The West Philadelphia Promise Zone (the “WPPZ”) follows a typical urban development pattern of initial settlement and growth; piecemeal integration from the south; white flight, depopulation, and disinvestment; and spiking crime and population loss spurred by persistent structural barriers to adequate education, jobs, and other amenities. Today WPPZ residents face many challenges, including poverty, housing and employment insecurity, and violence.  

The target area suffers from high housing vacancy rates along commercial corridors like Lancaster Avenue. Displacement through gentrification is pushing residents out of safer and more desirable areas. In addition to gentrification issues, it is often difficult to reach those most in need due to the digital divide; 56 percent of households do not have access to a personal vehicle, and 8 percent do not have telephone service available in their homes. Likewise, 28 percent of households do not own a computer, smartphone, or tablet, and 34 percent do not have internet access. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated already present racial and economic inequities. These are linked to a significant increase in gun violence in the WPPZ, resulting in the second-highest year of gun violence and homicides in the city’s recent history. These violent incidents have magnified current inequities, disproportionately impacting Black and brown communities, especially young black men. Shootings in WPPZ are above average compared to the rest of the city. WPPZ Promise Neighborhood research indicates that fatal and non-fatal shootings have steadily increased since 2018 at a rate higher than in Philadelphia. 

The West Philadelphia Promise Zone experience clarifies the many factors contributing to the emergence, rise, and decline of serious crimes such as gun violence. While MVM and partners have had notable success in some areas, these accomplishments have not reached the level needed to effectively combat crime stressors such as increasing unemployment and rapidly rising housing insecurity in the populations disproportionately represented among the victims and perpetrators of gun violence and related crime. 

The proposed BCJI project aims to intervene at five focus areas to reduce shooting incidents, injury, and death significantly. Taken together, these five focus areas, comprising some twenty square blocks across five neighborhoods in the WPPZ, account for 65 (or 40 percent) of the 160-odd shootings that have occurred across the area in the past three years, including 14 of 32 (43 percent) of fatal shootings. Across the WPPZ, shootings at these focus areas have occurred entirely outdoors and overwhelmingly involve Black individuals (100 percent in the target area), the vast majority (85 percent), men and boys with a median age of 28.  

The overarching vision for the WPPZ, under MVM’s leadership, is to reduce gun violence and to promote the physical, mental, and emotional health of residents by developing and implementing collaborative strategies that empower communities, bolster violence prevention and intervention programs, transform public policies, improve the built and natural environment, and promote individual self-realization. 

MVM and People’s Emergency Center CDC (PEC) will carry out community engagement and empowerment strategies, including: 

• Facilitating a one-year BCJI community planning process for implementing a comprehensive two-year public safety program. 

• Advancing a culture of cooperation, collaboration, and coordination among vested stakeholder groups, WPPZ public safety partners, and resident leaders.  

• Enhancing community social networks and building resident and community group capacity; coordinating the distribution of marketing materials to improve access to information and resources. 

• Supporting residents’ basic social service needs.  

MVM will coordinate affordable housing development with members of the WPPZ Housing Committee and PEC, employ CPTED interventions in problem neighborhood businesses, implement vacant land care and blight remediation interventions, and activate vacant lots in proximity to identified focus areas as spaces that promote healthy activity and community building. The effectiveness of these efforts will be measured by the number of new affordable homes developed, vacant lots regularly cleaned and cut, code enforcement activities and 311 calls logged to report illegal dumping, and members involved in local community gardens and wellness activities hosted on vacant land.  

The BCJI intervention and prevention aims to use the CURE Violence model to support high-risk 14–34-year-olds in the WPPZ. Currently, MVM and its partners are implementing an educational and awareness campaign that facilitates trust building between police and youth ages 16-29 through a podcast series and which will be utilized in community discussions, circle groups, and community meetings to spark a conversation that leads to acknowledging individual and collective trauma. At the same time, MVM will engage Drexel’s Center for Nonviolence and Social Justice Healing Hurt People program to train credible street outreach workers who will mentor youths, de-escalate conflict, facilitate community circle groups, and connect high-risk individuals and gunshot victims to social service supportive services, mental and behavioral health professionals, workforce training and employment resources, and relocation services. 

The foundation of the West Philadelphia Promise Zone (WPPZ) Building Opportunities for Lasting Dreams (BOLD) BCJI strategy is a commitment to community engagement and an understanding of the historic and systemic inequities that have limited opportunities for young people and perpetuated community trauma. The project's comprehensive approach to violence prevention and intervention engages individuals at the WPPZ at the highest risk of becoming victims or perpetrators of violence. At the same time, the strategy centers residents and community-based organizations as core partners while building stronger relationships with service providers, public agencies, and the police. The project will engage community and faith-based groups, block level leaders and trusted outreach workers to connect vulnerable residents with mental health support and other critical resources. 

The overarching goal of the project is to reduce gun violence and promote physical, mental, and emotional health of residents by developing and implementing collaborative strategies that empower communities, bolster violence prevention and intervention programs, influence public policies, improve the built and natural environments, and promote self-realization. To achieve this goal, BOLD will implement the following strategies:

• Decrease barriers to accessing mental health, positive role models, jobs, and social services via the CURE Violence Model. 
• Enhance community-based organizational capacity-building for improved collaboration, coordination, and resource generation across neighborhoods and organizations in the Promise Zone. 
• Enhance relationships between residents and the police. 
• Neighborhood revitalization via crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED).
• Advocate for public policy changes through research to sustain the project. 

People’s Emergency Center CDC, Mantua Civic Association, Anti-Violence Partnership, Drexel University School of Public Health, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Healing Hurt People, faith-based organizations, the Philadelphia Police Department, the Office of Policy and Strategic Initiatives for Criminal Justice & Public Safety, the 3rd District City Councilperson’s Office, the Department of Public Health, the Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity