Community Events

When several dozen men and women sit down on Thursday mornings and join forces to keep the city’s North End neighborhood safe and healthy, two key officers from Springfield Housing Authority are at the table.

The Safe Neighborhood Initiative meetings have been underway the past three years, a groundbreaking team effort that was featured recently on the CBS newsmagazine show ‘60 Minutes’ with reporter Leslie Stahl, in a segment called ‘Counter-Insurgency Cops.’

The initiative unites upwards of 80 people, including members of the state and city police forces, the office of Mayor Domenic Sarno, the Springfield School Department, Baystate Medical Center, Mercy Hospital, New North Citizens’ Council, business owners, landlords, many residents, clergy from Sacred Heart Church, and from the SHA, Deputy Executive Director Michelle Booth and Public Safety Manager Rosa Lebron. Weekly meetings focus on identifying needs and trouble spots, and solving problems.

SHA Deputy Executive Director Michelle Booth and Public Safety Manager Rosa Lebron attend the weekly Safe Neighborhood Initiative meetings.

For both Booth and Lebron, the sessions have proven useful and informative.

“It’s quite amazing to have that many people at the table, all of them working together on improving the neighborhood,” Booth said. “It helps the housing authority work in partnership with everyone else. If we are having problems in a development, we bring it forward. We might refer people to programs that can help them.”

Lebron said in her years in the security business, she has never seen anything like it.

“This group is so powerful. It really works,” Lebron said.

Besides identifying neighborhood issues and solutions, the weekly meetings have helped forge strong partnerships that stay viable beyond the face time.

“So many people go, and they have so much to offer to the community. They’re really engaged. They really want to help,” Lebron said.

SHA has one development, Morgan Apartments, in the initiative’s target area, along with scattered-site housing on Allendale, Grosvenor, Lowell, Orchard, Ringgold streets. Riverview Apartments has also been included though it is in the Brightwood neighborhood.

In the 12-minute 60 Minutes report, Stahl gives credit to Massachusetts State Trooper Michael Cutone, an Iraq War veteran, for coming up with a plan that uses a military-style approach called Counter Criminal Continuum policing, also known as C-3. Together with Springfield Police Department Deputy Chief John Barbeiri, the pair has overseen a team effort that includes a digital mapping of gang and other crime, a reaching out to neighbors the old-fashioned way – by walking the streets and talking with people — and a host of other methods including a ‘walking school bus’ that safely escorts children in groups, on foot, with adults alongside them.

Leslie Stahl of CBS ’60 Minutes.’

The effort has reaped great results, including drops in gang activity, burglaries, rapes, larcienies, stolen vehicles, truancy, graffiti and more. It has also resulted in things like the Shotspotter system that alerts police when gunfire erupts. SHA is a financial contributor to that effort in the North End.

The added value of the initiative is easy to quantify.

“It’s about working together and sharing information,” Booth said. “And that’s so important.”

Watch the ’60 Minutes’ segment at:  http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50146229n