Title: National Evaluation of Weed and Seed: Pittsburgh Case Study. Series: Research Report Author(s): NIJ Published: National Institute of Justice, June 1999 Subject: Drug law enforcement, police manpower deployment, drug abuse prevention and education, problem oriented policing, community policing, and crime mapping 39 pages 92,000 bytes ------------------------------- This is an ASCII plain-text file. To view this document in its graphic format, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site or order a print copy from NCJRS at 800-851-3420 (877-712-9279 for TTY users). ------------------------------- National Evaluation of Weed and Seed Pittsburgh Case Study RESEARCH REPORT Terence Dunworth, Ph.D. Project Director Gregory Mills Deputy Project Director Prepared by Timothy Bynum Pittsburgh Site Leader Gregory Mills Kristen Jacoby June 1999 NCJ 175699 ------------------------------- National Institute of Justice Jeremy Travis Director Steve Edwards Program Monitor Prepared for the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, by Abt Associates Inc., under contract #95-DD-BX-0134. Points of view or opinions stated in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime. ------------------------------- Acknowledgments This project could not have been accomplished without the gracious cooperation and participation of a number of individuals in Pittsburgh. Abt Associates would like to thank them for their significant contribution to this effort. Project Director Dave Farley, from the mayor's office, was instrumental in providing insight, as well as facilitating site visits and access to key personnel in the Pittsburgh Weed and Seed movement. In addition, Project Coordinator John Tokarski was quite helpful in building our understanding of project operations and community dynamics. Further, we would like to acknowledge the cooperation and leadership of U. S. Attorney Fred Theiman in the Weed and Seed project. The Pittsburgh Police Department was also instrumental to our effort via their participation in interviews and ridealongs and the provision of data used in this report. In this regard, we would like to thank Chief MacNeely and Commander Baugner. We are indebted to these and other individuals at the Pittsburgh Weed and Seed site and hope they find this report useful. We would welcome the opportunity to work with them again in the future. ------------------------------- Contents Acknowledgments 1.0 Introduction 2.0 Case Study Objective and Methodology 3.0 Site History and Description 3.1 City Characteristics 3.2 Target Area Characteristics and Nature of Problems 3.3 Other Funding Sources 4.0 Program Structure and Chronology 4.1 Formal Organization and Structure for Weed and Seed Program 4.2 Proposed Goals and Strategies 4.3 Budget Information 4.4 Information Systems 4.5 Site Monitoring, Reporting, and Local Evaluation 5.0 Key Implementation Issues and Interpretation 5.1 Role of Grantee Organization 5.2 Management Structure and Control 5.3 Local Politics 5.4 Approach to Weeding 5.5 Approach to Community Policing 5.6 Approach to Seeding 5.7 Operational Relationships with Other Organizations 5.8 Concluding Observations 6.0 Effects of Weed and Seed 6.1 Analysis of Crime Data 6.2 Community Response and Perceptions of Public Safety 7.0 Future Directions and Degree of Institutionalization ------------------------------- List of Exhibits Exhibit 3.1: Map of Target Area Exhibit 3.2: Map of Crawford-Roberts Neighborhood Exhibit 3.3: Part 1 Crimes per 1,000 Residents Exhibit 4.1: Budget Allocation Exhibit 5.1: Drug Arrests per Capita by Month Exhibit 5.2: Part 1 Arrests per Capita by Month Exhibit 6.1: Annual Part 1 Crime Data, Pittsburgh Exhibit 6.2: Part 1 Crimes per Capita by Month Exhibit 6.3: Demographic Characteristics of Survey Respondents, Pittsburgh Exhibit 6.4: Perceptions of the Neighborhood, Pittsburgh Exhibit 6.5: Victimization, Pittsburgh Exhibit 6.6: Police Response, Pittsburgh Exhibit 6.7: Community Involvement, Pittsburgh Exhibit 6.8: Perceptions of Social Services and Other Programs, Pittsburgh Exhibit 6.9: Perceptions of the Weed and Seed Program, Pittsburgh ------------------------------- 1.0 Introduction Unveiled in 1991, Operation Weed and Seed represents an ambitious attempt to improve the quality of life in America's cities. The ultimate goals of Weed and Seed are to control violent crime, drug trafficking, and drug-related crime in targeted high-crime neighborhoods and to provide a safe environment, free of crime and drug use, in which law-abiding citizens can live, work, and raise their families. Weed and Seed, administered by the Executive Office for Weed and Seed (EOWS), is grounded in the philosophy that targeted areas can best be improved by a two-pronged strategy of "weeding" out violent offenders, drug traffickers, and other criminals by removing them from the targeted area and "seeding" the area with human services and neighborhood revitalization efforts. Community policing is intended to serve as the "bridge" between weeding and seeding. Three key objectives emphasize the government-community partnership spirit that is at the heart of Weed and Seed: 1. To develop a comprehensive, multiagency strategy to control and prevent violent crime, drug trafficking, and drug-related crime in targeted high-crime neighborhoods. 2. To coordinate and integrate existing as well as new Federal, State, local, and private sector initiatives, criminal justice efforts, and human services, concentrating those resources in the project sites to maximize their impact on reducing and preventing violent crime, drug trafficking, and drug-related crime. 3. To mobilize community residents in the targeted sites to assist law enforcement in identifying and removing violent offenders and drug traffickers from their neighborhoods and to assist other human services agencies in identifying and responding to service needs of the target area. Weed and Seed sites thus draw on the resources of a variety of agencies at all levels of government, private and other public organizations, and individual community residents. Specific strategies and program components designed to achieve these three objectives fall into one of four Weed and Seed program elements: 1. Law enforcement. Weed and Seed's law enforcement goals are the identification, arrest, prosecution, conviction, and incarceration of narcotics traffickers and violent criminals operating in the target area. 2. Community policing. An objective of community policing is to establish mutual trust between law enforcement and the public. This is the bridge between weeding and seeding: law enforcement officials enlist the community's help in identifying patterns of criminal activity and locating perpetrators; simultaneously, police help the community solve problems. 3. Prevention, intervention, and treatment. This element of the program is intended to reduce risk factors and to enhance protective factors that are associated with drug abuse, violence, and crime in the target area. "Safe havens" in the target areas typically coordinate the prevention, intervention, and treatment activities. 4. Neighborhood restoration. The goal of this element is to enable residents in the target area to improve their community morale, their neighborhood's physical appearance (buildings, parks, streets, lighting, and so forth), and local economic and business conditions. An important structural feature of Weed and Seed is the local steering committee. The EOWS requires that each site have a steering committee, formally chaired by the U.S. Attorney for the district in which the site is located, that is responsible for "establishing Weed and Seed's goals and objectives, designing and developing programs, providing guidance on implementation, and assessing program achievement."[1] Steering committee members include representatives from key local, State, and Federal agencies, as well as other stakeholders in the Weed and Seed target area, such as business leaders, tenant association leaders, and other community activists. The requirement to convene a steering committee reflects the EOWS's belief that, for neighborhood revitalization to work, all key stakeholders must participate in the decisions that affect the target area. Funded sites were divided into two groups: officially recognized sites and demonstration sites. Officially recognized sites were currently implementing Weed and Seed strategies in their jurisdictions and had submitted documentation summarizing their strategy to the EOWS but had not yet received full funding from the EOWS. After the EOWS designated a site as "officially recognized," the site was eligible for demonstration status and full Weed and Seed funding. 2.0 Case Study Objective and Methodology This case study is one of eight completed for the National Evaluation of Weed and Seed, under the direction of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). In 1994, NIJ selected the following eight sites for the national evaluation: --Four demonstration sites that first received funding in FY 1994: o Hartford, Connecticut o Las Vegas, Nevada o Sarasota and Manatee Counties, Florida o Shreveport, Louisiana --Two demonstration sites awarded continuation funding in FY 1994: o Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania o Seattle, Washington --Two officially recognized sites: o Akron, Ohio o Salt Lake City, Utah Three of these sites (Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, and Sarasota/Manatee) were also recipients of funds from the National Performance Review Laboratory (NPRL).[2] This case study documents the activities implemented under the Weed and Seed program in Pittsburgh and assesses the program's impact at this site. The final evaluation report compares the eight sites and presents overall conclusions on the Weed and Seed program. The evaluation activities undertaken for this case study include: (1) onsite observation of program activities; (2) inperson interviews with program staff, key law enforcement personnel, community leaders, service providers, and participants; (3) review of program documents; (4) a survey of target area residents; and (5) analysis of computerized crime and arrest records provided by the local police department. 3.0 Site History and Description Pittsburgh's Weed and Seed activities have proceeded in three separate stages, each focusing on a different high-crime neighborhood: --The Hill District, also referred to simply as "the Hill." --A multijurisdictional effort including the communities of Hazelwood and Glen Hazel in the city of Pittsburgh, and Homestead and West Homestead in Allegheny County. --The East Liberty neighborhood within the city of Pittsburgh.[3] Exhibit 3.1 shows the boundaries of these areas. 3.1 City Characteristics The city of Pittsburgh, with a population of 366,852, sits at the junction of the Allegheny, Ohio, and Monongahela Rivers and covers 55.6 square miles of Allegheny County in southwestern Pennsylvania. The steel industry no longer dominates the economy of Pittsburgh, yet the city retains a commercial and industrial importance, particularly in the medical and biotechnological industries. The Pittsburgh public school system has been recognized for excellence and was featured in Newsweek as one of the 10 best education systems in the world. Nonetheless, the population of Pittsburgh declined by 13.5 percent from 1980 to 1992. In recent years, Pittsburgh has been the site of increased drug smuggling from New York, Detroit, Chicago, and Florida. In 1990, 21.4 percent of Pittsburgh residents were living below the poverty level. 