HARVEY CARON: "I got seventeen years in prison. I'm probably going to be here for the rest of my life."

RONALD BENNETT: "The only thing that was on my mind was getting the next drug, that's it."

STEVE RAINES: "There's guys saying it's OK to bash faggots, it's all right."

MOSES LEVY: "To desecrate any part of the church-- to us, this is the work of the Devil."

TAMI KIMBLE: "They called me a nigger to my face."

NOAH THOMAS: "Sick…"

REV. JONATHAN MOUZON: "People are reaching out for somebody that seems to care about them, somebody that loves them."

DAWN PARSONS: "You do not have a right to a good neighborhood. It's your responsibility."

LILLIAN ANDERSON: "Get active. If you want your neighborhood back-- and you can get it back-- remember, there's more of us than them."

Title: Seeking Solutions with Hedrick Smith

VERTAMAE GROSVENOR v/o: Principle funding for Seeking Solutions provided by the Pew Charitable Trusts; Major funding provided by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, The Surdna Foundation; Additional funding provided by the following: The Charles H. Revson Foundation,

The Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, The Carnegie Corporation of New York.

STAND-UP:

SMITH: AS TOWNS AND CITIES ACROSS AMERICA GRAPPLE WITH STREET CRIME AND SOCIAL TENSION, IT’S CLEAR THAT NO SINGLE RECIPE CAN GUARANTEE TO MAKE OUR COMMUNITIES SAFE FOR OURSELVES AND FOR OUR CHILDREN.

HELLO, I’M HEDRICK SMITH

EACH PLACE HAS ITS OWN DYNAMIC. SOME CITIES MUST CONTEND WITH DRUG DEALING AND MIDDLE CLASS FLIGHT. OTHERS MUST OVERCOME ETHNIC DIFFERENCES THAT ARE A BREEDING GROUND FOR GANGS AND VIOLENCE.

ONE COMMON OBSTACLE, HOWEVER, IS THE COLLAPSE OF COMMUNITY… PEOPLE FEELING ISOLATED AND DISCONNECTED… INTIMIDATED BY CRIMINAL ELEMENTS AND POWERLESS TO FIGHT BACK. NOWHERE IS THAT LOSS OF COMMUNITY HARDER TO COMBAT THAN IN OUR BIG CITIES.

BUT AS YOU’LL SEE IN THE NEXT HOUR, THERE ARE PLACES WHERE… AGAINST THE ODDS… ORDINARY AMERICANS HAVE COME TOGETHER TO RECLAIM AND REBUILD THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS …AND HAVE COME AWAY SURPRISED BY THEIR OWN POWER.

WE BEGIN ON THE NORTH SIDE OF CHICAGO, IN UPTOWN.

PATRICK DURKIN: (nat. sound) "I want you to raise your hand when I ask you what country you are from. Okay?

DURKIN (nat. sound): "From Vietnam?"

NARR: FROM 36 DIFFERENT COUNTRIES….

DURKIN: (nat. sound): "Bosnia?"

KIDS COMING OUT OF SCHOOL (nat. sound): "Hi Mr. Durkin!"

DURKIN (nat. sound): "Hi."

DURKIN: Kids get along wonderfully well. It’s totally different, for example, from when I was in school. The cultures, the different religions. We probably have five or six totally different religions: Christians, Buddhism, Moslems, Jewish religion.

DURKIN (v/o): It, it’s unreal and they all work together.

DURKIN (o/c): It seems like everybody up here is proud that they’re, they’re different and yet they’re together. It’s, it’s kind of a unique unity of one group of people that are so happy that they’re so diverse.

BOYS PLAYING AT COMPUTER (nat. sound): "Yes!!!"

RITA SIMO (nat.sound): C, D, C, B. It’s the C that is not clear. D, C, B. Ah! Whatever you did, try that again."

SIMO (nat.sound): "Now do it a tempo."

SIMO: And I had this idea about having a free school. So that people that want to learn but don’t have any money could do it. And so, Uptown was the perfect place because we have blacks and Latinos and whites and Orientals and we’re all in the same boat.

SIMO (nat. sound): "Does anybody know another name for the woodblocks?"

SIMO (nat. sound): "Clavé. All right!"

SIMO (nat. sound): "Did he write only jazz music?"

CLASS (nat. sound) "No."

SIMO: As I got all my music education free in the Dominican Republic at the National Conservatory and then I have a scholarship, came to Julliard and after that I went to Boston University. I never had to pay. And I thought if I got it for nothing, I need to give it back.

RITA SIMO, THE PEOPLE’S MUSIC SCHOOL: When I came around and I started telling people what I wanted to do, they were the only people that say yeah, that’s a good idea. Most people, most of my friends said you’re crazy, you don’t do that. But here in Uptown there were enough crazies that they all thought that this was a good idea.

TEACHER: "Now wait a minute."

STUDENT: "What?"

TEACHER: "I would have expected a dirge there."

SIMO: All of these people participated in the building of this building.

HEDRICK SMITH: So these are your contributors.

SIMO: There is even in this, in the middle of all this names an individual that’s a homeless lady and she came with three dollars and she say I want this school to be built, maybe I’ll come and learn something.

SMITH: So how does that make you feel?

SIMO: Oh it made me feel very good because then it’s the people’s.

SMITH: You’ve lived here 20, 25 years. Have you ever worried about your own personal safety?

SIMO: No.

