Although we’re in the urban core of the city, we have had very few incidents on our campus. The biggest things in the last 3 years were some kids broke a window and stole snacks, a former resident left a window open so that he could come back to sleep in his old apartment, and a yelling match in the parking lot.
We’re fortunate.
The biggest reason for that good fortune is that our families become a community while they are here (and even after they leave). In police terms, the community provides the natural surveillance that helps prevent crime.
They may have never known their neighbors anywhere else they lived, but here everybody knows everybody else and all the children. They attend classes together, their kids play together on the playground, and they babysit for each other. They begin to watch out for each other and for all of the children.
Friendships grow between our families and the volunteers who work with them. We have volunteer budgeters who still meet with the family they worked with years ago. One volunteer takes the child of a former resident when she takes her own kids to do something fun. Another volunteer took the son of a former resident to college.
It has become a community of people who look out for each other. It’s community in the best sense of the word.
- Laura Gray
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