in fact hosted by them (for free I might add), for us, the community to come together and share information and discuss concerns. There has been a surge in crime in the area with the economic downturn. A lot of it is petty annoyances: slashed tires, fences tagged by spray paint, loitering, littering that sort of thing. There have also been more serious issues: a few assaults, increase in open drug deals (on the street in broad daylight) and home invasion/burglary. I wasn't aware of some of these last issues mostly because the Berkeley Police department crime map is not updated on a regular basis. Because we didn't give sufficient notice, we didn't have a BPD person at the meeting but our counsel representative and his legislative assistant were both there.
There were probably 30 or 40 of us there. Many faces I recognized, some people I know and speak to often, some I only see and nod to. It was good to put names with those faces. There were plenty of folks I did not know yet and it was nice to meet them. In spite of the concern about the cyclical nature of neighborhood violence, it was also pleasing to note that there was a lot of support and positive suggestions on what can be done that isn't being done currently.
The biggest one is of community organizing. We're setting up a neighborhood association. We'll be going door to door, asking folks to be on the information list. If BPD can't update their site fast enough to tell us what's going on, we need to inform and help each other. While the meeting organizer this evening created a yahoo group for us, we have several neighbors who do not have computer access. Jay, who lives a few doors down from me, has offered to build a huge community bulletin board on his fence,for visible posting of information. Because I can't keep my mouth shut, I have (along with two others) have become the de-facto organizer and host for the yahoo board, as well as charged creating the association, organizing information, speaking further with our counsel rep, the police department, and beginning the process of sharing information, having regular meetings, moderating the discussion group and dealing with permits and invitations for block parties, clean up parties, evening group walks to help those who are afraid to walk alone in the evenings (or even during the day).
Whew.
Early this morning, before my day got insane crazy, I was reading![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
warrior_priest and his dislike of the phrase "in this economy" and how his home was invaded (though no one hurt or anything taken it seems) and how his car was stolen a few months ago. These are the same sort of problems we're confronting in my neighborhood in Berkeley. I have no doubt that communities and neighborhoods everywhere are seeing the same issues. As human beings our first reaction to feeling unsafe is to isolate and fortify. We build sturdy fences, we alarm our homes, we stay inside at night. That makes us feel safer perhaps, but it doesn't always keep us safe.
We need to also take back our community by actually BEING a community. That means stepping out from behind our secure castles. Walk our streets, greet our neighbors, pick up the trash even if it's not ours, be alert and aware of who is around and when. Who is local, who is not. It means increasing our visibility so we're not an easy and convenient target for opportunistic thieves who think they do a quick in and out and come away without anyone knowing what happened.
How many of your neighbors do you know? One? Three? A dozen? None? Who would you call to come sit with you after you've called 911 because your house was robbed or your car broken into? Who would you warn to be on the look out? How much safer would you feel knowing your neighbor's called the police because they saw some guy on a bike casing out your house after you went to work? Think about that.
Now some of us can perhaps least trust our neighbors, but I bet for every one neighbor you're not sure about, you have 10 others you can count on--you just have to make that connection.
And so...if you want to do something on a grassroots level to combat the increase in community crime that happens during deep economic downturns ORGANIZE. Your city counsel member, your police community liaison officer, your local market, the school, a church--any or all of these folks would be happy to help you organize and offer advice and services to get you started.
Don't wait for something horrible to happen first. The community relationships you forge when there isn't a panic on, are the ones that endure and the ones which achieve success.
Still the work done today was good work. It was necessary job work, it was positive steps in personal/professional work and it was community organizing. As long as today was, it's amazing how much better I feel at the moment for being mentally and emotional focused and engaged.
Tonight was the community meeting at the mental health facility. It was not, as I thought at first, organized by Mental Health Services, it was in fact hosted by them (for free I might add), for us, the community to come together and share information and discuss concerns. There has been a surge in crime in the area with the economic downturn. A lot of it is petty annoyances: slashed tires, fences tagged by spray paint, loitering, littering that sort of thing. There have also been more serious issues: a few assaults, increase in open drug deals (on the street in broad daylight) and home invasion/burglary. I wasn't aware of some of these last issues mostly because the Berkeley Police department crime map is not updated on a regular basis. Because we didn't give sufficient notice, we didn't have a BPD person at the meeting but our counsel representative and his legislative assistant were both there.
There were probably 30 or 40 of us there. Many faces I recognized, some people I know and speak to often, some I only see and nod to. It was good to put names with those faces. There were plenty of folks I did not know yet and it was nice to meet them. In spite of the concern about the cyclical nature of neighborhood violence, it was also pleasing to note that there was a lot of support and positive suggestions on what can be done that isn't being done currently.
The biggest one is of community organizing. We're setting up a neighborhood association. We'll be going door to door, asking folks to be on the information list. If BPD can't update their site fast enough to tell us what's going on, we need to inform and help each other. While the meeting organizer this evening created a yahoo group for us, we have several neighbors who do not have computer access. Jay, who lives a few doors down from me, has offered to build a huge community bulletin board on his fence,for visible posting of information. Because I can't keep my mouth shut, I have (along with two others) have become the de-facto organizer and host for the yahoo board, as well as charged creating the association, organizing information, speaking further with our counsel rep, the police department, and beginning the process of sharing information, having regular meetings, moderating the discussion group and dealing with permits and invitations for block parties, clean up parties, evening group walks to help those who are afraid to walk alone in the evenings (or even during the day).
Whew.
Early this morning, before my day got insane crazy, I was reading
warrior_priest and his dislike of the phrase "in this economy" and how his home was invaded (though no one hurt or anything taken it seems) and how his car was stolen a few months ago. These are the same sort of problems we're confronting in my neighborhood in Berkeley. I have no doubt that communities and neighborhoods everywhere are seeing the same issues. As human beings our first reaction to feeling unsafe is to isolate and fortify. We build sturdy fences, we alarm our homes, we stay inside at night. That makes us feel safer perhaps, but it doesn't always keep us safe. We need to also take back our community by actually BEING a community. That means stepping out from behind our secure castles. Walk our streets, greet our neighbors, pick up the trash even if it's not ours, be alert and aware of who is around and when. Who is local, who is not. It means increasing our visibility so we're not an easy and convenient target for opportunistic thieves who think they do a quick in and out and come away without anyone knowing what happened.
How many of your neighbors do you know? One? Three? A dozen? None? Who would you call to come sit with you after you've called 911 because your house was robbed or your car broken into? Who would you warn to be on the look out? How much safer would you feel knowing your neighbor's called the police because they saw some guy on a bike casing out your house after you went to work? Think about that.
Now some of us can perhaps least trust our neighbors, but I bet for every one neighbor you're not sure about, you have 10 others you can count on--you just have to make that connection.
And so...if you want to do something on a grassroots level to combat the increase in community crime that happens during deep economic downturns ORGANIZE. Your city counsel member, your police community liaison officer, your local market, the school, a church--any or all of these folks would be happy to help you organize and offer advice and services to get you started.
Don't wait for something horrible to happen first. The community relationships you forge when there isn't a panic on, are the ones that endure and the ones which achieve success.
