U.S. Attorney Joshua Minkler addressed a crowd of neighbors and city officials at Sherman Park to congratulate the JBNC and outline his hopes for the CBCR Grant’s impact on public safety.
At the beginning of October, the John Boner Neighborhood Center was awarded the Community-Based Crime Reduction Grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, $143,000 of which will be used to fund a study of the underlying causes of crime and the remainder of which will be used to develop and implement a strategy to eradicate those problems. Substance abuse, economic insecurity, untreated mental illnesses, and social pressure are a few of the many problems that precipitate crime on the Near Eastside, but there was never a coordinated, data-informed strategy to address it until this year. The CBCR grant was secured and will be put into use by the Promise Zone’s partners at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Indiana and the City of Indianapolis, Shepherd Community Center, Near East Area Renewal (NEAR), Englewood Community Development Corporation (ECDC), Thomas Gregg Neighborhood School, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA), and Indiana University’s Public Policy Institute (PPI). Mayor Joe Hogsett, JBNC CEO James Taylor, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Joshua Minkler, and community leader Chris Staab delivered remarks related to their respective visions for the award’s use, which collectively emphasized the importance of a proactive, nuanced, and neighbor-led approach to crime prevention and law enforcement at a press conference on October 31.
Read the Indy Star’s press release on the CBCR award .