Mayor Michelle Wu wants her administration to combat violence in Dorchester and Mattapan by drilling down to individual blocks and using crime data to target the most heavily impacted areas.

In a recent interview with the Reporter, Wu said the strategy needs to be an intense, year-round effort focused on pockets of the neighborhoods that account for an overwhelming number of gun violence events and enhanced by city-funded neighborhood celebrations and coordinated efforts with faith-based leaders.

Mayor Wu detailed new ideas and plans for combatting community violence using faith-based and community-based strategies that go beyond just the summer months.
Seth Daniel photos

“It’s really the place-based planning and really being specific, of not just having a summer strategy, but having a micro-strategy,” she said. “One of the statistics that was brought up during [our recent] seminar was that 5 percent of street segments in Boston account for 75 percent of shootings.

“So it’s being very clear about what additional lighting could do, or making sure that the streets are fixed up and the sidewalks are smooth, and it doesn’t kind of give off a sense that people are not valued, and this community is not valued in the area.”

That type of “broken windows” fix-it plan for sidewalks and streetlights is underway now in many parts of Dorchester and Mattapan. Other faith-based efforts start this week. This Thursday (June 15), William Dickerson III, the mayor’s senior adviser for faith-based initiatives, will lead the first of several “Adopt-a-Block Community Unity Walks” at Harambee Park on Blue Hill and Talbot Avenues.

Key partners in the program include Rev. Willie Bodrick of The Twelfth Baptist Church, Bishop William E. Dickerson II of Greater Love Tabernacle, Pastor Arlene Hall of Deliverance Temple Worship Center, Pastor Sam Acevedo of Lion of Judah, Rev. Gregory G. Groover of The Historic Charles Street AME, Bishop Nicolas Homicil of Voice of the Gospel Tabernacle, and Bishop John Borders of Morning Star Baptist Church.

“Faith-based programming this summer will focus on deepening our investment in our neighborhoods through activities that promote unity and joy with our collective faiths at the center,” said Dickerson.

Thursday’s walk begins at 5:30 p.m. in Harambee, with additional dates to be announced in coming weeks. Dickerson and the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services (ONS) say they will partner with community organizations and residents to perform neighborhood clean ups and host “Teen Cafés” for youth.

The Teen Cafes will also occur in the South End and Roxbury, but in Dorchester they will find a home at Deliverance Temple Worship Center on Columbia Road, and Greater Love Tabernacle Church on Nightingale Street. In Mattapan, the Teen Cafes will be at Morning Star Baptist Church on Blue Hill Avenue, and Voice of the Gospel Tabernacle on Edgewater Drive.

Dickerson said the Teen Cafes will start on July 21 and run every Friday night through Sept. 8 for ages 13 to 19. The cafes will operate as a safe space, and he said they will be having “conversations that matter to the youth involved,” citing mental health and hopes for professional careers.

Wu said the place-based ideas came up during a conference held in Boston in April as part of the University of Maryland’s Center for the Study and Practice of Violence Reduction, known as the Violence Reduction Center (VRC). Boston is part of the most recent cohort of cities within that program, and she said that along with traditional ideas on person-based and behavior-based strategies, she mainly focused on place-based things like Unity Walks and a new community grant program to fund activities in Dorchester and Mattapan parks.

The $7,000 community grant program, released in May, encourages civic organizations and small non-profits to have public events in areas of concern, with most of those areas in Dorchester and Mattapan neighborhoods, streets, and housing developments. She said having more community members host activities in public parks will increase community safety.

Those things will feed into a year-round strategy formulated by Wu, her public safety chief Isaac Yablo, and other administration officials. Wu said they will pay special attention to trends and data that pinpoint changes or increases at the street level, but she said this summer’s effort must go beyond June, July, and August.

“It really has to be a year-round focus and not just summer,” she added.