3.2 Target Area Characteristics and Nature of Problems The original Weed and Seed target area in Pittsburgh was the Hill District, consisting of the six neighborhoods of Bedford Dwellings, Bluff, Crawford-Roberts, Middle Hill, Terrace Village, and West Oakland. Exhibit 3.2 shows the location of the Crawford-Roberts neighborhood, which was the particular focus of analyses reported later. The Hill District is located between Pittsburgh's main business district and its cultural and educational center, Oakland. Eighty percent of the Hill District's 17,836 residents are black. The Hill District historically was a center for black culture, commerce, and entertainment, but from 1950 to 1990, its population declined by 70 percent. Currently, many residents live in public housing, and the Hill District contains twice the number of vacant dwellings and a smaller percentage of owner-occupied homes than is the case citywide. Unemployment in the Hill District averaged 37 percent in 1990, with some neighborhoods experiencing almost 50-percent unemployment. In 1996, Weed and Seed funded a second Pittsburgh target area consisting of four neighborhoods--Hazelwood and Glen Hazel, located on the north shore of the Monongahela River, and Homestead and West Homestead, directly across the river on the south shore. These communities are connected by the Homestead High Level Bridge. Unemployment in these neighborhoods ranges from 8.0 percent to 31.6 percent, and the poverty level ranges from 16.8 percent to 37.5 percent. Glen Hazel has both the highest unemployment rate and the highest number of households living below the poverty line of the four neighborhoods. Hazelwood and Glen Hazel are located within the Pittsburgh city limits. Homestead and West Homestead, in contrast, are not part of the city but instead are independent municipalities within Allegheny County. Homestead is experiencing severe economic problems due to the closing of the Homestead U.S. Steel plant. The municipality has been designated a "distressed community" by the State government and receives assistance from the State. The State government has appointed a receiver to handle Homestead's budget. As a result of its economic situation, Homestead has only part-time police officers. These various jurisdictional issues add a level of complexity to the new Weed and Seed target area. The Hill District's situation was relatively simple, as the area is served by the Pittsburgh Police Department and other city agencies. Similarly, Hazelwood and Glen Hazel receive services from the Pittsburgh city government. In contrast, Homestead has its own severely limited law enforcement and municipal services. West Homestead has yet another set of law enforcement and social service agencies since it also is an independent municipality. Pittsburgh Weed and Seed planners report that disagreements about Weed and Seed issues and strategies were more easily resolved in the Hill District than in the new Weed and Seed target area because there was greater common ground among the groups living in the Hill District. Among the principal impediments to decisionmaking in the new target area are differences of opinion arising from divisions along racial lines. Local officials report that almost every issue that is raised results in some level of disagreement based on racial divisions. This is true for the target communities on both sides of the river. There are racial divisions between Homestead, which is 45-percent black, and West Homestead, where there are few blacks. Similarly, on the city side of the river, the Glen Hazel community is largely black, and the Hazelwood neighborhood is predominantly white. Program officials report that these racial divisions have caused considerable mistrust among groups in the new Weed and Seed area and far less community consensus and homogeneity than existed in the Hill District. Crime is a significant problem in both the old and new Weed and Seed target areas. Several Hill District neighborhoods were the worst crime areas in Pittsburgh in 1991; one ranked highest in the city in total crime, and another had the most violent crime in the city. The Hill District has been an open marketplace for drugs, particularly heroin and crack cocaine. More than one-fourth of citywide drug arrests in 1991 occurred in the Hill District, and several large-scale narcotics dealers are known to operate there. With regard to the new target area, an estimated 10 major dealers are thought to operate in Hazelwood. Between 1988 and 1992, Homestead was the third highest crime area in Allegheny County. To set the backdrop for analyses reported later that focus on the Crawford- Roberts neighborhood of the Hill District, it is useful to compare the recent trend in annual crime rates for Crawford-Roberts, Pittsburgh citywide, and the U.S. nationwide for Part 1 crimes. (This crime measure includes four categories of violent crime--homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault--and three categories of property crime--burglary, larceny, and auto theft.) As shown in the left-hand panel of exhibit 3.3, the calendar-year rate of Part 1 crimes per thousand residents declined from 1992 through 1996 for Crawford-Roberts. The exhibit also shows this same downward trend for Pittsburgh citywide and the U.S. nationwide. These declines were due primarily to reductions in property crime, as violent crime showed little or no improvement. Despite Crawford- Roberts' substantial reduction in the total Part 1 crime rate between 1992 and 1996, the neighborhood's crime rate at the end of this period remained substantially above the citywide and nationwide averages. For both Crawford-Roberts and Pittsburgh citywide, there was then a slight increase in 1997 that was not matched nationwide. 3.3 Other Funding Sources Pittsburgh has taken seriously the Weed and Seed mandate that these funds be used to leverage other resources. The Weed and Seed philosophy in Pittsburgh has brought to the table many individuals and organizations that otherwise would not have been involved with the crime problem. In many ways, the Weed and Seed program has served as a vehicle for organizing various Federal, State, and local initiatives. Regarding the relationship with other federally funded efforts, a particularly notable partnership has developed with the local housing authority. Pittsburgh was the recipient of a large grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under the former Urban Revitalization Demonstration Grant Program. As this program was phased out and the Drug Elimination Grant and Hope VI programs were created, Pittsburgh continued to participate in these Federal initiatives, and Weed and Seed was an active program element. The Hill District received an Urban Revitalization grant, and a continuing partnership between Weed and Seed, the Housing Authority, and the Housing Authority Police developed out of this project. When the Hope VI application was developed for the Manchester community, the Weed and Seed program was included in the project. The funds were used to conduct a Weed and Seed-type project within this community (distinct from an officially recognized site). Pittsburgh Weed and Seed staff reported that the Housing Authority was predisposed to invest only in communities that were likely to adopt a Weed and Seed approach. In addition, the State has designated Homestead and Hazelwood as part of the Pennsylvania Enterprise Zone, to facilitate new economic development projects. A consortium of local agencies--led by the Pittsburgh Urban Development Authority, the Allegheny County Department of Economic Development, and the city of Pittsburgh's Department of City Planning--are developing an application to HUD to also designate these areas as part of a Federal Empowerment Zone. Also related to the Weed and Seed effort was the Federal funding received from the Office of Community Oriented Policing (COPS) for the COPS MORE (Making Officer Deployment Effective) program. This was significant in light of Pittsburgh's Weed and Seed emphasis on access to technology, as described below. The COPS MORE funding enabled the police department to improve its mapping capability and to make this information available to citizens over the Internet. Two other programs have recently been initiated in Pittsburgh that also have implications for the city's Weed and Seed effort. --Youth Places seeks to establish afterschool "safe places" for neighborhood youths. Five of these sites, each with an allocation of $75,000, will be established in the first year of the project. The goal is to establish 18 sites within a 3-year period. One of these will be in the Hazelwood Weed and Seed area. Weed and Seed officials reported that one of the principal reasons for the selection of Hazelwood was its Weed and Seed status. --A school district project will invest $29 million over the next 3 years in establishing computer classrooms in all public schools. One of the initial projects will involve the installation of 52 computers in a middle school in the Hazelwood community. This will be a joint project that emphasizes community access, not just classroom applications. The room will be open during evening and weekend hours for general uses and will be staffed by high school students hired with Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) funds. Both of these initiatives are examples of the city's success in using the Weed and Seed program as a mechanism for leveraging other public funds in support of neighborhood revitalization. 4.0 Program Structure and Chronology The Pittsburgh Weed and Seed program began in April 1992 with an award of $613,000 for the Hill District site. When the project began, the principal activities involved weeding; seeding components were established in May 1994. The site operated as an officially funded Weed and Seed site until June 1996. The second Weed and Seed community in Pittsburgh was established in February 1996, with the multijurisdictional effort involving the Hazelwood and Glen Hazel communities in Pittsburgh and the boroughs of Homestead and West Homestead in Allegheny County. In this second area, weeding and seeding activities were initiated at the beginning of the project with the seeding components preceding the commencement of weeding strategies. The third Weed and Seed community, East Liberty, began in March 1997. 