SMITH: Why not?

SIMO: Well, I don’t take any chances but I, you know, I talk to everybody. And you know the way to avoid being in trouble? Is you become friendly with everybody...

SIMO (nat. sound): "How you doing you guys? Don’t worry about it."

SIMO: ... the prostitutes, the pimps, the drug dealers, and everybody else ...

SIMO: Because you know them, they know if they do something to you, you’re going to identify them.

SIMO (o/c): And if you walk in the street and you know you’re worried about the guy that’s following you, you turn around and say hey how you doing today blah, blah, blah, blah, then he knows that if he try to take my purse, I know exactly what he look like and I’m going to identify him. So you know.

SIMO (v/o): The biggest problem in our society is when people live so totally isolated that they don’t know who their neighbors are. And that’s to me is the biggest problem. So once you know who your neighbors are then you’re OK.

OFFICER JOE COX (nat. sound): "It pays off in lower crime, it pays off in better relationships..."

SMITH: How do you account for the low crime rate in an area where you would expect there would be a lot of crime because there’s so much diversity?

JOE COX, CHICAGO POLICE (o/c): Traditionally it was the police officers trying to say "we’ll handle this," and we were often times reactive and very much less effective.

COX (v/o): Now we work with the community. We work with the business agencies and we work with downtown. I think the community at large understands there that we have challenges here that many other districts and communities do not.

COX (o/c): And that they’re willing to work with those challenges for the richness of the whole community,

COX (v/o): There’s the beauty of Uptown. The color of Uptown. They all what to work together for that beauty.

DR. FELTON EARLS, HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH (o/c): The old literature in social science says that ethnic differences within neighborhoods create turf wars, create problems, create gangs, rival gangs. Therefore, violence rates within these diverse neighborhoods would be quite high. That’s the old literature.

SMITH(o/c): What does a cohesive community look like? What are its characteristics?

EARLS: Well, I mean we see a lot of social interaction, you know, between adults. I mean friendly social interaction.

EARLS (v/o): We see kids of different race and ethnic groups playing together. We see a lot of adult accompanying supervision of children.

SARAH JANE KNOY (nat. sound): "Okay, you can work right here and then when you’re done with that, Bernice will get you a stapler."

KNOY: Last year at the house meetings, we brought squares of fabric and paint and we asked everyone to tell us what strength they brought to the neighborhood. What was the best thing that they could offer to this community? And you can see there’s writing in Cambodian, there’s writing in Spanish, there’s pictures. It’s just beautiful and to me it symbolizes the way that O.N.E. brings the community together and calls on everyone’s strengths.

PARTICIPANT A (nat. sound of ONE meeting): "I’d like to see more low income housing in the neighborhood."

PARTICIPANT B (nat. sound of ONE meeting): "I’d like to see greater support from parents to schools and from schools to parents."

PARTICIPANT C (nat. sound of ONE meeting): "I’d like to see more cross-generational activities for seniors and youth together."

KNOY: I think in Uptown, there’s a tradition of communication.

PARTICIPANT A (nat. sound from ONE meeting): "And make ONE more accessible to everyone."

KNOY (o/c): People may argue. People may disagree and they do disagree across their diversity. But there’s a tradition of being linked to one another.

PARTICIPANT D: (nat. sound from ONE meeting): "...and do it. Thank you."

SARA JANE KNOY, O.N.E. DIRECTOR: I don’t think you can solve any community problem in isolation. If people are engaged in the community, they’re engaged in the full life of the community and that affects crime, it affects politics. It affects the way that people relate to kids on the street.

SMITH (o/c): How do you explain the way Uptown people work together?

EARLS (o/c): I don’t think we social scientists have a very good understanding of what is happening. It is happening at a neighborhood level. So it’s not that families are changing very much or, you know, kids are changing that much. I think that it’s neighborhoods and institutions that are changing.

DINO (v/o): I've been living in Uptown for about a year and a half.

DINO NUHIJA, BOSNIAN REFUGEE (o/c): My mother, Nisveta and me, we're in America. But the rest of my family, they're all in Bosnia.

DINO: Oh, for her it was sad, because all of her family over there was -- was not here. So, she missed her family, like I did. Yeah, I miss them a lot.

TEACHER (nat. sound): OK. After this group is finished…

TEACHER (nat. sound): OK. You can’t do this one because…

DINO: It was interesting to see different people from different countries. Like in my Bosnia, there were only Bosnian peoples. But when they came here, there were people from different countries, so I got interested in that, to find out about their country and about them.

But in my -- in my country, I never saw a black person. And then when I saw a black person, I was excited here.

DINO: "My name is Dino and I’m with the Bosnian Refugee Center."

ZUMRA KUNOSIC, BOSNIAN REFUGEE CENTER: We are in this point today the youngest group, ethnic group, Bosnians, and it is about 8,000 us who lives here, and we get along with everyone.

TRONG NGUYEN (Nat. sound): "Get more hours, more dates. Because we do not want our children to have to be home by themselves from three to six, non-supervisioned. "

TRONG NGUYEN, HEARTLAND ALLANCE: And I myself was a refugees, and I've been through with so many problems.

NGUYEN (v/o): So, we have to help them to understand the culture, and how to cope with the reality and how to find a job, how to, you know, live in -- in the neighborhood.

NGUYEN (o/c): That is a star for Uptown -- it means that we are living peacefully with each other.

