09/06/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 09/06/2024 14:11
The Safe Blocks Program supports place-based activities to reduce violent crime's impact on public health, social well-being, and the local economy. Examples of the work include organizing block parties and resource fairs, enhancing green spaces, improving traffic control, and adding lighting to increase safety and decrease opportunities for crime.
Safe Blocks coordinators work directly in areas suffering from historical disinvestment, high rates of social vulnerability, and high rates of gun violence. The team is currently active in the Cully, Eliot, and Hazelwood neighborhoods, with work in Powellhurst-Gilbert scheduled to commence in 2025. Specific activities are determined through engagement with residents, businesses, and other stakeholders in the community.
In March 2024, Safe Blocks received a $2 million Federal Byrne Grantto fund place-based community violence intervention programming over four years in Portland's Hazelwood, Eliot, and Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhoods. Residents in these neighborhoods along with Cully, Portsmouth, and Lents are encouraged to take a community safety surveyto help inform the grant's projects.
A project manager to oversee the grant will begin on September 26.
Safe Blocks conducted five Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design - known as CPTED - assessments in August. Assessments are labor intensive, involving a team member meeting with the property owner/manager and tenants to walk around the property for about an hour to learn about how the space is used and what the concerns are. After the walkthrough, the Safe Blocks team builds a comprehensive report with photos, recommendations, and resources. Safe Blocks then follows up three months later to check on the work and suggest additional improvements.
For more information or to request an assessment, visit the Safe Blocks website.
Rose City Self-Defenseis an empowerment-based self-defense program that offers community-based classes and workshops for youth and adults. All RCSD programming is free because classes and workshops are taught by volunteer self-defense instructors. Since its start, RCSD has provided self-defense training to more than 45,000 students, and workshops to over 120,000 participants.
In August 2024, RCSD offered 13 workshops serving over 300 community members in Personal Safety, De-Escalation as well as Safety & Self-Defense. RCSD took August off from teaching Community and Youth Classes so that we could celebrate our volunteers at a summer picnic. We also tabled 2 events in August serving over 200 people.
Interns from the Lents Youth Initiative through the SummerWorksprogram spent 100 hours learning about urban planning, civic engagement, historical data around Portland - including its racist history of redlining - and Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED).
Rose City Self-Defenseis looking for cis and trans women, non-binary people comfortable in women-centered spaces, members of the LGBTQIA2S+ and BIPOC communities to train to become volunteer instructors and teach empowerment-based self-defense skills in our community, youth or LGBTQIA2S+ programs.
Visit the Rose City Self-Defense websitefor more information. The deadline to apply is September 30, 2024.
For more information, visit Safe Blocks at https://www.portland.gov/safe-blocks, email us at [email protected], or call 503-823-4064.