DETROIT — The Delray Southwest Community Safety Program is hosting a major community event at Clark Park this weekend to help residents improve their health and safety. The event is supported by the Gordie Howe International Bridge Community Benefits Plan.
Wayne State’s Center for Urban Studies AmeriCorps Urban Safety Program will be hosting the Clark Park event. Delray Southwest residents will be offered auto theft prevention items. Residents will be able to request board up and clean-up sites, home safety assessments or Senior Health Safety risk assessments (for households who have someone older than 60) to provide safety resources to residents at no cost to eliminate these threats.
In addition to these services at the event, the Delray Southwest Community Safety Program offers a range of additional services to increase public health and safety by focusing on providing residents with prevention activities and interventions.
The program mobilizes member/resident bike watch rides in high crime areas. To reduce the vulnerability of residents’ cars, Detroit Youth Service Corps (DYSC) members provide 250 VIN etchings, 250 twin-hooks anti-theft auto clubs, and 250 wheel-locks to residents in areas where theft and larceny are a concern.
Along business corridors, members will raise awareness about public safety issues and remedial actions by facilitating a business watch survey to engage the interest of businesses in participating a business watch group. Throughout the Delray Southwest neighborhoods, assistance will be provided in organizing, implementing, and supporting a community patrol for the area. To remove threats to public safety and create a positive presence in Delray Southwest neighborhoods, members will board up five open and vacant properties, and clean-up 15 vacant areas.
To support neighborhood students who walk to and from school, the program will implement five Safe Routes to Schools at neighborhood schools.
Finally, members will identify health and safety hazards specific to a resident’s home, and provide 250 indoor Home Safety Assessments and 100 indoor Senior Healthy Safety Risk Assessments to provide safety resources to residents at no cost to eliminate these threats.
Funding for the program has been provided by the Gordie Howe International Bridge Community Benefits Plan.
“This project is an example of how Wayne State University is committed to empowering the health of our urban neighborhoods,” said Ezemenari M. Obasi, Ph.D., vice president for research at Wayne State University. “Dr. Lyke Thompson, director of Wayne State’s Center for Urban Studies, is leading this effort that will help make substantial contributions to improving the health and safety within homes and residents in southwest Detroit.”
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Wayne State University is one of the nation’s pre-eminent public research institutions in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, the state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit research.wayne.edu.