RONALD BENNETT: I lived in Chicago all of my life and I’ve never seen a neighborhood like this one.

RONALD BENNETT, UPTOWN RESIDENT: Didn’t nobody matter in my life. You know my mom, my sister, my brother. None of that mattered, you know.

SMITH: How did you relate to other people, when you were homeless, the people on the street?

BENNETT: Back then?

SMITH: Yeah.

BENNETT: Sss, they didn’t exist in my life, they didn’t exist. The only thing that was on my mind was getting the next drug, that’s it.

SMITH: Getting the money to get it.

BENNETT: That’s it, that’s it. I just had this narrow view where I had to have the next one.

SMITH: Did you do some things you wish you hadn’t done?

BENNETT: Of course.

SMITH: You mean beyond the law.

BENNETT: Yeah, definitely, definitely. It was just things that I never, that I thought that I’d never do but in order to get the next one I had to do those things.

BENNETT: Yeah, living in hell, I call it.

BENNETT: This is my home.

BENNETT: This is actually my living room area.

BENNETT: …Couch, bed-like. This is my home. I love it.

JEAN BUTZEN (nat. sound): "Hi, how are ya?"

JEAN BUTZEN, LAKEFRONT SRO DIRECTOR (o/c): The process of helping people recover from substance abuse goes a long way towards decreasing the amount of crime that people have in the community. Because once a person doesn't need that substance any more, then their need to steal and to create crime in a community completely goes away.

BUTZEN (v/o): And, so, we believe by putting people in supportive housing, what happens is we create that -- that solution to crime in part and to unemployment.

SMITH: So how do you feel? I mean Lucent’s one of the top companies in America. It is a hot, leading-edge, high tech company.

BENNETT: It’s like wow, it’s breathtaking. It was like -- I don’t have the words for this.

WOMAN AT PARTY (nat. sound): "You’re an inspiration to me, I started college."

BENNETT: Uptown was the place to go where you can actually find help. And I found help in Uptown.

BENNETT: Actually it’s just starting for me. You know how -- have you ever been to the race track before?

SMITH: Yeah.

BENNETT: You know how the horse get in the gate and the, the jockey settles in and then the door open and CLING, and they’re off, right? Well I’m just settling in the gate now. You know, I’ve still got a lot of things I want to do in life you know so once the door open, then I’m really on my way.

SMITH: Now we'll turn to a public dialogue in Kansas City, Missouri, with a cross section of people from this region to discuss what lessons that Uptown teaches us about community building and reducing street crime.

Mr. Alvin Brooks, I wonder if I could start with you. You're a long-time community organizer, a veteran of this. I wonder what your impressions were from this film.

ALVIN BROOKS, ANTI-CRIME ORGANIZER: Well, I think what was shown is that there must be a collaboration and cooperation between various entities within the community. No one can do it alone. So, there must be some direction, there must be solution oriented projects and it must involve all entities of the community, to the extent that you have some, some accomplishment, so that people will feel that they can make a difference in their lives. And they can make a difference in their lives.

SMITH: Good. Thanks for your comment. Alan Young, you were a trigger in your community. Tell me what happened. What got you started?

ALAN YOUNG, NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVIST: Actually, I was sitting out at the TV watching COPS. [LAUGHTER] And -- and I looked out the front window and what I was watching out my front window was more interesting than COPS. [LAUGHTER]

SMITH: More violent.

ALAN YOUNG: More violent. So, and I laughed for a few minutes and then -- then it really hit me, you know, this is sad. I mean, it's funny, but it's kind of sick that what I'm looking out my front window is worse than what I can see on TV. So, at that point, we decided that we were going to do something.

SMITH: And, what did you do?

ALAN YOUNG: The first thing we did was we went to the police station. We knew we had to get to know the police officers. Because we would see them going 90 miles an hour to another neighborhood, riding through ours. So, the first thing I did was I went to the Sergeant and I introduced who I was and I asked for help. And his suggestion was to contact the neighborhood association. And when I tried to do that, I found out there was not a neighborhood association.

SMITH: No neighborhood association.

ALAN YOUNG: No -- at that time the leadership of the neighborhood association had gotten elderly and it had pretty much dropped off. So, at that point we knew we had to start from ground zero. So, we started with our block, we organized our block. We got the drug house off our block.

SMITH: So, at some point you just got to decide to do it?

ALAN YOUNG: You got to decide you're not going to wait for somebody else to clean your neighborhood up. That you're going to stand up and do it yourself, no matter what it takes.

SMITH: Great. Thanks. Okay, Mike Bushnell, let me ask you, where was your neighborhood ten years ago, where is it today, real quickly, and then what's made the difference?

MICHAEL BUSHNELL, KANSAS CITY RESIDENT: As far as ten years ago, I can honestly say that we were -- we're leagues better now than where we were then. I thinks [SIC] what has made some of the difference is the neighborhood association.

To give -- to give an example, there was a drug house on one of our corners. We didn't really know the people down there, but we said for the good of the kids, we've got to picket this drug house and take license numbers and names. And that brought about 50 people together that didn't know each other. So, they formed a cohesive bond and they have now bonded with the neighborhood organization and we're just going up, up and up as far as the Northeast area of Kansas City is concerned.

SMITH: Terrific. Chuck Gatson, you are a neighborhood builder, but in particular, you’re a builder. Are we talking about bricks and mortar or are we talking about something else?