4.1 Formal Organization and Structure The grantee for the Pittsburgh Weed and Seed program is the mayor's office, with the U.S. Attorney's Office providing Federal oversight. As in every Weed and Seed site, a steering committee, cochaired in Pittsburgh by the U.S. Attorney and the Deputy Mayor of Pittsburgh, coordinates the program activities. Weeding activities Weeding activities are coordinated by the Law Enforcement Agency Directors (LEAD) committee. This standing committee, convened by the U.S. Attorney, is composed of the heads of the principal local, State, and Federal law enforcement agencies in Allegheny County. The group meets monthly and has assumed responsibility as the Weeding committee. The principal weeding activities are carried out by the Weed and Seed Task Force, a multijurisdictional effort led by the Pittsburgh Police Department (PPD), with delegated personnel from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), and the Allegheny County jurisdictions participating in the second Weed and Seed site. The task force has joined efforts with the Violent Traffickers Program (VTP), another multijurisdictional task force composed of 14 officers from local, State, and Federal law enforcement agencies whose mission is to target major violent drug traffickers in the Pittsburgh area. Seeding activities Seeding activities are coordinated by a seeding committee chaired by a seed coordinator. The Seeding committee gives neighborhood residents considerable control over the planning and funding of seeding projects. A proposal review committee composed of neighborhood residents reviews and approves projects proposed for seeding funds. Additional subcommittees charged with seeding responsibilities have been formed in conjunction with a citywide effort by the mayor to establish a strong community-based committee structure in each of the city's 88 neighborhoods. Through this plan, the mayor has asked each community to establish three neighborhood improvement task forces--Youth and Public Safety, Economic Development, and Neighborhood Maintenance. These task forces form the nucleus of the seeding component in the Weed and Seed target areas, assisting in identifying problems and then working to implement solutions along with the organizations that receive Weed and Seed funding. As the grantee, the mayor's office has played a very active role in implementing the Weed and Seed philosophy in Pittsburgh. Approximately 1.5 full-time equivalent staff from the mayor's office are devoted to providing the guidance, coordination, and leadership necessary for consistent implementation and administration of the Weed and Seed programs. 4.2 Proposed Goals and Strategies The objectives and approach of the Weed and Seed program are described below with respect to law enforcement, prevention and intervention, and training activities, where the latter supported both the weeding and seeding activities. Weeding: law enforcement The law enforcement component--the Weed and Seed Task Force--was coordinated by the Narcotics Division of the Pittsburgh Police Department. The central focus of the task force has been on street-level narcotics traffic, with the principal strategy involving undercover buys. The task force worked cooperatively with other specialized initiatives in the Pittsburgh area to combat drugs and violent crime. These initiatives included the Violent Traffickers Program, the Fugitive Task Force, the Violent Crime/Gang Task Force, Task Force, and the Gun Task Force. Seeding: prevention and intervention The city's first 3 years of Weed and Seed funding supported various seeding activities in the Hill District, including "safe haven" services for youths coordinated through the Hill House Association, schools, public housing developments, and community-based social service agencies. Among these services were: --Health screening and services and counseling for mental illness and substance abuse. --Computer classes, college credit courses, and peer tutoring. --Conflict resolution, mediation training, and legal services. --Job training, job development, and small business development. --Summer youth jobs and community service corps projects. --Community organization and self-help initiatives. --Safety education and neighborhood block watch assistance. Project operators at various community sites not affiliated with safe haven organizations delivered other seeding activities. In addition to some of the activities listed above, these included: --Participatory arts programming in music, dance, writing, and mural projects. --Environmental cleanup projects. --Outpatient and aftercare services for substance abusers. --Summer and afterschool school enrichment and recreation programs for youths. --Neighborhood computer network. --Parenting training. Initially, these activities in the Hill District were organized under an array of five different freestanding committees. These "seed committees" were later merged into the existing structure of the Hill Consensus Group. This merger was a natural one, as the Consensus Group itself had committees whose functions were similar to those of the committees created for Weed and Seed. In Hazelwood and Homestead, the seeding activities proceeded under neighborhood task forces previously established under a 1994 mayoral initiative. Training for both weeding and seeding Training has been an important component of the Pittsburgh approach to Weed and Seed. The major function of this approach is teaching and assisting communities to develop greater self-reliance. Numerous discussions with project staff have pointed to the historical dependence of Pittsburgh communities on the steel mills and then on local government to provide for neighborhood needs and resolve problems. To a large degree, the entire Weed and Seed effort has been devoted to breaking this cycle through stronger community-level organization, enabling the communities to address their problems by obtaining resources through economic and community development. Although this has been a guiding philosophy, there have also been notable specific training efforts as part of Weed and Seed. --A cooperative relationship and contract was established with the Community Technical Assistance Center (CTAC) in Pittsburgh to provide Weed and Seed communities access to a series of workshops on community development. (CTAC has considerable experience in working with community-based groups to develop and enhance their organizational capacities.) The contract provided for 30 individuals from Hazelwood and Homestead to participate in a series of eight workshops. These sessions provided training in planning, management, and fiscal skills, and also enabled participants to learn by interacting with others representing a wide spectrum of more traditional, well-established community-based organizations throughout Pittsburgh. --Because public housing communities were a major focus of the initial enforcement effort in the Hill District, members of the Housing Authority Police were designated to join the Weed and Seed Task Force. However, other law enforcement agencies were concerned that these individuals had insufficient training to participate in undercover drug operations. As a result, all Housing Authority Police now receive training at the city's Police Academy. This training not only improved the skills of the Housing Authority Police but also enhanced their relationship with other law enforcement agencies. --Community organizations from the Weed and Seed areas also received some training under the Communities That Care program, designed to assist communities in identifying and reducing the risk factors that contribute to delinquency and other youth problems. This approach also involves a corresponding effort to identify and enhance the protective factors that help insulate community youths from influences to engage in adverse behaviors. --Pittsburgh, along with several other cities operating Weed and Seed programs, received training and technical assistance from the National Congress on Community Economic Development (NCCED). NCCED conducted an assessment of the status of community economic development in Hazelwood and Homestead and delivered technical assistance to these communities. --Through funding from the Executive Office for Weed and Seed and several local foundations, the Center for the Community Interest developed a manual to assist community organizations in addressing neighborhood problems. This publication was entitled "Saving Your Piece of Pittsburgh, A How-To Manual: 77 Practical Things You Can Do To Make This Town--Starting With Your Corner Of It--A Safer, Stronger, Healthier Place To Live." It describes strategies that communities can use to form neighborhood alliances to address problems such as drug dealing, nuisance properties, bad businesses, vacant lots, abandoned property and automobiles, prostitution, graffiti, and troublesome youths. Each section provides several strategies that have been used by other community-based organizations in addressing these problems. The document includes the addresses and telephone numbers of governmental and civic organizations in Pittsburgh that can assist in supporting neighborhood initiatives. The city of Pittsburgh is putting this guide on its Web site in an interactive format, so that the information will be accessible to the residents of other neighborhoods. 4.3 Budget Information Pittsburgh has received more than $3 million in Weed and Seed funding. The Hill District received $613,000 in 1992; $487,000 in 1993; and $750,000 in 1994 (plus an additional $50,000 in 1994 funds from the NPRL). Program activities were operated on these funds through the summer of 1996. Hazelwood received $750,000 in 1995; $300,000 in 1996; and $175,000 in 1997 (plus an additional $50,000 of NPRL funds to extend the community computer networking activities). East Liberty was awarded $200,000 in late 1997 and was slated to receive another $200,000 in 1998. Exhibit 4.1 shows the funding allocation for the Pittsburgh Weed and Seed awards for 1992-96. Nearly one-half of the FY 1992 award, and nearly three-fourths of the FY 1993 award, was designated for community police officers in the Hill District. In the second target area, almost one-half of the award has been allocated for seeding efforts. As noted earlier, Pittsburgh also received NPRL funds, with the expectation of enhancing the city's access to other Federal funds. This intended leveraging did not occur, as the participation of other Federal agencies in this effort was minimal at best. Nonetheless, NPRL funds were clearly helpful in the Hill District. The site used these funds to automate financial recordkeeping tasks that had previously been manual, to enhance the technology project that provided greater access to information for community residents, and to assess community training needs. 4.4 Information Systems The use of technology and access to information is a principal component of Pittsburgh's approach to Weed and Seed. Believing that access to information was a key to strengthening communities, the Pittsburgh Weed and Seed project staff sought to create a community computer network that would provide access to the Internet and other sources of information and thus create a Community Technology Center (CTC) in each Weed and Seed community. Community information systems At the time of initiation of Weed and Seed, there were no computer networks in the Hill District. The only accessible computers were isolated from wider sources of information. In 1994, the Pittsburgh public schools initiated a project known as "Common Knowledge: Pittsburgh" to link schools via modem to the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center. As this project commenced in the Hill District, the Hill House Association settlement house--a linchpin in the Weed and Seed effort--succeeded in being designated by the school administrative staff as an additional nonschool site. Through Weed and Seed assistance and funding, an Internet hub was established at Hill House. The basis of this network was a T1 line between Hill House, the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center, and four local area networks (one in a public housing development, and two elsewhere in the community).