Ways to lower crime in a neighborhood

1. Pick up litter in the streets sidewalks, and front yards.
2. Ask residents to help pick up litter.
3. Plant trees along parkways and in front yards.
4. Plant flowers along parkways and in front yards.
5. Water the trees & flowers we planted.
6. Mow & edge grass, trim overgrown bushes and trees.
7. Fix stucco, siding & facias. Paint houses.
8. Replace, repair, &/or paint fences. Add trellises and arbors.
9. Paint over graffiti. [Or, decorate the graffiti and frame it such that it becomes art.]
10. Pray. Then act.
11. Ask residents to pray for their next door neighbors.
12. Ask residents what they like about the neighborhood, how it could be better, and what they could do right now to make it better. Inspire them to visualise a great neighborhood.
13. Use the tactic from "Excuse me your life is waiting" of feeeeling what it is like to live in a great neighborhood, and pumping up this feeling for at least 16 seconds.
14. Invite the residents to the Landmark Forum. Have a bunch of neighbors do it together.
15. Open a healthy restaurant in the neighborhood.
16. Find every 15 year old and get them to apply for a job. Find an assortment of jobs so that we can match up the jobs with the skills and inclinations of the teenagers. Provide transportation, or find jobs along public transit routes.
17. Clean up the public transit, make it quiet and comfortable. Play Enya over the PA system.
18. Make an offer on every property in the neighborhood so that people know what they are worth.
19. Have a LOCAL Realtor offer to list all the properties.
20. Have three LOCAL loan brokers offer competitive loans on every property.
21. Have three LOCAL contractors bid on renovation projects in conjunction with an appraisal service to explain what added value the projects would bring and a loan specialist to explain how to finance it.
22. Offer a class on personal finance, career growth, and investing.
23. Have a LOCAL property manager offer to manage each property.
24. Offer classes in self-help, relationships, success, overcoming adversity, and inner dialogue.
25. Offer credit repair assistance and debt restructuring.
26. Get everyone in the neighborhood a bank account, and train them to use it effectively.
27. Get every 18 year old to apply for college, whether or not they finished high school.
28. Start a football league, a hockey league, a baseball league, a basketball league, a soccer league, a lacrosse league, a racketball league, a golf league, a swimming league, a ping pong league, a tennis league, a badminton league, a volleyball league, a track & field league, and an equestrian league.
29. Offer martial arts programs, fencing, and tai chi.
30. Start a barbershop quartet. Start a men's chorus, a boy's chorus, a girl's chorus, a women's chorus, and mixed choirs. Have gospel choirs and classical choirs and hip hop choirs.
31. Start an orchestra. Start a jazz band. Start a Dixieland band. Start a bluegrass band.
32. Start an opera company. Start a children's theatre troupe. Start an improv group. Open a live theatre. Open a cinema (have strict rules, constant supervision, and security at all times).
33. Open a cafe. Open a bookstore. Open a music store. Open an art gallery. Open a toy store.
34. Offer art classes. Teach painting, drawing, sculpture, glass blowing, arts & crafts.
35. Create a matching database for friends, activity partners, and dating. Require full identification and limit enrollment to residents in order to ensure accountability.
36. Hold mixers and dance parties.
37. Get neighbors together for regular meetings to brainstorm ways they can help each other.
38. Offer healthy food. Open an organic grocery store. Open an organic or raw food cafe. Offer healthy alternatives to unhealthy meals and snacks.
39. Open an excercise gym. Create exercise teams and fitness buddy groups. Form bicycle clubs.
40. Open a yoga studio. Hold aerobics and pilates classes. Offer physical fitness training.
41. Mount cameras in places where crimes repeatedly occur. Mount cameras on every porch until the crime rate is zero.
42. Install lojack in cars.
43. Get everyone to voluntarily get fingerprinted.
44. Ask all residents to voluntarily allow an elected committee to perform a visual inspection of their premises. Work to build trust to the point where this would be acceptable. Advertise to everyone that this is the goal, that people would have nothing to hide, and that there would be sufficient trust in a selected group of community volunteers, that they could take a scientific view of the neighborhood and note what the actual situation is.
45. Offer language classes, in ESL, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, etc. Encourage everyone to learn Spanish in particular. Offer language tapes and books.
46. Get everyone in the neighborhood to vote in all elections.
47. Get everyone in the neighborhood to attend all city council meetings.
48. Establish a path of intense beauty, using trees and flowers and sculpture and signage and monuments, that starts at a particular intersection and winds through the neighborhood on the streets with the highest percentage of supporters of the project.
49. Encourage people to walk and bicycle in their neighborhood.
50. Hold lecture series with motivational speakers.
51. Get a dumpster and let everyone on the street throw stuff away.
52. Hold a streetwide garage sale, where everyone is encouraged to get rid of everything they aren't using.
53. Make a list of all residents and what they are good at.
54. Have a block party, barbecue, or common meal.
55. Install solar energy on the roofs.
56. Install wind power, cisterns, greywater systems, and mulch piles.
57. Create a fruit cooperative, where neighbors agree to share the fruit from their backyards.
58. Review each residents utility bills, and figure out ways to lower them by conservation.
59. Encourage residents to get their cars smog checked, drive lower emission vehicles, reduce driving, and reduce other polluting activities.
60. Encourage residents to reduce the size of lawns, and use native and low water usage plants.
61. Get the residents to recycle more than 50% of their waste products, and buy recycled products where possible.
62. Establish a biodiesel club, where members share the cost of a good mechanic and loaner cars, and cooperate on fuel delivery and storage.
63. Make a list of all the neighborhood's leaders (political, religious, academic, business, social, artistic) and have them meet regularly and discuss ways to help each other.
64. Set up a program for residents to regularly visit hospitals, nursing homes, and jails.