CHUCK GATSON, COMMUNITY BUILDER: We're talking about both. What my organization does is bricks and mortar, which is difficult at best, but it's not nearly difficult as rebuilding a community. What we've discovered you can build a house, you can build a bunch of houses, but if you don't build the folk who live in those houses, the houses will sooner or later turn back into bad houses. So, what we've been able to do is bring people together. The common theme that you saw in that video and the common theme that people are saying here, it's collaboration, it's talking to each other.

The neighborhoods that we work in specifically, we were invited in: we have a written agreement with them and we do neighborhood plans and we follow their lead. Yeah, we'll build you a building any time, but it's got to be your building, not ours.

SMITH: Great. Thanks. Now, we got the message out here, right, get active, get involved, get organized, get collaborating. If it's that obvious, how come it isn't happening in more places? There must be some down sides here.

Major Chapman, I want to ask you, you're a police officer. You deal with a number of communities. Is fear an inhibitor for people to get involved? Are people worried about violence and getting hurt themselves? Does that slow things down?

FRANCY CHAPMAN, KANSAS CITY POLICE: It absolutely is an inhibitor. It makes people withdraw behind closed doors. They stay inside as much as possible. They fear the night, they don't get to know their neighbors. It has a huge impact on neighborhoods and cities.

SMITH: And how do people overcome that?

CHAPMAN: Well, I think we have to show them that there's strength in numbers. And if we get to know each other between police and citizens and work together, you get a real new strength and vitality there. And I think we have to focus on the joy that it -- it's in our hearts and the good things that are in our neighborhoods. The good people behind the closed doors can make a difference.

SMITH: Thanks very much. I wonder if there's anybody else who's had a crime either in their family or close to them in the neighborhood or works with -- fine, one of you all.

MICHELE SMITH, MOTHER OF MURDERED CHILD: Well, I lost my son about 16 months ago to a violent crime in Kansas City, Missouri, and one of the things is fear. You know, I wanted to do something to give back to the community or to save them -- I have a son that's 18. And I want to do something to save my son that's living.

SMITH: How old was the son who was --

MICHELE SMITH: The son who passed away was 21.

SMITH: Twenty-one?

MICHELE SMITH: Yeah, he was murdered at 21. And, at first, I was scared. I mean, I was scared to come out my house. I was scared to even live in my house, you know. And, so, I -- you know, fear is -- is a main concerned [SIC]. But then when I realized that -- that what they were doing is taking my life away from me, too, I had to get up and start fighting back. And, so, also I started a support group over on the Missouri side. And it's called SAVE, also, and SAVE stands for Sisters Against Violence Everywhere.

And, so, we're trying to target the mothers and the grandmothers, the aunts, whoever want to be a part of this, to try and come in and try to help, you know, save our children. Bring back some of the family values into our families and to try to restore our black families.

SMITH: Great. Thanks. Now, let me ask you about another issue and that is diversity. I wonder -- Bill Rogers, is diversity from your standpoint as a community leader -- is that an asset or is it a disadvantage?

BILL ROGERS, COMMUNITY LEADER: We believe -- we have come to the conclusion we think it's going to be an asset. We are in an older part of town that has been kind of -- kind of forgotten, in between, and we've been looking at -- at how we can rebuild our community. We're devoid of -- of that family structure. We have those senior adults and we have the young -- the young kids. But we don't have the families. And, so, we -- we believe that we have a lot to offer for families, young families looking for a safe place for their -- to grow and to raise their children.

SMITH: Great. Thanks. I wonder if there's somebody else from another community. What are the obstacles you have in pulling your community together?

NANCY TOLBERT, KANSAS CITY RESIDENT: We're in Blue Valley. And one of our biggest obstacles is the language barriers and communications and we would really --

SMITH: Between?

TOLBERT: Between the different cultures like the Hispanics and Vietnamese.

SMITH: And what kinds of problems does it cause?

TOLBERT: Well, it causes problems with mostly with -- like the city services and the -- the rules, the codes…they have barriers with understanding what they are supposed to do. And we have barriers trying to teach them what they're supposed to do.

SMITH: I wonder about another issue. Diversity is not just a diversity of -- of population, but diversity is different agencies, different social groups. I mean, I wonder -- you're nodding to that. Were you nodding -- because what?

CALVIN WILLIFORD SUBSTANCE ABUSE ADMINISTRATOR: I think just as human beings, we -- we develop different mindsets about our approach is the right one. You know, substance abuse for me is a critical issue. But, I heard someone talk about housing. Well, you know, you can't address substance abuse in a vacuum. And I think we finally learned that lesson. You know, you have to talk about jobs, you have to talk about training, you have to talk about housing. But it took us a while to get there.

SMITH: Money? How about money? Is there enough money for everybody?

WILLIFORD: Well, I think that's part of the issue, of course, is that we're all fighting for scraps it feels like sometimes. Society tells us how important some causes are by how much money government chooses to give to us. And those resources are very very limited.

SMITH: Right. I wonder, Raul Murguia, if we can get you involved in this -- [speaking over each other] go ahead.

RAUL MURGUIA, LATINO COMMUNITY LEADER: I have a comment on diversity. Whenever different people -- more affluent -- come to poor neighborhoods, that can be a downfall. In our neighborhood we're facing a problem in which back in 1919 we weren't allowed to move into Kansas City's west side. It took generations for Latinos to get in, buy homes. Over decades, that became a Latino community.