[4] This network became known as the Hill Community Access Network (HillCAN). In addition, HillCAN has enabled a modem link to computers at nine other locations in the Hill district. The creation of a community computer network also received high priority in the second Weed and Seed target area, encompassing Hazelwood, Glen Hazel, Homestead, and West Homestead. The Carnegie Library, instead of the public schools, is part of this effort; the library's philosophy was already attuned to community outreach, and its established information technology promised faster access. The partnership that developed in this location had the library providing access, technical support, and network administration, with Weed and Seed providing computer equipment at the various locations. These community locations are being connected into the Hill House, and the Carnegie Library's Three Rivers FreeNet is creating a "virtual Hazelwood" and "virtual Homestead" site for use by community groups. In February 1997, Weed and Seed commissioned a review of and plan for technical assistance and training for CTCs in the two Weed and Seed areas. The review reported that there were seven locations (in addition to the school locations) in the Hill District that were operational, with two others in the planning stage; five locations were operational in Homestead and West Homestead, with three others in the planning stage; in Hazelwood and Glen Hazel, there were two operational locations and one planned location. Law enforcement information systems The Pittsburgh Police Department has long been a leader in crime mapping. In the early 1990s, the National Institute of Justice selected Pittsburgh as one of five cities to participate in the Drug Market Analysis Program (DMAP). This project allowed the police department and its partner, Carnegie-Mellon University, to integrate data from the computer-aided dispatch system and the Public Safety Management System with the city's geographic database, Pittsburgh Allegheny Geographic Information System. This effort made it possible to display graphically drug hot spots, calls for service, and crime incident locations for law enforcement operational and strategic purposes. To provide community access to these maps, the city will use Weed and Seed funds to implement a new system known as the Community Oriented Policing Monitoring and Analysis Program (COP-MAP). This system is a logical extension of DMAP, with the goal of providing crime information to the public through the citywide community technology centers. Plans are underway to establish this project on a pilot basis in a Weed and Seed site. 4.5 Site Monitoring, Reporting, and Local Evaluation As a participant in the national evaluation, Pittsburgh has chosen not to fund a local evaluation, which program administrators believed would duplicate the efforts of the more comprehensive national assessment. Several other efforts were initiated to provide information to the Weed and Seed leadership. Students from Carnegie-Mellon University conducted a comprehensive review of the neighborhood computer network. In addition, NPRL funds were used to hire a consultant to assess the training needs of the community-based organizations in the first and second Weed and Seed locations. 5.0 Key Implementation Issues and Interpretation 5.1 Role of Grantee Organization As stated above, the mayor's office was the designated grantee for Weed and Seed funding in Pittsburgh. The leadership from this office was an important distinguishing aspect of this initiative; the philosophy regarding community development represented by Weed and Seed was in complete harmony with the office's direction and operation. Thus, Weed and Seed was not viewed as a separate program appendage, but as an important organizing principal for the city's philosophy of government. The Weed and Seed project director is the mayor's Grant and Development Officer, who devotes about 40 percent of his time to the initiative. In addition, there is a full-time Weed and Seed project coordinator who also works out of the mayor's office. Both of these individuals have extensive experience in the political process and in working with community-based organizations. The role of these individuals has been to provide the leadership and vision for Pittsburgh Weed and Seed, such as facilitating community organization, providing technical assistance to community groups in contracting for Weed and Seed funds, working to maintain coalitions in the community and assisting them in making progress toward their goals, and acting as a liaison between community-based organizations, other public and private organizations, and the city. These individuals have a keen understanding of the delicate balance between providing enough assistance to community groups to insure progress while at the same time making certain that the groups do the work themselves and feel accountable for the outcomes. Weed and Seed staff expressed a strong belief that this approach was the only viable administrative arrangement for Pittsburgh. For this kind of project--in a city as political as Pittsburgh--it was essential, they said, that the Weed and Seed staff have considerable "political savvy" and be knowledgeable about the community and how to get things done in working with the community organizations. It was also observed that those operating the program needed to have an extensive network of community contacts; otherwise these individuals would lack credibility in the eyes of community residents. In the view of the Weed and Seed staff, the program's credibility in the eyes of the neighborhood was necessary to teach community residents how to organize themselves, take action, and then sustain their efforts after funding ends. In fact, an important principle of the Pittsburgh approach was to keep the community residents and organizations from getting caught up in the monetary aspects of the initiative. In the words of one Weed and Seed leader, the bottom line is "teaching these communities how to work effectively with their government." 5.2 Management Structure and Control Previous sections have outlined the formal management structure of the Pittsburgh Weed and Seed initiative. There are two distinguishing aspects of Pittsburgh's approach to the management of Weed and Seed: the unusual leadership from the mayor's office, discussed above, and the strong emphasis on community decisionmaking regarding the funding of seeding projects. These two characteristics illustrate the community development role that was central to the Pittsburgh approach. As noted above, a substantial proportion of the seeding funds was allocated to a community review board to select programs that would be funded. This process marked the beginning of a new partnership between the city and community organizations, with the city placing confidence in the decisionmaking capability of community residents. Although the funding was important to community groups and specific projects, perhaps more important were the symbolic messages that were involved in this partnership, as well as the opportunity to teach community-based organizations program development, fiscal management, and contract administration skills. 5.3 Local Politics Under Pittsburgh's approach, Weed and Seed is a strategy for developing communities, not a mechanism for funding services. The overall goal of the Pittsburgh effort was to develop community leadership and assist residents in developing the lasting capacity to do things for themselves. There was a perceived need to teach community residents that addressing community needs and obtaining funding for community development requires self-initiative. However, it was also recognized that effective local action, particularly through major economic development projects, requires a sophistication beyond that currently available in these communities. Thus, a second operational goal for Weed and Seed was to serve as a liaison to other organizations that would work with these community-based organizations in carrying out comprehensive community development and revitalization efforts. 5.4 Approach to Weeding Weeding activities in Pittsburgh followed a traditional model that was based on the creation of multijurisdictional task forces, an emphasis on drug enforcement, and the targeting of major offenders. Weeding activities appear to have been implemented as planned. As evidence of the success of the task force approach, the level of cooperation among law enforcement agencies has increased considerably since the inception of Weed and Seed. As noted previously, one unexpected finding was the need to engage in sustained weeding activity, not simply to implement weeding as a first step. The Hill District's experience indicated a need for continuing commitment to enforcement actions and enhanced police presence beyond the initial intensive enforcement phase, given the chronic nature of the area's drug and crime problems. Arrest data provided by the Pittsburgh Police Department for 1991-97 were analyzed to see whether the arrest trend for the Hill District following the implementation of Weed and Seed differed from the arrest trend for the rest of the city during the same period. The analysis focused specifically on the Crawford-Roberts neighborhood of the Hill District. Arrest trends were tracked both for drug arrests and for Part 1 arrests. Exhibit 5.1 shows the trend in monthly drug arrests per thousand residents for January 1991 through December 1997, comparing Crawford-Roberts (the solid line) with the rest of the city (the dotted line). The monthly fluctuations have been smoothed, using a statistically fitted curve to summarize the time trend for each geographic area. Exhibit 5.2 is a similar display for monthly Part 1 arrests per thousand residents. For both drug arrests and Part 1 arrests, the Crawford-Roberts arrest rate was in decline at the time Weed and Seed was first implemented in April 1992. For both arrest measures, Crawford-Roberts had started well above the rest of the city in the period preceding Weed and Seed. As time progressed, the rest-of-city rate remained stable for both drug arrests and Part 1 arrests--each close to 1 arrest per month per thousand residents. In Crawford-Roberts, the downward trend in arrest rates continued after April 1992 and brought both rates eventually down to (and even below) their corresponding rest-of-city levels--within about 4 years for drug arrests and within 2 years for Part 1 arrests. One might have expected the Crawford-Roberts' arrest rates to rise somewhat in the initial months of Weed and Seed, reflecting the initial phase of weeding activity. The fact that this did not occur could be interpreted as indicating either: (a) that weeding activity was not as intensive as described, or (b) that whatever upward "push" Weed and Seed exerted on arrests was more than offset by the downward "pull" resulting from a lower incidence of criminal activity. Because, as discussed later in section 6, crime rates did indeed decline in Crawford-Roberts following the implementation of Weed and Seed, the second interpretation appears more plausible. Furthermore, because weeding activity focused on major offenders, it is perhaps unreasonable to expect that more intensive enforcement would have resulted in any perceptible increase in arrest rates. 