Community Problem Solving

Community Problem Solving

Community Problem Solving

When I used to live in California my family was a part of the Neighborhoods Fight Back Program. This is a program that was started to allow neighbors to look out for others and to help prevent crime and the well being of the citizens in the city. Neighborhoods Fight Back is a program to get citizens involved in discouraging and preventing crime at the local level. Success in this program depends solely on a commitment to cooperate between residence in this area and the police. In my neighborhood my father is a team leader for the block we live on. There are weekly meeting and course aimed on learning how to be more proactive in preventing crime in the neighborhood. Before I moved out here I was a member of Citizens of the neighborhood watch program that Neighborhoods Fight Back developed.

In my neighborhood there was a big problem that started a few years ago with homeless people sleeping and camping out around and under the 91 freeway and its off ramps. Then the homeless started being bolder in choosing to sleep closer to the residential area of our neighborhood. Since the problem encompassed our neighborhood watch area as well as another patrol group we both got together and with the help of the Riverside police developed a plan to stop the homeless from sleeping and hanging out in our neighborhoods. The crime in our areas increased a lot due to the unwelcome visitors. Automobiles were broken into, stolen and vandalized. Homes were being burglarized almost daily. Drug sales and drug use became obvious in the area due to the kind of traffic that we started seeing at all hours of day and night. There even were several people who were shot and killed. Robberies were up and the residents became more and more concerned about all of the crime that seemed to appear when the certain people began to hang out in our neighborhoods

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