Well, now, what we've seen in our neighborhood is that affluent people have moved in, we welcomed them, because we wanted diversity. However, now they're doing things that are pushing people out of the neighborhood, because they don't fit the social style or their profile or whatever they want to do. So, they're -- they're beginning to form their own neighborhood organization that only deals with their section. Latino people are not included in their meetings, their plans, agendas. They're using codes violations.

People are poor there. They cannot spend a whole lot of money in fixing a home when they got to pay for school tuition or they pull -- pay for just to eat. So, that's becoming a problem, where -- where diversity can be a problem because when you have different social levels of economics in the same neighborhood, so --

SMITH: So, diversity works but only if there's give and take and communication?

MURGUIA: Yes. When two different groups have different ideas for what they want to do, then you can have people clashing.

SMITH: Thanks. I want to talk for a moment about this resource issue that got raised. And I wonder if I could get you to join us, Miss Wilson. And on the Kansas side of the river, do you feel sort of you're -- you're financially as fortunate as folks on the Missouri side of the river? Because we've heard maybe Missouri's doing a little bit better, financially.

WENDY WILSON, KANSAS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR: I think that's true. I think that's true. They have a drug tax on the Missouri side that helps them in their neighborhood organizing and to fight crime, which we don't have on the Kansas side.

The Kansas people I think have felt that they needed to do for themselves more. There wasn't anybody there to back us up. I think they've -- we felt like we were the poor step-child, you know, just ignore us and we'll go away. So, what's happened in the last five years, we've gone from 20 neighborhood groups to almost 120 neighborhood groups. People have really at the grassroots level banded together to take back their neighborhoods.

SMITH: Great. I think we're right on a subject that is of critical importance. I've heard you talk about networking.

JEAN BUTZEN, CHICAGO HOUSING ACTIVIST: If people aren't talking together, then nothing very substantial is going to happen. I mean, I like to say that life is about relationships. You know, if we're not connecting people through relationships, then we're going to be cutting people off from a huge portion of the resources that any neighborhood has to offer. So, it's through dialogue, through meeting, through finding common purpose, things like that that really help make those collaborations and those connections happen.

SMITH: Great. I want to talk about a particular group of folks, young people, with you, Melissa. Where were you, what's happened to you and how did the change take place?

MELISSA ROBINSON, YOUTH LEADER: Well, I've been in -- actively involved in the community since I've been 14 and now I'm 19. So, basically I was one of those children that were -- that it was going to be very easily [SIC] for me to fall through the cracks. And --

SMITH: Why?

ROBINSON: Because I -- I was kind of the, I'm not a child that really stood out, educationally. I wasn't talented, and I wasn't in the talented and gifted program, but neither was I --

SMITH: Did you feel included? Was the adult world reaching you?

ROBINSON: Yes -- when I was 14, an adult, Mr. Alvin Brooks, just really enlightened me. He tapped into the talent and the -- and he ignited the fire that was in me. And, so that was very important. That was the turning point of my life, because it was just like I was a wall flower. It wasn't like I was special or, you know, had anything to contribute to the community. But an adult came up to me and told me that, yes, you do have something to contribute to the community. You are special.

SMITH: Great. Thanks. Now, we’ll take a look at a neighborhood on the rebound right here in Kansas City.

nat sound: Say Hey…Hey! Say Ho…Ho! Drug dealer get up and go! Drug dealer get up and go!

nat sound: We’re here to take our neighborhood back!

LARRY WASHINGTON, FORMER BLUE HILLS RESIDENT: We had drug houses, probably on every other block. There were drive-by shootings. People had to actually sleep on floors at night because of fear.

MARVEL HODGE, BLUE HILLS RESIDENT: I even got robbed in my driveway a few years ago. But...

HEDRICK SMITH: You mean held up?

HODGE: Held up. Robbed, in the morning at 6:25.

HODGE: This was the worst chapter in my entire life. Living next door to a drug house. There were 8 different dealers and drug families that sold drugs there. I never lived in this much fear in all my life.

SISTER HELEN FLEMINGTON, ST. THERESE CHURCH: People felt pretty isolated, pretty overwhelmed by it.

My guess is they didn’t feel like anything could really be done.

FLEMINGTON: I’m sure people did call the police, but if there are gunshots all the time, you end up not calling.

FLEMINGTON: We started pulling in the neighborhood leaders, church leaders...We invited people to come into this safe place and to give us addresses.

LILLIAN ANDERSON, BLUE HILLS RESIDENT: Before, we had stopped talking to each other because we was all living in our houses. No one was coming outside. So when we went up to the church we met our neighbors that we hadn’t been talking to for years.

FLEMINGTON: What happened is people stopped being isolated. They started realizing that they could band together. They started seeing if St. Therese called a meeting, the officials were there. We had gotten a power base is what we had gotten.

ROBERT ANDERSON, BLUE HILLS RESIDENT: They said ok, you do the identifying you point to where the drug houses are, we’ll close them, and we’ll help you do that. But we have to be in partnership. We have to work together on that.

FLEMINGTON: They’re part of the community now. It’s like they’ve moved in with us.

nat. sounds: "Hey pusher…Hey pusher, Hey you…Hey you, Kansas City is watching you…Kansas City is watching you."

FLEMINGTON: People who did not have hope all of a sudden had hope.

nat sound: No more drugs, no more crack, we’re here to take our neighborhood back.

