10/09/2025
"H.E.L.P. is a community violence intervention program. Community violence intervention is an approach where the members of the community are best equipped to deal with some of the issues of violence and to make sustainable change toward the future. What I love about this is that it takes a public health approach in terms of how violence is handled. It’s no longer ‘just up to the police’ or a particular group of individuals, but everyone in the community has a role to play in curbing violence.
H.E.L.P. is bringing in the community partners, the agencies, and the individuals that have a heart for seeing change. We're doing mentorship with our youth. We have credible messengers out there in the city communicating and training and advocating as much as we can in order to get people to recognize that we have a problem that we can address, but that it’s a problem that will take us all collectively working together to solve. That requires returning back to some of the ‘basics’: the ideas of community building, neighbors who communicate with each other, and strong neighborhood associations.
We remember the old neighborhood watch groups, and our Neighborhood Safe Zone initiative is a new spin on how we're engaging and building community.
For the Neighborhood Safe Zones, we’ll be painting the curbs green along with posting signage to show that neighborhood is taking an active role in deterring violence. We're working with our law enforcement, civic leaders, and our legislators. We've been talking with Representative Amos O’Neal and also Representative Neely out of Flint about some legislation that if someone commits a gun crime in these areas, there are going to be stiffer penalties.
Houghton Jones and Old Town neighborhoods will be our first two Neighborhood Safe Zones. Covenant Neighborhood is right behind as we’ve been working with Covenant HeathCare, the school in the district, and some of their neighborhood association leaders. Our goal is to eventually include all twelve of the Neighborhood Associations in the initiative.
But everyone has a role to play addressing violence in the community. H.E.L.P. is one way we can show people that they can contribute and make an impact.”
—Kareem Bowen, H.E.L.P.
This project was supported by Grant #15/PBJA-23-GG-00017-BSSC/ awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication/program/exhibition are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice or the MSP.