Homeless

I have been thinking a lot lately about the word "homeless".

At first blush, it looks like it means "doesn't have a home". "Having," in this case, clearly doesn't refer just to ownership, but simply the right to be there. You aren't homeless when you are renting, or staying with your parents.

"Home" refers to something habitable. We might go further and require that it be enclosed from the weather, with adequate ventilation and heating/cooling, and access to a bathroom or latrine. But does that mean if a window doesn't close or there's a hole in the roof or if the heater is broken, the person living there is homeless? I don't think so.

In most cities there are building and safety codes which define habitability, so in those places we could raise the bar and say a home must comply with local ordinances. Except that would make just about everyone homeless, because so few structures actually comply with all the laws.

Are people in jail homeless? They do have the right to be inside in the jail, and it does seem to qualify as a home.

Is a camper van a home? I suppose the idea of home also refers to the spot on the earth where the structure sits. So if you have the right to park in a particular spot, and you park your camper van there, then it could be a home. Could a blimp be a home? People live on ships in the ocean, but if they are not allowed to dock, then maybe they are homeless too.

At the time I got divorced, I owned five houses but didn't have the right to live in any of them. I slept at the office under my desk for two years (it was fun, actually -- they had a great gym with showers and lockers. I just had to move my car each morning to keep up appearances.) Was I homeless then?

If they had kicked me out of the office, I had other options. I could have stayed with my parents, or any number of relatives or friends. I could have stayed in a hotel. Does having enough money for a hotel automatically disqualify you from being homeless? Because I might have chosen to sleep in a park or on the beach, to save money, rather than stay in a hotel. Would I be choosing homelessness then, or would I merely be a homeful person choosing to sleep outside?

When I travel I never like to book a hotel in advance, I always like to check the place out first and then choose where to stay. Sometimes this entails unexpected adventures and little sleep, like when my friend and I tried to stay in Phoenix and ended up practically in Flagstaff before we found a room, or when we tried to stay in Venice (or Padua? or Verona? or...) and ended up sleeping on the train all the way to Milan where we finally found a room.

Note that everywhere I go, people I've met have offered to let me stay with them. On a flight to Los Angeles I met a woman who let me stay with her family in Kiel. On my way to Kiel I met people who let me stay with them in Heidelberg. On my way back to San Francisco I met a family who invited me to stay with them in Melbourne. On a flight to London I sat next to a woman who let me stay at her apartment in New York (no, we didn't do anything :). I have been offered free room & board by friendly people in hundreds of cities.

When we talk about the homeless, we aren't talking about people in my situation, we are talking about people who seem to have no choice but sleep outside, generally illegally. They have no money, and no one will let them stay over. So it seems like a good idea to donate space and give them a clean safe place to sleep, a shower, and a hot meal.

We don't want to be a crutch for these people or keep them down. So we give them job counselling and drug rehab. For some it works, and they get back on their feet. For many others it doesn't work, and they remain "homeless". One step we can take toward solving this is to realise that people do have a choice. Even "homeless" is a choice. Friends of mine have made $40/hr begging, and that is enough to rent a motel room every night and buy new clothes every day, or even buy a house, for that matter. I have helped dozens of people with no credit and no money buy houses. And they didn't really need my help -- they just needed to know it was possible and choose it.

When you look at how easy it was for me to find places to stay, it's clear the problem is not really lack of places to stay. Certain attitudes & behaviors work and lead to peace and prosperity and happiness, and certain other attitudes & behaviors don't work and lead to poverty and illness and violence. The problem is that for a certain category of people we have failed to adequately encourage the former attitudes & behaviors and discourage the latter.