MARY LEE: They’ve been apart for so long, it’s about time to come together.

MARY LEE, BLUE HILLS RESIDENT: I want to try to help if I can to make it better for the younger generation or the older generation. I thought maybe, if my little part helps, then hey, I want to do it.

nat sound: No more drugs, no more crack, we’re here to take our neighborhood back.

HODGE: They threw a firebomb through my window at 2:30 in the morning.

SMITH: You think they were trying to run you out of the neighborhood?

HODGE: They wanted to run the older people out who had lived here a long time. They wanted to take over the neighborhood.

HODGE: This is the sign I had in the yard. I kept it out there about three weeks.

nat. sound: "Well, hello Sister Helen, how are you?"

WASHINGTON: Abandoned properties are the problems. They are just trouble, not to mention they’re eyesores in the community. So we target the abandoned houses in order to convert those to convert the community back around.

nat sound: Larry and Mike the contractor "All along this wall right here I’m looking for upper cabinets…"

SMITH: Larry, what’s going to happen here where you are finished? Is this going to be rented or is it going to be sold?

WASHINGTON: We instill home ownership. We like the home ownership. And of course with home ownership, people are more apt to take care of their property.

LEE: This is something I couldn’t do by myself. I needed help. I mean I can paint but I can’t paint the whole house by myself. I could move the boards and things but I can’t move it by myself. Everybody need help every now and then.

LINDA SPENCE, NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT: It’s easy to get neighbors out to clean up the block, to have parties, to come out to meetings. Once you can show the neighbors that we can be effective if we all work together, hey it just happens.

SPENCE: That was it. That was it. That was it. The police had had it. The neighborhood had been fighting it. We’d had it. The church said enough is enough and so we banded together.

DAWN PARSONS, JACKSON COUNTY ASSISTANT PROSECUTOR: They asked us what they could do. And we said what do you want to do. And they said, we want to bring attention to this. So we had a vigil there for all the victims. And Ad Hoc Group Against Crime got involved.

Nat sound: Shut them down! Shut them down now!

PARSONS: So it wasn’t just the Jackson County Prosecutor’s office that’s trying to take away a hard working person’s liquor license. It was, this is a community problem and we’re all coming together to fix it.

PARSONS: But without the neighborhood, I mean if they never came out of their barricaded doors, we wouldn’t have been able to do anything.

MRS. ANDERSON: Our neighbors are watching, we will call the police to report any suspicious activities. We have this at every entrance in Blue Hills from the north to the south.

nat sound - Mr. Anderson: It’s a real pretty day out here.

WASHINGTON: You can walk to the store, you can walk your dog in the evening, not just during the day. You have that freedom.

HODGE: I can even feel safe when I’m planting my flowers and taking care of my flowers. I don’t have a fear of being shot, like I was a couple of years ago.

PARSONS: You do not have a right to a good neighborhood. It’s your responsibility...

nat sound Sister and Marvel: See you on Sunday? See you on Sunday.

PARSONS: ...you have to get out and talk to your neighbors, find out who they are so you can all work together.

MR. ANDERSON: So we feel like you know, ok, we’ve taken our neighborhood back, we’re winning.

MRS. ANDERSON: Get active if you want your neighborhood back. And you can get it back. Remember there’s more of us than them.

SMITH: That was a fascinating episode. And one of the fascinating things for me about Kansas City is that you all have some very special concepts here. Community prosecuting, Kathy Finnell, what's the essence of community prosecuting, kind of in a nuts and bolts way, in terms of your links with individual neighborhoods?

KATHY FINNELL, PROSECUTOR: It's an integration of prevention, intervention and law enforcement. We can prosecute them, we can put them in jail, but that's one person with one problem. That is not really effectuating a wide scale, comprehensive solution.

SMITH: I think what I'm hearing you saying is that if you prosecute an individual drug dealer, you may put one person in jail, but you may not have changed the situation in the community. Talk about that a little bit in terms of what community policing is.

FINNELL: It's not just about dealing with the one individual who's slinging the crack. It's also about the property that's being used and -- and holding the landlord or the property owner accountable. It's also about saying to citizens you see it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We won't know if they're dealing out of the side window unless you tell us. We won't know that you have to ask for a certain person unless you tell us. And we can send undercovers all day long. But if we -- if we don't know what to ask for, then we're not going to get in.

SMITH: So, it's real two-way communication with communities?

FINNELL: It's complete reciprocal relationship.

SMITH: Great, thanks. Now, let me ask you, Major Chapman, from the standpoint of the police, community policing is a term that's now being kicked around all over America. It's very popular. What, in practical terms, does it mean?

FRANCY CHAPMAN, KANSAS CITY POLICE: We take our cues from the neighborhood now. Rather than being an occupying force in the neighborhood, going in and telling people how to solve their problems, we are an active partner and we're part of the neighborhood. It feels so different to be a part of the neighborhood and to be wanted and appreciated there and to work together on a problem and look at the physical constraints and say, well, maybe I can change the environment for the better, as well.

SMITH: Great, thanks. Jim Nunnelly, I want to ask you, because Kansas City has something very -- this county has something very unusual. You have a tax system. Tell us about that in terms of what we've just been talking about, community policing and hitting the drug dealers.

