Innovative programs replace crime with community ownership

Tim White

"You may remember five years ago," Huntington's Tim White told Putnam Rotarians today, "on prom night we had four or our high school kids that were murdered execution-style."

It was then, he said, that people realized there was a drug problemm in the city. At the time, there was not a single police officer assigned to a drug unit.

"In reality," White said, "we had always had a drug problem, But as long as drugs and crime were limited to a certain sector of our community, everybody could live with that. The idea is, well, we're maintaining it; we're containing it.

"But when [the murders] happened, it sort of slithered across the tracks. It went into areas of our community that had not necessarily been impacted with drugs and crime. And all of a sudden Huntington had a drug problem.

"At that point we began to come together. Six months later, we organized our first drug summit. About 150 of our community leaders put their heads together.

"The fact was it was not a police problem, it was not a school problem, it was not a parent problem. It was everyone's problem. Everybody had to take ownership."

The response was the "Weed & Seed" program which White runs for the City of Huntington.

The program is funded by a special grant for a million dollars spread over five years from the US Department of Justice.

There are 150 such programs in the country. Huntington is the only one in West Virginia, and the only application out of sixteen to be selected in the last round of funding.

The Weed & Seed program for Huntington covers less than two square miles, but that area accounts for sixty percent of all the drugs and crime in the community, and about 48 percent of all the problems city has with juveniles.

"It's a two-pronged approach," White explained. "It's Weed & Seed. The Weed part is to allow us to increase our law-enforcement presence in this area. Right now we have seven officers assigned to our violent drug enforcement task force. Last weekend we made our 55th prostitution arrest in Huntington.

"You say, 'How is that significant?' If you want drugs and you don't have money, you'll find a way of getting it.

"Last year before the program began, the Huntington Police Department took $183,000 off the streets in drug-related money. In January alone of this year, we took [away] $325,000.

"How is that significant? Everyone of you here has been affected: Your taxes, your sense of self-security, where you go, how you carry your purse, whether you lock your doors, whether you have an alarm on your property -- all of those things are things that we do to protect ourselves because we don't know what we're going to be facing or what we're going to be dealing with.

"Our goal is to go in and increase our law enforcement presence. Right now we have a very strong partnership. Once a month we meet with law enforcement agencies, the US Attorney General's office, we have DEA, we have the FBI."

White noted that West Virginia is a "hunting" state, and therefore has lax gun laws.

"A lot of drug dealers are now coming to West Virginia and they're trading their drugs for guns because Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, some of those states, have very stringent gun laws.

"[The FBI has recovered "guns that have been used in crimes in states as far away as California and New Mexico, . . . tracked back to a robbery or something that has happened here in West Virginia.

"We have a 'cross-designated' prosecuting attorney. If you are arrested for drugs or weapon charges within our Weed & Seed area, we are able now to get you with federal drug trafficking or weapons charges.

"When you go to the federal level it's very difficult to have any kind of plea bargaining or reduced sentence. We just had a man 32 years of age that will now spend the rest of his life in prison without a chance of parole for coming into our community and selling drugs.

"Cincinnati, Ohio, has less than a million people. Huntington has less than 50,000. Last year Cincinnati had 20 overdoses connected to heroin. Last year Huntington had 14."

White coordinates the Seed part of the program.

"We go behind our law enforcement and 'seed' [the high crime] area with as many positive programs as we can -- job training, home ownership, after-school programs, arts and the resources for our young people.

"In the Barnett Center, a former day-care center, we have been able to leverage almost $200,000 in resources to convert this building into a one-stop community center for job training, supportive services, educational programs.

"We have a computer lab there. We put in a dance studio. We have kids that come in two or three nights a week to work on choreography and different steps. One thing I tell people: every second a kid is in that building is a second they're not on the street.

Community garden

"How do you know how successful you are? We see an increase in our programs. If you live in that area and it's designated the highest in crime and drug problems, you're not going to send your kid two blocks away to go to a dance class. When we see kids coming through that front door, it's because [parents] feel safe in sending their kids there or coming there on their own.

"We have nine community gardens where we've taken over vacant lots, where we've demolished a crack house and turned it into a green space. Three of these lots are actually children's gardens where they have planted vegetables and they're taking care of them.

"How does that correlate with law enforcement? I could ask you, 'Sir, will you sit out on your front porch every night for two hours with binoculars and a note pad and write down everything that goes on in your block?'

"Most of us are not going to do that. But if I say, 'Let's get ten of us and go over to this garden. We're going to pull weeds. We're going to plant some stuff. We're going to get to know one another' -- most people are more excited about doing something like that than just sitting there watching.

"If I'm a drug dealer, or if I'm a prostitute, it's very hard for me to commit a crime or sell my body or my drugs on that street corner when there's ten of you across the street in a garden.

"People coming together in a garden are getting to know each other. Crime is going down. We took a vacant lot that was gathering all kinds of tires and trash and turned it into a wonderful green space.

. "The kids go out there. They're planting things. They're picking up the trash. They're being visible. They're taking ownership in something."