And the big question is do we care. See, if we care about these people, then we will take care of them. Millions of dollars are spent each year on shots and treats and flea collars for cats and dogs. Pet lovers go to great lengths to make sure their pets are happy. Scientists study the pets in detail to see what works and what doesn't, because they know the pet lovers will pay for products that keep their pets safe and healthy. I won't even mention what people spend on their cars.

The good news is, if we want to make a world that works for EVERYONE, we can. Let's start doing that! Tell your representatives and the media and the charitable foundations that you want them to sponsor studies about what really works to encourage prosperous choices and improve lives, and tell them you want to see results.

Thanks. :)

Caring & Safety

As you know, Affinity Neighborhoods sponsors neighborhood cleanup events, where we pick up trash, plant trees, and talk to residents about how great their neighborhood can be. Lots of people worry about me when I go alone into high-crime places, but for the last 12 years, somehow I have always known that when I am going there to serve and to show respect for the people there, I am safe. I have never been confronted or threatened, though I have witnessed thousands of crimes in these neighborhoods.

Our Director of Neighborhood Revitalisation, Dimitri Hodgkinson, plans and coordinates the street cleanup events in Compton and the surrounding areas. He has the following anecdote to share.

I just want to preface it with the following challenge: Be open to the idea that YOU cause everything in your life! Care for others, and caring will be all around you.

David Frayne
Founder, Affinity Neighborhoods
www.affinityneighborhoods.com
www.enlightenedcapitalism.blogspot.com

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From: dimitri@affinityneighborhoods.com [mailto:dimitri@affinityneighborhoods.com]
Sent: Friday, June 24, 2005 12:46 AM
Subject: Affinity Reaches Gang Members Unknowingly

Hey Affinity,

Before I share with you how our very own Compton/Watts Revitalization Area Manager, Hector Fernandez, evaded a mugging, I want to let you all know the clean up event we were planning for this Saturday, June 25th, was postponed at the request of the resident whom we are teaming up with. I will update all of you when we put it back on the calendar.

So get this. Hector is in Compton the other day waiting for the bus after dropping off his van at the auto shop. Low and behold, a big fella, likely a gang member, decides to push Hector and interrogate him for why he happened to be hanging out in "his" neighborhood. As you can imagine, Hector is thinking, great my car breaks down, now this. Hector explains he is on his way back to work, waiting for the bus, all while realizing this guy is either about to threaten him for his wallet or jump him simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You'll never guess what happens next. So the guy says, "oh yeah, who do you work for?" And Hector, who happens to be wearing one of our bright green Affinity t-shirts, points out the shirt and tells the guy about Affinity. So this guy goes, "oh, Affinity, I've heard about you. Didn't you just do a clean up at the alley over by the Douglas Park Apartments* the other day? I was supposed to go help out over there, but got there a little late." He proceeds to acknowledge the work we are doing and tells Hector how great the alley looked when we got done.

Thought you might like to hear that. Can you imagine? Would have never guessed that a bright green shirt and picking up some garbage would earn that kind of respect. Apparently it does.
Have an excellent weekend everyone.

*The Douglas Park Apartments were one of the worst crime zones in Southern California, with weekly shoot-outs, constant drug dealing, arson, burglary, etc. They are now under new management, with a totally new attitude. Affinity catalyses these changes.

Dimitri Hodgkinson
Affinity Neighborhoods
235 E. Broadway Ste. 920
Long Beach, CA 90802
Off: 562-437-6476
Fax: 562-268-8789
Cell: 310-984-4361
Email: dimitri@affinityneighborhoods.com

Privacy & Trust

On my recent flight from JFK to Long Beach, in the middle of reading Viktor Frankl's account of life in Auschwitz (Man's Search for Meaning), I used the restroom on the plane, and noticed that in the bathroom mirror I could watch myself urinate (yet another advantage of flying JetBlue). This took on a strange significance in the context of that book.

There is nothing inherently shameful about urination. It is a natural, healthy act that everyone performs several times a day, and yet we rarely ever see anyone else do it -- or even ourselves, unless there happens to be a low mirror in the bathroom. What struck me was how we connect our dignity with our ability to hide certain things from others -- something concentration camp prisoners were deprived of.

It is interesting to me how certain people in nudist colonies, or in public showers, strut about as if fully clothed, where others are ashamed and never fully comfortable being seen naked. This bashfulness doesn't seem to correlate with beauty or lack thereof, but rather is determined by one's expectations of how other people will use the information. It is all about trust.

Privacy is desired to the extent trust is lacking.

Imagine this scenario. The mayor of Compton announces, "We are tired of drugs and gun violence in Compton. Starting tomorrow, we are going to search every house, building, and vehicle, and confiscate any contraband or unregistered firearms. That will keep our streets safe."