JIM NUNNELLY, DRUG TAX ADMINISTRATOR: Very good. The brave citizens of Jackson County chose in 1989 to not only pay lip service, but to pay their money to go after a problem and all the problems around substance abuse. They strategically webbed law enforcement, treatment, and prevention into a single force that went after the evils surrounding substance abuse.

SMITH: Let me ask you who foots the bill? And, how big is the bill?

NUNNELLY: It is a quarter percent sales tax. And -- and that's important too. Because every citizen participates in this tax. That also means that we are accountable to every citizen. It -- it raises between 14 and 18 million dollars a year to go after prevention, law enforcement, and treatment in a dedicated multi-disciplinary way.

SMITH: So, this is -- this is Jackson County, the Kansas City area, pay as you go, we vote for it, and tax ourselves?

NUNNELLY: Absolutely. And the most important thing is that everybody knows what to expect.

SMITH: Thanks very much. I want to come back to you, Wendy Wilson. Here we are across the river in Missouri and they're voting this tax. Now, does that push all the crime over on you in Kansas? [LAUGHTER]

WENDY WILSON, KANSAS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR: Yes. [LAUGHTER] Yes. It does. The people who deal drugs are very smart. They know the law. They know the games. They know where they're least likely to get caught, where they're least likely to be prosecuted, who has the resources to go after them and who doesn't. Definitely.

SMITH: So, if it goes across state lines, at least you can -- it's tough to deal with?

WILSON: It's tough to deal with. It means we have to now be even more connected, utilize our resources, and do what we can to run them out.

SMITH: Are voters in Wyandotte County, Kansas, ready to vote a one quarter percent sales tax to do the same thing?

WILSON: We're already taxed to the max.

SMITH: So, it's tough?

WILSON: It's tough.

SMITH: There are slightly different approaches here. I want to come back to you, Raul Murguia, because, you were talking about this problem a little bit before. In Blue Hills, very effective, we’ve had other people talking about it, get together, push them out. They go over to Kansas. What's your reaction?

RAUL MURGUIA, LATINO COMMUNITY LEADER: My reaction is -- and -- and this is a problem that I've been facing especially with the -- with the gangs in Kansas City, because when Missouri has a lot of resources, and we have prevention, we have law enforcement, we have many different things that are helping us address the gang problems and the crime problems in our youth in this side of town.

Well, kids don't know -- they don't know state lines. And particularly in the Latino community we're -- we're right next to the state line. That's another problem we're close to. So, when kids from Kansas come over here and feud with the kids from the west side, and they're only 30 seconds away from the state line. So, they run back over there. And then law enforcement over there can do nothing, because the thing -- the problem happened in Missouri.

So, that is an issue that is affecting us dramatically. And I'm going -- I'm working with a lot of kids over in Kansas when I can on my own time, because -- because you can't go back and forth over here. But we -- it's an issue that we have. We live in the same neighborhood where we have a line that's dividing us and there's more money and no money over there. [LAUGHTER]

SMITH: Okay, thanks. Ron McMillan, I'd like to get your take on this. Are we chasing crime from one area to another and it just matters which neighborhood's the better organized?

RON MCMILLAN, OUTREACH SPECIALIST: Well, I like the Uptown piece where diversity was an action, where people are living together, people aren't afraid of each other. I love Rita and her piece, walking through the community, not being strangers, having relationships. And starting at a young age where communities were mixed together and the different ethnic groups were interacting, having relationships.

And Kansas City has a whole different piece. We're segregated. You have east and west of Troost, you have traditional money streams that fund the racial separation. So, we have a long ways to go. You know, your Latinos over here, your blacks over here, your whites over here. That's our reality. How we will work towards diversity -- they call it harmony in a world of difference -- is still something for us to really look at. And Uptown Chicago gives us something to look at.

SMITH: Great, thanks. I wonder if somebody wants to respond to that? It must be -- yes, please.

KATHY FINNELL, PROSECUTOR: I'd just like to take a moment to respond to the -- the Kansas City, Kansas, and Missouri dichotomy of sorts. You have to get beyond the idea of Kansas City, Missouri, Kansas City, Kansas, Independence, Blue Springs. This is one community. And it's about community justice. It's not about community prosecution, community policing. It's about community justice. And when we get beyond our mental boundaries, then we're really able to do some things. And that has been the core focus of -- of our unit and -- and really just being able to go out and develop partnerships and collaborations. And, more importantly, getting some consensus that there is a common goal here. And we can all do something if we work together across borders, across blocks, across fences, across agencies and things like that. And, so, that's what we're doing here.

SMITH: Good. I want to hear from some young people. Jermaine Reed, how old are you?

JERMAINE REED: I'm 15 years old.

SMITH: Okay. Are you involved in any programs here, are they reaching you?

JERMAINE REED, YOUTH GROUP MEMBER: Yes, I'm involved in the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, SYNC, Saving Youth In Crisis youth group. And we are a group that felt -- we felt like there was nothing for us to do. So, we got out in our communities, we found -- we're finding things that -- to do and we're getting out in our communities and helping people with problems.

We have a 24-hour hot line where if you are a teen and you ran away from home, you can call in and Melissa Robinson and myself, we go on the radio every night and we report these missing runaways. But there are things for teens to do. If you don't get out there and find something to do and you just sit home and watch Jerry Springer, [LAUGHTER] you won't find nothing to do. So, you have to …

SMITH: Now, are there many kids involved or are we talking about a small group here?

REED: There's at least about a group of 30.