5.5 Approach to Community Policing The Pittsburgh Police Department has committed itself to the concept of community-oriented policing and is implementing it throughout the department. The strategy involves designating community-oriented policing officers (COPS) as specialists based in each police zone. These community officers were initially assigned to a separate command structure, but they are now integrated into the zone command. This has enabled greater integration of their activities with patrol and investigative functions. Although the designation of community officers is new in Pittsburgh, the department has for many years had community relations officers in each zone, who were responsible for crime prevention, neighborhood watch, and various community liaison activities. The emphasis of the community policing officers is to expand these activities and serve as a conduit between the department and the community. COPS officers spend a great deal of time making formal and informal contacts with the community, attending community meetings, and making themselves available to citizens. Several COPS officers were designated as Weed and Seed Officers in each Weed and Seed area. Their role was to serve this community liaison function with the Weed and Seed area. These officers are expected to patrol specific areas of the Weed and Seed area on foot and on a regular basis. Of particular importance was the establishment of relationships with the community that would lead to better information provided by residents to the department about suspects in criminal investigations. There was less emphasis on initiating problem-solving activities or on playing an active role in organizing the community. Interviews with community leaders, police personnel, and Weed and Seed staff indicated satisfaction with this aspect of Weed and Seed. 5.6 Approach to Seeding As discussed previously, Pittsburgh adopted an unusual approach to the seeding component of its Weed and Seed initiative. The aim was to enhance existing programs and organizations rather than create competing structures. In the Hill District, the Weed and Seed initiative was able to take advantage of many existing grassroots efforts. In the communities that comprised the second Weed and Seed area, a greater level of organization needed to take place. A major element of the seeding component was the creation of the Community Technology Centers in the Weed and Seed communities. This initiative has served as a model for all of Pittsburgh, and the partnerships that have been created through this effort will seemingly endure. In addition to this larger effort, many of the smaller community-driven projects have potential impact. In the Hill District, one particular project involved an afterschool tutoring program for youths whom teachers identified as having educational or behavioral difficulties. This program was linked to the neighborhood computer network. Such programs for youths with identified problems are more likely to have an effect than more general prevention efforts that do not target a specific population. 5.7 Operational Relationships with Other Organizations Pittsburgh's Weed and Seed initiative began with a heavy emphasis on enforcement. Although public statements to Hill District residents indicated that seeding activities were also integral to this effort, initial efforts focused exclusively on enforcement. The police conducted highly visible crackdowns and dramatically increased neighborhood police presence during the project's initial phase. This resulted largely from the belief that in order for seeding to succeed, weeding needed to occur beforehand. Unfortunately, this strategy of "weed, then seed" created credibility problems with the community. Although some residents found the program name objectionable, a greater community concern arose from the perception of broken promises regarding community development initiatives. Furthermore, residents felt left out of the process. At the time that Weed and Seed commenced, Hill District residents were becoming increasingly organized around the issues of community safety and economic development. Interviews with community leaders indicated considerable resentment for the initial "top down" approach, at a time when there were a number of grassroots efforts already underway. The community leaders initially viewed the program as in conflict with community efforts rather than in support of community development. These leaders acknowledged the gains that resulted from the weeding initiatives, but continued to resent the exclusion of the community from knowledge about weeding efforts and the city's failure to initiate seeding simultaneously. This approach shifted dramatically with the change of local administration in 1994. Seeding and community development activities came to receive higher priority. Perhaps more important than the specific activities, however, was the creation of a process to insure a higher level of community involvement in decisions regarding Weed and Seed. Interagency cooperation Interviews with the Pittsburgh Weed and Seed leadership suggested several ways in which the initiative had enhanced cooperation among agencies. --Cooperation among law enforcement agencies was strengthened from their participation in the Weed and Seed Task Force. Although there were several other multijurisdictional efforts being initiated at the inception of Weed and Seed, the participation in Weed and Seed allowed these relationships to mature. The frequent opportunity to jointly plan and implement actions facilitated the continued development of these cooperative enforcement efforts. --Relationships with the district attorney's office were also enhanced. An early thrust of Pittsburgh's Weed and Seed initiative was to seek Federal prosecution in as many cases as possible. Federal judges objected to many of these cases being tried in their courts. Through his participation in the Weed and Seed Task Force, the district attorney helped by agreeing to prosecute cases that could have been filed in Federal court. --Relationships with the State attorney general's office also improved. This office, part of the Weed and Seed Task Force, has cooperated in prosecuting cases that were declined federally. Further, the State attorney general has created a joint task force for serious offenders involving many jurisdictions from the Weed and Seed Task Force. Partially at least, this joint effort grew out of the State attorney general's participation in the Weed and Seed initiative. --Cooperation was also enhanced among organizations implementing the seeding activities. Establishment of the neighborhood computer networks facilitated this improvement. The process of establishing these networks brought together a wide range of community organizations, including any local group that wanted to participate. In designing, implementing, and operating these computer networks, the schools, the library, and the city developed a new partnership. This resulted directly from Weed and Seed, as these organizations had no prior cooperative ventures. In the newest Weed and Seed location, East Liberty, Microsoft has joined this partnership to assist the project in creating a "virtual library" in the Carnegie Library. --Partnering with incorporated local organizations was an unanticipated outcome of the contracting process for receiving seeding funds. Unincorporated community organizations needed a fiscal agent to receive funds. Some organizations partnered with incorporated entities to conduct seeding functions. For instance, the Hazelwood YWCA became involved as a Weed and Seed partner in this manner. Community involvement and capacity-building Those interviewed for this case study felt that community involvement had increased dramatically in each of Pittsburgh's Weed and Seed areas and that the capacity of community-based organizations had improved. In several ways, Weed and Seed played a role in these developments. --In Hazelwood and Homestead, a series of special events organized through Weed and Seed brought together community groups that were previously in competition. A summer festival provided the opportunity to demonstrate that rival neighborhood groups could work together. Similarly, community groups organized to have holiday lights in the business district of Hazelwood for the first time in many years. --Perhaps the biggest impetus for increasing community involvement was through the funding process for seeding activities. As noted previously, review committees composed of community residents were given the responsibility for making funding decisions for a number of seeding projects. This was a major demonstration of trust on the part of the city, in giving authority to the community. --The city's seeding strategy gave priority to enhancing existing programs rather than creating new ones. The Weed and Seed staff noted that partnerships can improve and strengthen the existing programs in almost all communities. The creation of new programs, in contrast, can set up competing organizational structures that work at cross-purposes. This makes it better to work with existing organizations, if possible. --In developing the technical assistance program for community-based organizations in the Hazelwood and Homestead areas, the Weed and Seed program was explicit with the community-based organizations about the expectations for their role (and their performance of it) and their needs for capacity-building. Through this effort--conducted by the Community Technical Assistance Center (CTAC) and discussed previously under "Training"--Weed and Seed increased the management and leadership capacity of community organizations, to more effectively plan, budget, and operate their programs. As a result of Weed and Seed, community-based organizations are thus increasingly involved in the revitalization of their neighborhoods. However, this has proved more difficult in Hazelwood than in the Hill District. Hazelwood did not have the level of preexisting organization as the Hill. Moreover, the relationships among the community organizations that did exist in Hazelwood were more competitive than cooperative, with differential motives prompting a lack of trust among residents. The Hazelwood community was also not as racially homogeneous as the Hill. This diversity has presented considerable challenges in getting residents to work together, and Hazelwood has thus been a more difficult challenge for Weed and Seed. Nonetheless, Weed and Seed has succeeded in facilitating the emergence of several task forces that now exert a leadership role in Hazelwood's development. The neighborhood maintenance task force is close to becoming a formal entity. Weed and Seed was a catalyst in the initial formation of this group, which has come to be more self-sufficient and is raising its own funds independent of Weed and Seed. The task force has undertaken several community