SITE OVERVIEW ♦ SHREVEPORT | LOUISIANA
Target Area: Shreveport Choice Neighborhood • Population: 5,060
Fiscal Agent: The City of Shreveport
Research Partner: Arizona State University
Crime Concerns: Violent crime, in particular youth and group violence
BCJI Funding Year: 2016 Planning and Implementation
Neighborhood Profile
The community targeted for the Shreveport BCJI Initiative is the Shreveport Choice Neighborhood (SCN), comprised of two communities immediately west of the downtown district. Allendale is a 150-yr-old neighborhood that was home to both black and white households until rapid economic decline beginning in the 1960s left it predominately low-income and black. Ledbetter Heights is listed as a historic district for its role as an African-American entertainment, music and commercial center in the 1940s and 1950s.
Patterns of disinvestment in the communities have led to a household poverty rate for the SCN of 45 percent and an unemployment rate of 15 percent. Allendale and Ledbetter Heights have haphazard land uses, abandoned properties, decreasing property values and a void of business activity and services. In recent years, a restructuring of Caddo Parish School District led to the closure of two neighborhood elementary schools, leaving a total of five vacant schools in the SCN.
Survey results from residents indicate that crime reduction is a pressing need in the SCN. Sharing a geographic footprint with Shreveport Police Department District 3, the neighborhoods experience much higher rates of violent crime than the rest of the city. The annual average UCR Part I Violent Crime rate for 2012-2014 was 12.95 per 1000, which was 1.76 times higher than the City of Shreveport and 3.26 times higher than the national rate.
Planning and Implementation Process
The Shreveport BCJI Project is working toward building a neighborhood that is safe, healthy, vibrant and thriving where residents, law enforcement officers and community partners work collectively to ensure every child, youth and adult has the opportunity to maximize their life outcomes. To achieve that vision, BCJI leaders have four goals:
- Positively influence factors that foster social disorganization and drivers of crime, and integrate crime control, public safety and prevention efforts with housing, education, health and economic development strategies of the Shreveport Choice Neighborhood.
- Effectively use data and research to examine the drivers of crime around hot spots, assess community members’ perceptions of crime, guide the development of innovative and effective strategies, and evaluate implementation to guide future programming and assess effectiveness.
- Increase community engagement and empower residents as leaders in shaping crime prevention and revitalization efforts by building collective efficacy, social cohesion and trusting relationships between residents, law enforcement and cross-sector partners.
- Build capacity of residents, partners and City leadership to address and prevent crime, and to promote sustainable collaboration through a collective impact framework with cross-sector partners to tackle problems from multiple angles with a multitude of leveraged and aligned resources.
Other Key Partners
The Shreveport Police Department, the Community Development Department, the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Marshals Service/Western District of LA, Caddo Parish District Attorney, Choice Neighborhoods Implementation Community Advisory Committee, HOPE for the Homeless, Martin Luther King Health Center, St. Luke’s Mobile Medical Ministry, Allendale-Lakeside-Ledbetter Heights Partnership, Community Foundation of North Louisiana, Volunteers of America of North Louisiana, Caddo Parish Schools, David Raines Community Health Center, Community Support Programs, Galilee Family Enrichment Center, Northwestern State University Child Network, Southern University, Communities in Schools, Step Forward, and community entities from the Choice Neighborhoods planning process
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