Safe and Sound funded for additional 3 years

RACINE — The organization that puts boots on the ground to work with residents in challenged neighborhoods has the green flag to continue its work.

The Racine Common Council voted to accept state funding to continue Safe and Sound for an additional three years on Tuesday (Nov. 23).

Safe and Sound originated in Milwaukee more than 25 years ago with a mission to improve community safety by organizing and empowering challenged neighborhoods, building partnerships with law enforcement, and engaging youth. The program was the recipient of the White House Champion of Change award in 2011.

Governor Tony Evers awarded the $155,000 in state ARPA funding to bring the Safe and Sound model to Racine for a pilot year. The city was awarded an additional $155,000 per year for three more years.

Safe and Sound mission

The Safe and Sound model puts teams of three people in each neighborhood to work directly with the people. There is currently one team serving Racine. While the organization’s administration remains in Milwaukee, the local team is from Racine, as required by the Safe and Sound model. The team reports to Paul Vornholt, city administrator, but in the future will report to the new Community Safety Department.

John Tate II, the city’s violence prevention manager, explained the team has been engaging in “proactive outreach into neighborhoods” that have been identified as high priority.

Team members go door-to-door having front porch conversations about the safety concerns residents might have. He said the team members then work to find solutions to the issues identified by those in the neighborhood. Tate said the team has had 134 front porch discussions to date.

Additionally, the team hosts community conversations about such topics as law enforcement and gun violence. The purpose of the conversations is to build trust between the community and law enforcement where relations have traditionally been strained.

Safe and Sound is youth-focused, Tate continued, and has hosted a number of programs for young people with 7,000 cumulative participants. For example, the team hosted cleanup events at North Beach and Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center to promote community service. They also have a Youth Steering Committee that promotes leadership and meets once a month for activities such as resume building.

“They are filling a gap that hasn’t existed for some time in the city of Racine as far as outreach around community safety,” Tate said.

Safe and Sound is embedded in the Villa Street COP House and works closely with all the COP Houses for community engagement activities. In fact, Safe and Sound hosted a Fall Fun Fest on Oct. 30 at the Villa Street COP House and has assisted with the monthly food giveaways that occur at the COP Houses.

Lack of information

Alders Melissa Kaprelian and Renee Kelly voted against accepting the grant funding, both citing a lack of information about what the team has been doing.

Kaprelian wondered whether the work being done by Safe and Sound was simply duplicating the work being done by Neighborhood Watch. She noted Neighborhood Watch already has an established presence in the community and could probably expand their efforts if they were funded to similar levels of Safe and Sound.

She also questioned whether Safe and Sound submitted metrics to show they were meeting their mission.

Vornholt said the team did submit a report on their programs for the pilot year, and he anticipated there would be metrics in the future years. He said he would make the report available to the council.

This was insufficient for Kelly, who asked, “What have they done for the last year for $155,000?

“It seems like it’s floundering, and I don’t really see anything going on in the community with them,” she said.

She intimated people at the county level did not know what Safe and Sound were up to, but Vornholt pointed out that Safe and Sound members were at VCRI (Violent Crime Reduction Initiative) meetings. This was later confirmed by Alderman Maurice Horton, the county’s community violence reduction coordinator, who confirmed a member of Safe and Sound is always present at VCRI meetings to share the team’s activities and progress.

To say the county was not aware of what Safe and Sound was doing, Vornholt said, “is simply not accurate because we’ve been at the meetings and witnessed it.”

Alderman Alicia Jarrett asked if Safe and Sound could come before the council to address the issue and Vornholt indicated that could be arranged.