improvement efforts, and its success has convinced the city to invest in conducting a development plan for Hazelwood. This plan will include strategies to attract businesses and beautification efforts such as construction of a "portal" to the community. Without a sufficient level of community competence and structure, the city would not have made such a commitment. Community development Community technology and economic development are two aspects of community development that would not have occurred without Weed and Seed. --As mentioned previously, the establishment of community technology centers has been one of the Weed and Seed legacies in Pittsburgh. By design as well as necessity, the effort to create, implement, and maintain these computer networks brought together partners that had not previously worked together, including public schools, universities, libraries, neighborhood organizations, the city, and recently the police. Use of these resources can only be expected to increase and positively affect community residents in the future. --The Weed and Seed effort also facilitated economic development, especially in the Hill District. By virtue of its proximity to downtown, the Hill District would normally be an attractive location for investment. However, the extensive and highly visible drug markets in this community served to discourage potential investors. This issue was addressed through the efforts of the police under the Weed and Seed initiative. Although not eradicated and perhaps only displaced, the visibility of drug dealing was reduced. Further, the Weed and Seed umbrella served to bring various parties together around the issue of economic development. The Urban Redevelopment Authority has now assumed this role. Since the initiation of Weed and Seed, a shopping plaza has opened in the lower Hill area. Additional development plans are underway in accord with a sophisticated economic development plan developed by Hill District community organizations. Weed and Seed efforts in the Hill District contributed to making private investment more attractive in this community. It is important to note that the economic development prospects are far different in Hazelwood, where there was no geographically attractive area for investors. Steel mills had been the lifeblood of this community. As these mills closed, the commercial area became neglected. It was recently announced that the last plant would soon close. As part of this withdrawal, the company may make a substantial contribution ($3 million-$4 million) to the city. The city is committed to use these funds to aid in economic development in this neighborhood. Included are plans to open a street and improve the physical conditions of the area to make it more attractive to investors. Relationship between the community and law enforcement In the Hill District, there was a good relationship between the Weed and Seed officers and the community. These relationships were forged largely with individual officers and thus depended on stability in officer assignment. In one instance when an officer was to be transferred, neighborhood residents complained to the Zone Commander; the officer was allowed to remain in that assignment. The situation has been different in Hazelwood, where the community's relationship with the police reflects the more troubled relationship between the community and the city. It was reported that a number of community residents regard the city--including the police--as unconcerned about their community. Because Weed and Seed officers now attend the steering committee meetings, this perception may change. As the responsiveness of these officers becomes more apparent to the residents, the stronger police-community ties found in the Hill may emerge. This would be consistent with the experience of other cities where community residents like and respect their community officer, but have less regard for the police department on the whole. 5.8 Concluding Observations There were a number of important lessons learned from the manner in which Weed and Seed was implemented in Pittsburgh. --Developing trust and good will between the program and community residents. It took considerable effort to overcome the initial community perception of broken promises created by the lag in implementing seeding efforts. To increase community participation and build stronger relationships with the Weed and Seed communities, the city instituted procedures under which community residents controlled the allocation of seeding funds. The city charged the Seeding committee with the responsibility for developing a request for proposal (RFP) (within city) guidelines, for reviewing applications, and for determining which programs to fund and at what level. Approximately 35 to 40 percent of seeding funds were made directly available for the communities to allocate. This not only demonstrated to the community the city's good faith in establishing a partnership arrangement but also offered an opportunity to provide technical assistance to community organizations in how to develop contracts and manage projects. Although the amounts involved in these contracts were small, the symbolic benefit to these organizations of having a contract with the city and the opportunity to assist in developing community-based organizations was important.[5] Implementing seeding efforts at the same time as, if not before, weeding efforts. Although it may conceptually make sense to conduct weeding activities first to stabilize the community prior to development of seeding initiatives, operationally this ordering will not work. First, it takes considerably longer to design and implement the seeding components, particularly those based upon economic development, compared to straightforward crackdown-type enforcement efforts. Second, beyond this practical consideration is the importance of sending a positive, supportive message to the community regarding the Weed and Seed approach. Many communities are used to being the "targets" of enforcement actions designed to "clean up their neighborhood." It is essential to initiate seeding activities at the inception of Weed and Seed, to emphasize that seeding is equally, if not more, important than weeding. Although most residents support law enforcement activity that will contribute to making their communities safer, they also want to know that community development activities will also take place. A reordering of program components can assist in creating the trust between the community and program administration that is critical to the success of such an initiative. Reflecting this realization, when the second Weed and Seed initiative was begun in the Hazelwood area, seeding activities were implemented prior to visible enforcement actions. Leaders of community-based organizations supported this ordering.[6] --Establishing a continued commitment to weeding activity. As noted previously, many envisioned Weed and Seed as involving an initial period of intensive law enforcement, after which the police could move on and seeding activities could then "take root." However, Weed and Seed communities typically face chronic crime problems that are impervious to short-term solutions, regardless of their intensity. This was the case with the drug market locations in the Hill District. The Pittsburgh Weed and Seed leadership noted that effective control of the drug market requires a sustained commitment from the police, with a continuing police presence around "hot spot" locations. --Building on existing community organizations. The Pittsburgh Weed and Seed leadership also learned the importance of using the existing community infrastructure in implementing community development and other seeding activities. The original plan was to establish a committee of community residents specifically for Weed and Seed. However, it quickly became apparent that this committee would compete with groups already organized within the community, thus undermining the trust between the community residents and the Weed and Seed administrators. In some communities, there may not be one single organization upon which to build, but competing organizations may already exist. In either case it was viewed as advisable to work with an umbrella organization that represented various community groups and factions. During the time that seeding activities were being implemented, such a coalition--known as the Hill Consensus Group--was being formed in the Hill District. Working closely with this group helped clarify the role of the community in Weed and Seed and created an immediate legitimacy for this initiative among community organizations. A similar strategy was pursued in working with the second and third Weed and Seed communities in Pittsburgh. --Recognizing the resilience of the status quo. An additional surprise to the Weed and Seed staff was the resilience of the status quo for some community leaders. Weed and Seed administrators underestimated the degree to which maintaining the status quo was important to some of the same people who were calling for change. Some leaders draw their power from denouncing the city government as unresponsive to the community's needs. When government then attempts to seriously address specific problems, these individuals no longer have a basis for complaint; their continued power is threatened by the city's addressing their concerns. This problem occurred in tenant councils, where individuals asserted themselves without truly representing residents. Similar difficulties were encountered with some community development coalitions. Effective action requires anticipating this potential problem, identifying the likely defenders of the status quo, and working to bring them into the process without posing a threat to them. 6.0 Effects of Weed and Seed This section describes the effects of the Weed and Seed initiative in Pittsburgh, with respect to two key categories of outcomes. The first is the impact on rates of crime, as estimated through analysis of police department data. The second is the effect on public attitudes toward public safety, police responsiveness, and neighborhood quality of life, as measured through a survey of residents in the Crawford-Roberts neighborhood of the Hill District. 