Safe Streets empowers individuals, families, youth, neighborhoods and organizations to create safe neighborhoods. Our vision is that every neighborhood is safe and welcoming, a great place to raise kids.

Description:
To accomplish the mission Safe Streets Campaign volunteers and staff organize neighborhoods and communities for action. Through forming block organizations, we help people plant the seeds of grassroots, community leadership. We connect residents with necessary community resources to effectively tackle a wide-range of community challenges. And we involve our young people to improve the physical, social and economic conditions of our community.

One way Safe Streets Campaign builds youth leadership is through Youth Leading Change, a program that builds skills in young people to sustain a drug and violence-free lifestyles. These young people act as mentors and role models for their peers and younger students in schools and neighborhoods. Safe Streets Campaign also supports neighborhood block members to increase their leadership for community improvement.

Safe Streets brings community and strategic partners together on specific problems or opportunities relevant to building safe communities. We help form broad based coalitions of community agencies and neighborhood stakeholders to face specific problems. We lead a county and statewide methamphetamine eradication project which includes "Meth Watch", an education program for retailers. Much of the crime in our community - especially violent crime - is tied to drugs, methamphetamines in particular. Gang violence, truancy, and the reentry of ex-offenders back into the community also represent significant threats to the safety in our neighborhoods. Safe Streets and our strategic partners work to address these issues.

History:
On January 26, 1989, an astounding 2,500 people gathered at a community meeting to take a stand against the crime and violence that was overwhelming Pierce County. They had a clear message for community leaders: They wanted to take back their neighborhoods, schools and communities. They wanted safe streets. So the Safe Streets Campaign was born.

Initiated as a project of Pierce County government through an inter-local agreement among the City of Tacoma, Pierce County, Tacoma Public Schools and United Way, the Safe Streets Campaign incorporated as a separate and independent non-profit organization in 1995.

The organization has become the systematic change agent that harnesses the power of community collaboration, helps people overcome their fears and gives them hope to tackle their community's challenges.

The Campaign's community mobilization model was the impetus for important changes that happened in the cities of Tacoma and Lakewood and unincorporated Pierce County as well. Involved citizens helped to launch neighborhood councils in 16 regions of the county; rallied for Community Policing Programs in Tacoma and Lakewood; and established Tacoma's Drug House Elimination Team. These programs created real connections between public servants and those they serve, and the resulting partnership has helped local governments make better use of resources. Now, citizens have direct input into what improvements happen in their community and see government as a community resource.

Our Block Watch groups work with city and county leaders to direct funding to their neighborhood parks, sidewalks, lighting, or to get laws passed to better protect the community. Working closely with police and other government officials, people help to shut down meth labs and get the word out to the community about the dangers of methamphetamine.

Because of energetic, system-wide collaboration and community mobilization, the Safe Streets Campaign has a dramatic track record: In sixteen years, we have organized more than 5,000 Block Watch Groups representing about a half million people. Ongoing, 1,700 groups--or 20 percent of the population of Tacoma/Pierce County--are at work improving their communities. Criminal gang membership--at an all time high of 2,500 in 1990--dwindled to 500 in 2003. Neighbors take care of any graffiti that shows up, so city maintenance crews don't have to. Citizen patrols keep an eye on what's happening in their neighborhoods and parks, and report criminal activities to the police before trouble has an opportunity to take hold.

And through our Youth Leading Change program, youth are engaged in leadership activities, working to promote healthier choices among their peers. Founded in 1996, the program has grown into and reaches out to high school aged youth around Pierce County.

It took massive neighborhood organizing, tough law enforcement, smart allocation of resources and positive programs for youth to stem the tide of violence. Safe Streets was and is the impetus for this positive social change. Safe Streets has become the very fabric that helps to hold our communities together.

Contact person: Michelle Galaz, Development Director, (phone), (email)
Office fax number: (253) 272-9586

Address:

1501 Pacific Ave, Ste 305 Tacoma, WA 98402 (See a map)

Overall Experience   
The best time in my life...

I worked for Peirce County Safe Streets Campaign in 1999 and 2000. It was the best time in my life. I learned alot of skills and recieved training that I would not have otherwise been able to do. I also enjoyed the friendship of my co-workers. I miss being there. posted by TameraC. on November 22, 2006