'Eyes on the street' in Providence
By Pamela Thomas
Published: December 5, 2011
Related story: Working in Rhode Island to improve state economic efforts in cities
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If you want people to patronize shops on a street, they have to feel safe doing so. If you want people to get out and walk for their health, they need safe areas to stroll.
In the West End of Providence, RI, a new safety program might just help local merchants prosper and encourage area residents to be more physically active.
The initiative is the happy confluence health grant money and the desire of residents to eliminate crime hot-spots on their main street. The grant money will be used to install video surveillance cameras in two critical spots on Cranston Street, the West End’s main commercial thoroughfare. The cameras will be monitored by local merchants, increasing the number of “eyes on the street.”
The win-win situation came about as the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) is working to revitalize commercial corridors in two locations in Rhode Island, including the West End of Providence. Earlier this year, the Institute for Comprehensive Community Development, a part of LISC, chose Rhode Island for participation in its Corridors of Retail Excellence Program.
Thanks to this initiative, experienced consultants have been visiting the West End to offer technical assistance, support and mentoring to help local residents develop ways to improve the commercial heart of their area.
"Safety kept coming up"
After meeting extensively with community members and leaders, “safety kept coming up,” said Carrie Zaslow, program officer in Rhode Island’s LISC office. Neighborhood residents said they didn’t always feel safe patronizing their local merchants because of incidents that had happened along the street.
District Commander Lt. Luis San Lucas, a longtime community leader, said surveillance cameras and monitors had helped alleviate crime problems in other areas of the community, and residents were asking for additional surveillance on Cranston Street, particularly near liquor stores.
The problem: no money.
Meanwhile, nearby St. Joseph’s Health Services had received funds through a cooperative agreement between the state health department and the Centers for Disease Control Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant to do a survey of local people and the environment to produce a picture of the state of health in the area.
“Part of that was looking at barriers to improving health,” said Zaslow. “Safety bubbled up. If you don’t feel comfortable walking in your area, you’re not going to get out and move.”
An idea the residents supported
The folks at St. Joseph’s determined that they could use money from the survey grant to implement solutions to barriers to improved health. They knew that LISC was working with the West Elmwood Housing Development Corporation and Rhode Island Housing in community engagement, and they wanted to make sure whatever solutions they funded were ideas that residents really supported.
They agreed to fund surveillance video cameras for Cranston Street as well as improvements to a neighborhood park. Since the award, which was announced to great applause at a community feedback meeting in late summer, work has been proceeding to purchase and install cameras.
But nothing is as easy as it seems.
Several merchants who were willing to monitor the camera screens didn’t have computer systems that were up-to-date enough to handle the technology the cameras required, said San Lucas.
Now officials are working to both update the equipment of those merchants and find others who already have what’s needed, said Mimi Tsiane of West Elmwood Housing.
Will the cameras work? Will crime hot-spots cool down? Will residents feel safer patronizing local merchants as well as get healthier by walking more?
That’s in the future. For now, residents know that their concerns have been heard and that they will be listened to as community projects go on.
That’s important, said Zaslow.
“It was something the residents were really asking for, and now they’re going to get it. That goes a long way.”
Posted in Economic development, Rhode Island