SITE OVERVIEW ♦ ROCHESTER | NEW YORK
Target Area: The El Camino Revitalization Area • Population: 4,415
Fiscal Agent: Ibero-American Development Corporation
Research Partner: Center for Public Safety Initiatives at Rochester Institute of Technology
Crime Concerns: Open-air heroin market
BCJI Funding Year: 2017 Planning and Implementation
Neighborhood Profile
The El Camino Revitalization Area, historically a working-class neighborhood, has fallen on hard times. Forty-eight percent of residents live in the Project CLEAN (Community, Law Enforcement and Assistance Network) target area live below the poverty line, and the childhood poverty rate is 63 percent. Only one in four residents are employed; constraints include few local jobs, inefficient public transportation and difficulty accessing training and childcare. Two out of three residents earn $25,000 or less annually.
Although the CBCR target area is barely more than half a square mile—just 1.5 percent of the total geography of the city—it accounts for approximately 6 percent of homicides in Rochester over the last five years and more than 5 percent of all robberies. Approximately 60 percent of all documented heroin-related contact over a three-year period occurred near the community’s North Clinton Avenue. The City of Rochester has demolished more than 100 blighted properties in the target area since 2008, which has created new locations for sellers and users to congregate in the neighborhood.
The BCJI fiscal agent, the Ibero-American Development Corporation, operates Project HOPE (Healthy Outcomes through Participation, Education and Empowerment), which works with residents to improve quality of life, increase social cohesion and create new opportunities for improved health. Projects have included a community-built playground, community gardens, community walks against drugs, lot improvement and beautification projects, art murals and community clean-ups.
Planning Process
Project CLEAN’s goal is to eliminate the open-air heroin market and its impact on North Clinton Avenue in the El Camino neighborhood through evidence-based and community-driven strategies focused on crime reduction, outreach and connections. To reduce crime, the partnership is planning to develop a deployment plan for police to evolving hot spots, target needle use by working with community partners and increase access to substance abuse rehab services.
The team will work to revitalize existing assets in the community—from the Salvation Army gym to old large manufacturing facilities—and attract new development such as affordable and market rate housing and a community center. Design strategies for the area will use Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) principles to enhance public spaces such as local parks for families, calm traffic on local streets and resolve safety challenges of open land and empty structures. Throughout all this work, the team will engage the community to build capacity of residents, use local knowledge of hotspots and reach out to victims, users, dealers and others.
Other Key Partners
Rochester Police Department, City of Rochester, Monroe County Department of Public Health and Trillium
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