6.1 Analysis of Crime Data This analysis uses police data to examine the trends in crime rates before and after the implementation of Weed and Seed in Pittsburgh. Of course, any observed changes in crime rates in the target area during this time period might reflect factors other than Weed and Seed. For instance, changes in crime reporting may cause the reported crime rates to rise or fall independently of any shift in the true crime incidence. Changes in the regional or national economic context may also affect local crime trends, favorably or unfavorably. Additionally, an observed reduction in crime for the target area may occur through displacement of crime to adjacent or nearby areas, whose crime rates would correspondingly rise. Citywide, incident-level police data and geomapping methods were used to track crime patterns in Pittsburgh. The incident-level police data identify each reported crime by its date and its street address. Geomapping methods then enable one to associate each reported crime with a particular geographic subarea within the city. For each subarea and specified time period, one can then construct a crime rate in terms of crimes per 1,000 residents. Of particular interest here is the comparison of crime rates between Crawford-Roberts and all other areas of the city combined. The rest-of-city jurisdiction provides a logical comparison area to take account of possible changes in local crime reporting, shifts in local economic conditions or other contextual factors, and the possibility of crime displacement. In evaluating Weed and Seed, it is also important to align the data to examine whether any shift occurred after April 1992, the start date of Weed and Seed in the Hill District. Exhibit 6.1 compares average monthly Part 1 crime rates between Crawford-Roberts and the rest-of-city area, as measured over annual periods encompassing April through March. The Part 1 crime rate for Crawford-Roberts was more than twice the rest-of-city average for the year ending March 1992--15.1 versus 6.8. Over the succeeding 5 years, the rate dropped proportionately more in Crawford-Roberts than elsewhere, ending at a level less than twice the rest-of-city average--8.5 versus 4.3. In the absence of Weed and Seed, one could arguably presume that Crawford-Roberts would have experienced the same year-to-year percentage change in the crime rate as in the rest of the city, and thus the same 5-year cumulative percentage change. If so, this would have resulted in a Part 1 crime rate of approximately 9.5 in Crawford-Roberts in the year ending March 1997, versus the observed rate of 8.5 for that year. This would suggest that, for Crawford- Roberts, Weed and Seed has resulted in a reduction in crime equivalent to about 1 monthly crime per 1,000 residents. The disproportionate reduction in crime in the Crawford-Roberts area over this period is displayed even more dramatically in exhibit 6.2, using monthly data for per capita Part 1 crimes. Separately for the Crawford-Roberts target area and the rest-of-city area, the exhibit shows the observed monthly rate and a fitted curve that expresses the historical trend over the time interval January 1991 through December 1997. During 1991, the Crawford-Roberts crime rate was diverging from the rest of the city, starting at a higher level and moving upward to create a progressively widening gap. Then during 1992, as the rest of the city experienced a nearly stable crime rate, the Crawford-Roberts rate began to decline. By the end of 1997, Crawford-Roberts had closed a substantial portion of the gap (versus the rest of the city) that existed when Weed and Seed was initiated. One might argue that the rest-of-city calculation should exclude the other Pittsburgh neighborhoods in which Weed and Seed was implemented, i.e., the remaining area of the Hill District, plus Hazelwood and Glen Hazel. In all likelihood, doing so would not change the overall pattern and might indeed make the Crawford-Roberts decline appear even more pronounced. That is, such an adjustment would likely flatten the rest-of-city trend from 1992 to 1997, assuming that these other Weed and Seed target areas experienced some reduction in crime. This would have the effect of accentuating the observed decline in Crawford-Roberts. 6.2 Community Response and Perceptions of Public Safety Survey methods used in 1995 and 1997 In Pittsburgh, as in the other seven sites participating in the national evaluation, a survey of target area residents was conducted at two separate time intervals. During March-July 1995, the Institute for Social Analysis conducted a total of 1,531 interviews among the 8 sites. In December 1997-January 1998, Abt Associates conducted a total of 1,995 interviews with a separate group of residents in the same eight target areas. The following discussion refers to these data collection efforts as the 1995 and 1997 surveys. General survey design and operations The objective of the survey data collection and analysis was to measure changes in citizens' awareness of the Weed and Seed program and their opinions about police activity, crime, public safety, and the general quality of life in their neighborhoods. In the interest of comparing the findings obtained from the two surveys, the 1997 survey was designed with the following features: --For each site, the geographical boundaries of the survey area were the same as in 1995. --The wording of questions from the 1995 survey was retained verbatim in 1997. For selected questions, additional response categories were added in 1997 to provide a more complete range of possible responses. For these items, care was taken in the analysis to aggregate responses in ways that would preserve the comparability of the findings between 1995 and 1997.[7] There were also some notable differences in the methods used in the two surveys, as follows. --The 1995 survey consisted of inperson interviews, based on city-provided address lists. The 1997 interviews were conducted by telephone, based on listed telephone numbers for residential addresses within the survey area. --The 1995 survey consisted of 83 substantive items. The 1997 survey included only a subset of these, 31 substantive items. (For both surveys, the count excludes items related to respondent demographic characteristics and other basic interview data.) The 1995 interviews required 30 to 40 minutes. The 1997 interviews typically lasted 12 to 15 minutes. The decision to proceed in 1997 with telephone interviewing and a shortened instrument was based on the difficulties experienced in 1995 in completing the targeted number of 400 interviews per site. (In none of the sites was this target reached.) The 1997 survey design called for 300 completed interviews per site. Survey details specific to the Pittsburgh site For Pittsburgh, the survey area in both 1995 and 1997 was the Crawford-Roberts neighborhood, which lies within the Hill District. The 1995 survey was conducted during March-April 1995, with 183 completed interviews. The 1997 survey was conducted during December 1997-January 1998, with 300 completed interviews. The earlier survey occurred after the date considered here as the start date for the Weed and Seed program in Pittsburgh, April 1992. Survey findings The findings from the interviews conducted in Pittsburgh in 1995 and 1997 are shown in exhibits 6.3 through 6.9 and are discussed below: Demographic characteristics of survey respondents (Exhibit 6.3) In the 1997 survey, 82 percent of respondents had lived in Crawford-Roberts for more than 2 years. Such longer term residents accounted for 93 percent of those surveyed in 1995. The average age of respondents in 1997 was 53 years, up from 47 years in the 1995 survey. The proportion of elderly respondents (60 years or older) was 43 percent in 1997 and 29 percent in 1995. The higher percentage of 1997 respondents reporting themselves as retired or otherwise not looking for work (47 percent, versus 17 percent in 1995) is consistent with the higher number of elderly respondents in 1997. The employment status of those in the labor force was similar between the two surveys. The proportion of respondents working full time was 32 percent in 1995 and 30 percent in 1997. Part-time workers were 6 percent of the 1995 respondents and 9 percent of those interviewed in 1997. The unemployment rate among respondents (those unemployed and looking for work) was 7 percent in 1997, down from 9 percent in 1995. The 1997 survey included a substantially higher percentage of respondent households with no children (71 percent, versus 50 percent in 1995). Of the remaining 1995 households surveyed, 37 percent included 1 or 2 children, and 13 percent included 3 or more. Of the 1997 respondent households, 22 percent had 1 or 2 children, and 7 percent had 3 or more. The number of households with 1 or 2 adults was 73 percent in 1995 and 83 percent in 1997. Households with 3 or more adults consisted of 20 percent of the 1995 sample and 14 percent of the 1997 sample. Both surveys included a high percentage of black respondents (98 percent in 1995 and 86 percent in 1997) and female respondents (72 percent in 1995 and 71 percent in 1997). Perceptions of the neighborhood (Exhibit 6.4) There was notable improvement in residents' perceptions of public safety and the general quality of life in the neighborhood. --The share of respondents reporting themselves as "very satisfied" with the Crawford-Roberts neighborhood as a place to live increased from 42 percent in 1995 to 53 percent in 1997. The proportion indicating that they were "somewhat dissatisfied" or "very dissatisfied" with the neighborhood was less than 20 percent in both survey years. --The respondents in 1997 were more likely than those in 1995 to feel "very safe" out alone in the neighborhood either during the day (60 percent versus 51 percent in 1995) or after dark (25 percent versus 16 percent in 1995). For each of these survey questions, the differing pattern of responses in 1997 versus 1995 was statistically significant, as indicated by the asterisks in the right- hand column of Exhibit 6.4. The share of respondents indicating that their neighborhood had become a better place to live in the past 2 years was substantially higher in 1997 (37 percent) than in 1995 (17 percent). The response pattern to this question was also significantly different in 1997 than in 1995. There was a significant change between 1995 and 1997 in residents' perceptions of drug sales and drug use as a problem in the neighborhood. With respect to either "drug sales on the street or in other public places," "drug sales out of homes or apartments," or "drug use," a significantly smaller percentage of residents perceived this as a problem in 1997 than in 1995. There were also significant improvements in residents' perceptions of violent crime and gang activity as neighborhood problems. Specifically, residents were less likely in 1997 (versus 1995) to regard either as a "big problem"; correspondingly, residents were more likely to regard either as a "small problem" or "no problem." Victimization (Exhibit 6.5) There was a significant reduction between 1995 and 1997 in the percentage of residents who reported having been assaulted in the neighborhood. This was true with respect to having been "beaten up, attacked, or hit with something such as a rock or bottle" or having been "knifed, shot at, or attacked with some other weapon." In contrast, there was no significant difference between 1995 and 1997 in the percentage of residents who reported having been victimized by burglary or robbery. Police response (Exhibit 6.6) There was a significant increase between 1995 and 1997 in the percentage of residents indicating that police are doing well in "keep[ing] order on the streets" and in "controlling the street sale and use of illegal drugs." With respect to both matters, residents were more likely in 1997 to regard the police as doing a "very good job" or a "good job." Interestingly, to the extent that there was any significant change in perceived police presence in the neighborhood, residents in 1997 were less likely to see police performing duties in the neighborhood. Residents were significantly less likely in 1997 than in 1995 to have seen police "driving through the neighborhood," "patrolling in the back alleys or in the back of buildings," or "chatting