Abstract:
The efforts of a nonprofit community development corporation to renovate the housing stock of one of Brooklyn's most dangerous and dilapidated neighborhoods hits a roadblock in the early 1990s: many blocks are simply too crime-ridden to be able to attract new tenants, even to newly-renovated buildings. In an effort to address the crime problem and thereby secure its significant investment in housing rehabilitation, the East New York Urban Youth Corps seeks to establish a partnership--ultimately known as the Community Security Initiative--with the New York Police Department. This case describes the rocky relationship but progress which evolve as a series of young and idealistic staff members of the community development corporation attempt, first, to interest the police in working together and, over time, to devise ways in which the two can complement each other--against the backdrop of a neighborhood so infested with drug dealing and related crime that police refer to it as the "dead zone". This case will engage those with interests in community policing tactics, urban revitalization strategies and grassroots leadership tactics. This case is part of a multi-city project supported by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation.