Of course, everyone would freak out. But why? Because the people don't trust the government. After all, we have Hitler and Stalin and Mao to worry about. It's too easy for the government to oppress the people and get away with it.

So, how about making the government more accountable? Here's my proposal. Make the government a reality television show. Cameras and microphones in every room, every car, following every elected official around 24/7. Then we could keep track of them and make sure they weren't doing anything illegal or unethical.

Of course, the elected officials would object. Why? Because they don't trust the people with that information. OK, it could get a bit disruptive. How about publish it 2 years later, edited of anything irrelevant to the official's public duty. (Have the decision about relevance made by a panel comprised equally of all political parties and some independent judges.)

This publication delay would allow politicians to continue about their business without constant immediate debate on Oprah, but would still cut their careers short if the reality of what they were doing strayed too much from the appearance (sorry, Nixon, and Clinton, and Reagan...). Campaign promises would take on greater significance, because we could all watch the moment when they changed their minds.

Subjecting the government to this level of transparency would dramatically increase the people's trust. Hitler and Stalin and Mao, and all their cronies, would have been exposed for what they were, and their evil plans would have been nipped in the bud.

Crime and Employment

Viktor Frankl points out (in "Man's Search for Meaning") that when builders want to stabilise and strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the load on it. For him this is analgous to how the human spirit is refined and strengthened through stress and ordeal.

One of the best predictors of neighborhood crime is unemployment.
And most violent crimes are committed by 18-24 year old males.

The most obvious way to reduce crime is to put the 18-24 year old males to work doing something useful.

One problem with this is that the typical at-risk youth is undereducated, unskilled, and often exhibits an uncooperative attitude, slovenly appearence, and open disrespect for authority. So (short of performing an extreme life makeover on them) they aren't ideal candidates for most paying positions.

Another problem is that most employers don't want to have operations in high crime neighborhoods. Insurance rates are higher, and there are all sorts of difficulties with doing business in run down areas. With the notable exception of pawn shops, liquor stores, check cashing places, and certain unlawful operations, the vast majority of businesses do better financially in more affluent areas. So high crime neighborhoods lack a wide variety of local entry level jobs for 18-24 year old males. Commuting to jobs is an option, but owning a car is more difficult and dangerous in these areas (in 2004 Compton had 3 car thefts reported per day, and dozens of car arsons) and public transit, where available, tends to be dangerous, and is often the target of vandalism.

So the question remains, how could we put all the 18-24 year old males to work doing something useful? It could be local, or we could provide transportation to a remote location. The army is an obvious possibility. But I don't think training people to identify enemies and commit acts of violence is a good way to reduce violence. A large percentage of homeless people are veterans, which indicates that the military as an employer doesn't have a very good track record for improving people's lives.

On the one hand there are the things I want done in the neighborhood: cleaning, landscaping, beautifying, networking, commerce, looking out for each other, personal education, and community recreation.

On the other hand, there are the things that the residents of these neighborhoods are spending lots of money on right now: security, small luxuries, peace & quiet, fun, food, sports, entertainment, banking services, automotive services, transportation, childcare, furniture, insurance, utilities, clothes, music, excitement, parties.

First we should consider whether we could profitably employ members of this group in providing any of the above things. Next we should look for additional ways this group could create value and who their customers would be. More later...

Man's Search For Meaning

I just read a fascinating book by Viktor Frankl: Man's Search For Meaning. The title turned me off at first, because I thought it was going to be either a sermon on "right behavior" (which, coming from the 1950's always comes off a little ludicrous now) or a surreal philosophical poem. The narrative reminded me of Art Spiegelman's "Maus" -- it's an incisive, analytical reflection on the author's experiences in Nazi concentration camps. But to my surprise, the book is actually a seminal work on the psychology of happiness and success.

What makes it more than just another personal account of the atrocities of Hitler's Germany is that Frankl focuses entirely on what he learned and how he grew, spiritually, socially, and even professionally through the ordeal. He turns his unique position as world authority on being oppressed, an expert sufferer, if you will, to his advantage, and in so doing, demonstrates his unshakeable belief in human free will and self-determination.

I am curious as to whether Werner Erhard (founder of EST, of which Landmark Education is a later development) was a disciple of Frankl's. Frankl figured out on his own the central concepts of Landmark Education: that we create our own reality by our choice in how we interpret our experiences, that our vision of the future (rather than the past) is what determines who we are in the present, that trying to change doesn't work, whereas accepting "what is" (he recommends paradoxically trying to stay the same, in persistent problem cases) allows us to change effortlessly. He even espouses nonjudgement of people, and in most cases says neutral or positive things about his tormentors.

He was truly an enlightened man, ahead of his time.