United Northeast Neighbors
United Northeast Neighbors (UNN) brings together the community of the five police districts of the Northeast to attack violence problems in the neighborhood, and the roots. of much of the violence; alcohol and drug abuse. The bulk of people living in this neighborhood are the, European American working poor and working class (in one of the districts there has been an influx of Latinos).
UNN grew out of the Northeast Justice Committee and merged with the Northeast Task Force, Seeing the link between increased drug and alcohol abuse and increased level and intensity crime, they formed UNN as a collaboration of civic associations from Northeast Philadelphia, a largely poor and working class European-American community, Since its inception in 1995, UNN has been working on public safety issues both internally and externally, Internally they have been working to develop the organizational structure to insure widespread participation throughout the Northeast.
Externally UNN has been bringing out groups and residents to public hearings, setting up town meetings; organizing pickets and demonstrations and developing public relations campaigns around issues, In addition they have a Youth at Risk program. Through this process UNN has been able to solidify its base and outreach, develop strong ties with the district attorney and the Mayor. The results have been to bring issues of public safety and drug abuse to a more visible and tangible level.
The main campaigns have focused on police visibility, fire rescue and police response timing. Assessing the drug environment has helped to identify the nature of the problem. One tool they have used is a neighborhood assessment process. First they evaluate police statistics, and then more importantly. volunteers visit areas where youth hang out to chart by-products like crack vials, marijuana joints, condoms, meth bags, etc. According to one of the leaders, “Our community has been in denial. It’s always been the problem is other children and other neighborhoods. But guess what our kids are doing? Charting by-products is a great process to shock people out of denial.”
Collaborating agencies The 27 member organizations, local hospitals, police, firemen, politicians.