with people in the neighborhood." There was no significant change in the extent to which residents saw police "driving through your neighborhood." One might have expected Weed and Seed's emphasis on community policing to cause an increase in the perceived police presence in the neighborhood. Bear in mind, however, that both the 1995 and 1997 surveys occurred well after the initial Weed and Seed implementation in April 1992. Also, the reduction in crime rates would itself have brought police into the neighborhood less frequently. In conjunction with the perceived reduction in police presence, there was a significant improvement in residents' perceptions as to "how responsive the police in this neighborhood [are] to community concerns." Residents were more likely in 1997 than in 1995 to regard police as "very responsive " and less likely to regard police as either "somewhat responsive," "somewhat unresponsive," or " very unresponsive." Community involvement (Exhibit 6.7) Neighborhood residents reported significantly greater community involvement in 1997 than in 1995 with respect to having attended or participated in "a citizen patrol," in a "neighborhood watch program," or in a "neighborhood cleanup project." There was no significant change with respect to involvement in an "antidrug rally, vigil, or march." Perceptions of social services and other programs (Exhibit 6.8) There was significant improvement in the residents' satisfaction with available services and programs. Respondents were more likely in 1997 than in 1995 to indicate that they were either "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" with youth programs, with drug treatment services, and with job opportunities in the neighborhood. However, even with this improvement less than one-half of the 1997 respondents indicated satisfaction with these services and programs. Perceptions of the Weed and Seed program (Exhibit 6.9) There was a very significant increase in public awareness of the Weed and Seed program--from 49 percent in 1995 to 69 percent in 1997. The most widely recognized seeding program activities in 1997 (among the five activities mentioned to respondents) were the computer training at the Hill House and the New Beginnings Center (66 percent), the Young Fathers Program offered through Pittsburgh in Partnership with Parents (51 percent), and drug treatment services at the House of the Crossroads (47 percent). General observations on the survey findings The survey findings show a systematic improvement between 1995 and 1997 in feelings about crime, police, public safety, city services, and quality of life among the residents of Crawford-Roberts, a neighborhood within the Hill District. This improvement in residents' perceptions was coupled with a drop in reported assault victimization, increased involvement in crime prevention activities, and a greater awareness of the Weed and Seed program. It would be incorrect to attribute all of the observed changes to the Weed and Seed program itself. The measured changes may result in part from the different survey methods used in 1995 and 1997. More importantly, Weed and Seed was first implemented in the Hill District in April 1992. Although the observed shift in residents' attitudes may have resulted from Weed and Seed and various community changes set in motion by the program, improving economic conditions may instead have been primarily responsible for the changes. With these caveats in mind, the survey findings do provide substantial evidence that residents of Crawford-Roberts considered their community a safer place to live in 1997 than in 1995 and also regarded the police and other city services as more responsive to the community's needs and concerns than they did in 1995. 7.0 Future Directions and Degree of Institutionalization Pittsburgh has embraced the Weed and Seed concept and has integrated it into the city's governmental structure. For Pittsburgh, Weed and Seed was not simply a Federal initiative with modest funding; it became an organizing philosophy of government. The mayor's strategy of organizing and developing neighborhoods through a standard committee structure was evidence of the marriage between the Weed and Seed concept and the philosophy of local government. Based on our analysis of Crawford-Roberts--with police data indicating reduced crime rates and survey data reflecting improved perceptions of public safety, police responsiveness, and community quality of life--Weed and Seed appears to have contributed to substantial short-term improvements in the target areas of Pittsburgh. It is too early to tell whether these gains can be translated into successful revitalization of these communities. The Pittsburgh experience to date offers important lessons that may help other jurisdictions as they implement similar initiatives. Pittsburgh based its Weed and Seed concept on assumptions that were challenged during implementation. The initial philosophy of Weed and Seed involved a marriage of law enforcement with community development. Crime was to be addressed through an initial effort of intensive enforcement. Once the community was "made safe," economic and social programs could then create a more lasting and stable community. Several aspects of this concept proved problematic: --The timing of weeding and seeding in the original concept appears flawed. Pittsburgh found it important to demonstrate to the community that the initiative was serious about the seeding components and that this approach to improving the community was not based solely on enforcement. Thus, from the perspective of Pittsburgh's Weed and Seed leadership, it is preferable for the seeding component to precede enforcement efforts. --The drug and crime problems facing Pittsburgh's Weed and Seed neighborhoods were more chronic than initially suggested. Thus, there was a need for a greater and continuing police presence than the original model had assumed. It was not sufficient to have an initially intensive enforcement phase after which resources could be diverted to other areas. Instead, a continuing commitment to higher levels of enforcement was needed. --Having the community take a meaningful role in decisions regarding the allocation of seeding funds was critical, for several reasons. First, it allowed the relationship between the community and the city to develop on the basis of trust and shared responsibility. Second, it provided an excellent opportunity to teach community-based organizations important decisionmaking, project management, and contract administration skills. --One should not expect the community to conduct these development activities totally on its own. One needs to create a supportive environment for community development in which the community has a substantial, but not overwhelming role. Thus it is important to create partnerships between community-based organizations and larger, more experienced organizations and agencies that have the expertise in specific areas to assist these community groups in achieving common objectives. In addition, technical assistance can be directly provided to neighborhood organizations. However, it is imperative that the technical assistance provider not only have expertise in their specialty area but also have experience in working directly with community-based organizations that may not have a great deal of experience or sophistication. It was vitally important to adopt a "hands-on" administrative approach to the local Weed and Seed initiative. Given the overall objective of imparting to communities the skills that will enable them to become more self-sufficient, it is important to alter both attitudes and behaviors. This requires a constant presence and effort on the part of Weed and Seed leadership. This is not an initiative that can be administered in the traditional manner of distributing funds to subgrantees. It is critical to build on existing efforts and organizations in the community. To do otherwise invites the creation of competing structures, which will undermine the overall purpose of fostering partnership and collaboration. The key to sustainability of these efforts was building capacity in the community and altering the relationship of communities and residents with their government. This "teaching" model captures the essence of the Pittsburgh approach--getting communities to recognize that they can do things for themselves, from getting new garbage cans to combating crime to economic development. As important as the existence of a supportive governmental structure has been to the success of the Pittsburgh initiative, the other key ingredient to the lasting impact in this location has been the leadership and dedication of the staff. As opposed to many initiatives that place emphasis on programmatic funding, this initiative emphasized community development and change. It was clear to the Weed and Seed leadership that this would require a more "hands-on" approach than traditional government programs. Thus, there was a substantial investment of time and energy from the Weed and Seed staff that was crucial to getting the message to community-based organizations and working to teach them to work together to revitalize their neighborhoods. Through the existence of a supportive environment and dedicated and talented leadership, the Weed and Seed philosophy should continue to thrive in Pittsburgh long after the termination of the Federal role. NOTES 1. Executive Office for Weed and Seed, "Operation Weed and Seed Implementation Manual," p.2-1. 2. The National Performance Review Task Force (now renamed the National Partnership for Reinventing Government) designated a number of government organizations or activities as National Review Laboratories (now Reinvention Laboratories) to test "reinventing government" initiatives. These labs have developed more efficient ways to deliver government services by creating new partnerships between entities, streamlining bureaucratic processes, and empowering organizations to make substantial changes. The mission of the Weed and Seed Reinvention Laboratory is to develop more effective mechanisms that combine and deliver Federal, State, and local resources in Weed and Seed sites. 3. Funding for the East Liberty target area was awarded in 1997. Because project implementation did not begin until March 1998, we do not discuss the East Liberty site in the remainder of this report. 4. A T1 line is a high-speed, 24-channel communications line that can serve multiple modem connections at a single location. 5. Because all contracts were with the city, there was fiscal oversight regarding the expenditure of these funds. 6. In fact, one program administrator noted that they had made considerable progress with several youths who would have likely been "weeded" if the enforcement components had been initiated prior to the creation of these community interventions. 7. For example, in questions on "how good a job are the police doing" in different aspects of low enforcement, the 1995 survey allowed the respondent to indicate "a very good job, a fair job, or a poor job." The 1997 survey also allowed the respondent to indicate "a very poor job." The findings below have aggregated the "poor job" and "very poor job" responses for 1997 before comparing the pattern of responses with 1995.