SMITH: Thirty.

REED: But we have 150 or more people enrolled, but they don't want to find anything to do. [LAUGHTER]

SMITH: What do you mean?

REED: I mean, they’re enrolled, like we go to their school --

SMITH: But they're not active?

REED: Yes.

SMITH: They sign up, but they don't show up?

REED: Yes.

SMITH: Okay, fine. Shawn Morris, we saw the young people working to help clean up in Blue Hills. What's the program all about?

SHAWN MORRIS, YOUTH ADVISOR: I'm working with the initiative of the YMCA which is called CCYD, Community Change for Youth Development. And, basically, it's a real unique initiative. Instead of a program that we take into a neighborhood, we -- we're trying to develop things that the neighborhood actually want. And we incorporate our youth, our neighbors, businesses in the neighborhood to all be in the process of the planning of what are the youth needs in the neighborhood.

SMITH: Who gets to decide? Do the adults decide what programs the youth are going to do? Or do youth decide what programs the youth are going to do?

MORRIS: It's both ways. We meet weekly and the youth, they have their own meetings. And they come up with some of the things that they want to do in the neighborhood.

SMITH: Are these a couple of your guys with you?

MORRIS: Yes.

SMITH: All right, let's hear from them. What are you guys doing, what do you like doing the most?

JOHN DAVIS, KANSAS CITY RESIDENT: Well, one of the most enjoyable things that it seems the youth like doing are the community service projects. Surprising, when we go out to do a community service, even though they know they're not going to get nothing but seeing the person happy that we're helping, they'll all -- a lot of them will show up and they'll all work, you know, enjoy theirselves.

SMITH: And community service means what?

JOHN DAVIS: Well, for our community services, we've done -- earlier this year we did -- we had some houses in our area that got flooded, so we went and we helped get the stuff out that the people wanted out. We have some elderly and some disabled people in our area. We'll go over to their house and we'll fix up their house for them. We'll mow the lawn for them and then we'll come back every so often and make sure it's not trashed again.

SMITH: Mr. Alvin Brooks, you’ve spent a lot of your life working with young people. What are the keys to getting young people involved in community activities, making them feel a part of it and making it effective for them?

ALVIN BROOKS, ANTI-CRIME ORGANIZER: Well, first of all, I think you have to let people know that -- young people -- know that you love them and that you'll involve them. I think we're one of the few groups, the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, that actually have young people on our board, the governing board.

I think we've failed to involve the faith community. I think that if you, a person, the only way a person can stay off of drugs, stay out of gang activity, leave the violence alone is to -- is to have some morals, some character, is to have a spiritual background. But you have to live it yourself, you have to be a part of it yourself. But involving them in things where they can see some results, they can see the fruits of their hand, the fruits of their labor, the participation, doing something that they run it and you turn it over to them and being honest to them and being good listeners.

SMITH: Being good listeners to young people.

BROOKS: That's right.

SMITH: Thanks, all right, being good listeners is part of what we're doing today. We're talking about exchanging experiences. Rita Simo, I wonder whether or not you go back to Chicago having learned anything here in Kansas City that you can take back there?

RITA SIMO, CHICAGO MUSIC SCHOOL DIRECTOR: Oh, lots of things. First of all, I'm amazed to the group of people that are here. This is like -- talking about diversity in Uptown, here we have a lot of diversity right here. But I love that line that this lady said, something about there are more of us than there is of them. Oh, I think that this is going to be my line from now on. [LAUGHTER] [APPLAUSE] I have 300 students, so there's a lot of us.

But regardless of what happen, first I have one comment that -- it's totally outlandish, but I think we also, in the neighborhood in which we have so many difficulties, we need to learn how to celebrate. And there's nothing that make more community than to break bread together. And one -- the thing that happening our place -- because our school is free -- and we have to raise money, we have food sales. And, you know, to have a Cambodian person and an Ethiopian person and Guatemalan discussing the food that they brought and what is there, that is terrific. Because it's real. And, you know, life is full of problems, but once in a while, let's live it up. And let's do it. [APPLAUSE]

SMITH: That’s great. Thanks for your comment.

SMITH: And, thank all of you for taking part in our discussion here tonight.

We've just seen two effective examples of how people in our big cities can take back their neighborhoods from drug dealers and gangs. We've heard how neighborhoods can protect their children, create safer streets and dramatically improve the overall quality of life, provided that ordinary people decide to get engaged.

As one person put it, no one has the right to a good neighborhood. It's our responsibility to create it. And as our two stories have shown, success can happen even on tough terrain once people get active, form networks and develop partnerships with community police and prosecutors.

In our next program, we'll focus on hate crime, a form of violence that's especially menacing to many Americans because of the obvious differences among us. We'll visit the deep South and Southern California to see what two very different parts of our country are doing to try to prevent the violence spawned by bigotry and intolerance.

I'm Hedrick Smith, thank you for being with us.

GROSVENOR v/o: To learn more about this program and grass roots movements to combat crime, visit PBS online at PBS dot org.

Tease (SMITH v/o): Next time on Seeking Solutions:

STEVE RAINES: "There’s guys saying it’s OK to bash faggots, it’s all right."

TAMI KIMBLE: "They called me a nigger to my face."

NOAH THOMAS: "Sick… "

REV. JONATHAN MOUZON: "I would have gone all the way to stand up and say you can’t do this."

SMITH v/o: Standing up to hate…

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