Community Safety Team: 2024 Year in Review
The Mayor’s Community Safety Team works to convene and coordinate citywide departments and community organizations on behalf of the Mayor to:
- advance safety,
- prevent violence,
- address trauma, and
- increase justice in Boston.
Throughout 2024, members of the Community Safety Team traveled throughout Boston - and the country - learning from and teaching community members, colleagues and officials on how to keep Boston’s reputation as Safest Major City in the United States.
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January
Staffing Up
Senior Advisor Isaac Yablo forms the first ever Mayor’s Community Safety Team. He brings on Linda LoPriore to oversee Operation EXIT: RENEW - a job training and placement program for returning citizens. Linda previously oversaw Operation EXIT under the Walsh Administration. Dan Hudson also joined the Community Safety Team as Internal Operations and Accountability Manager. He was tasked with ensuring residents are connected to vital city services after violence and coordinating internally to advance the Community Safety Team’s work inside of City Hall.
February - April
Springing on Summer Safety
The Community Safety Team is tasked annually with creating and distributing the Summer Safety Plan. The Community Safety Team hosted meetings at BCYF Centers across the City for residents to help build the 2024 Summer Safety Plan.
Over the course of the spring months, The Community Safety Team hosted almost 30 meetings throughout:
- East Boston,
- Charlestown,
- South Boston,
- Dorchester,
- Roxbury,
- Mattapan,
- Jamaica Plain and
- Hyde Park.
These meetings were broken up into three rounds of engagements. Each round focused on a different angle of building the plan - Preparing, Previewing and Publishing.
The first round of meetings to prepare the 2024 Summer Safety Plan was centered around 2023’s Summer Safety Plan. We asked residents where they thought we as a City could improve, and what they’d like to see prioritized in the upcoming Summer Safety Plan. We took notes from these meetings and brought them back to City Hall to begin forming the basis of 2024’s plan. We returned to the community to preview this plan - these meetings were focused on ensuring our plan accurately reflected the concerns raised by community members in our first round of meetings. We took any corrections or additions back to City Hall to revise and finalize our 2024 Plan for a Safe, Healthy and Active Summer.
We went back to the community once more to talk about how to publish this report. We explored what outlets have the most reach in the community and how best to reach the people that need the resources highlighted in the plan the most.
Planting the Seed
The Community Safety Team sponsored and hosted the inaugural cohort of Grassroots - a job readiness and training program for systems-involved young adults. The program is a precursor to Operation EXIT and EXIT Renew. Three weeks of classes focused around being job-ready included:
- voting registration,
- OSHA 30 Certification,
- civilian flagger certification, and
- partial licensure for a hoisting license.
Our inaugural cohort celebrated graduation in the Mayor’s Office with the Community Safety Team and their families.
May
Building a Violence Free Future
At the press conference unveiling our Summer Safety Plan, Mayor Wu highlighted our plan for combatting violence and building community that summer. She also formally endorsed the Plan to End Violence. The Plan to End Violence is a set of recommendations and investments built through more than a year of engagement between the Community Safety Team and the Boston Public Health Commission. These investments, ranging from modifying the built environment and infrastructure in “hotspots” to ensuring that victims of community violence and their families have access to stable housing are rooted in a public health approach aimed at addressing the root causes of community violence.
June
Staffing Up
The Community Safety Team continued to grow with the addition of Matt Parker as Community Safety Initiatives Manager. A lifetime resident of Boston, Matt brings a wealth of knowledge and experience of Boston’s neighborhoods and the different communities within them. Working double duty, Matt also serves as MC for Community Safety Events wherever a microphone is present.
A Trip to the Bayou
Senior Advisor Isaac Yablo traveled to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for a convening of the National League of Cities’ “Reimagining Community Safety” cohort. This convening was centered around Baton Rouge’s work to include community members in their approach to prevent acts of community violence.
No I in Team
The Community Safety Team hosted members of Boston’s violence prevention ecosystem at Estella downtown for our first-ever award ceremony. We recognized Roy Martin, Ms. Stefany Boston, Rahsaan Peters, Christian Rios and Rusti Pendleton for their essential roles in Boston’s Violence Prevention Ecosystem.
Fund the Fun
In conjunction with the Plan for a Safe, Healthy and Active Summer 2024, the Community Safety Team also administered $115,000 in community micro-grants through the SaveRStreets Grant. These are grants designed to support community-led activations in areas that experience a disproportionate level of community violence. Named after the Save R Streets basketball tournament held each summer at Marcella Park, these grants funded:
- basketball tournaments,
- fish frys, music performances,
- movie nights,
- arts and crafts nights, and
- back-to-school giveaways and more across the city.
Spreading the Word
Seeing Boston’s historic reduction in gun violence, the Institute for Intergovernmental Relations sponsored a trip for other city and state officials from across the country to learn from community providers and the Community Safety Team as to how Boston continued to see such historic lows. The group heard from members of the Hospital Violence Intervention Collaborative, the Boston Public Health Commission’s Life Course Unit, and visited the Louis D Brown Peace Institute in Dorchester.
July
Fund the fun, by the numbers
The Save R Streets grant awards $100,000 each summer to fund activations by community, for community. In 2024, with the largest ever total award of $115,000, The Community Safety Team funded a record number of activations across the City. 48 awardees hosted 89 activations in just 69 days. With an average award of approximately $2,400, the Save R Streets funded activations in 22 of 30 possible activation zones - with at least 1 activation in each eligible neighborhood.
August
Lifting up Leaders
Knowing how the important role of leading and organizing communities usually falls on one person. The Community Safety Team hosted leaders from Boston Housing Authority properties for the first ever BHA Community Leaders Mixer. This event was solely focused on uplifting and celebrating the hours of often thankless work that residents do on behalf of their communities. With a panoramic view overlooking the city from the heart of Roxbury atop the Bruce C Bolling Building, we made sure that each of these leaders received the thanks and praise that they deserved.
The Neighborhood, Out of this World
The Mary Ellen McCormack housing development in South Boston is home to countless families and young people. After an act of community violence occurred near a summer programing drop-off, programming operations were suspended inside the development. Immediately, the Community Safety Team met with neighborhood leaders and City officials to ensure that youth from the development had access to meaningful programming.
After working to bring back the group that pulled out, the Community Safety Team felt like celebrating. We hosted Plates and Planets - complete with free food, school supplies and games at Sterling Square in the heart of the McCormack. We also invited youth to help us repaint the Planet Walk, a scale model of our solar system located right across the street from Sterling Square.
Coming together with community
The Community Safety Team sponsored “Tudo Djunto” - translated from Cape Verdean Creole, “All Together”. The event highlighted those from Boston’s Cape Verdean community - the largest in the world outside of Cape Verde - lost to community violence. Hosted at the Boston Public Library’s Copley Branch, the event brought together Cape Verdeans from across Boston together to focus on promoting peace and healing.
September
Protectors of the Plaza
Each day, thousands of employees and community members enter Boston City Hall and City Hall Plaza for business, hearings, meetings and even just to grab a coffee. The Boston Municipal Protective Services are responsible for the safety of everyone. Knowing that in the last calendar year the BMPS had helped host concerts, championship parades, and plenty of other City Hall events and activations - we celebrated BMPS, their work and their new Chief Ruben Taylor with a luncheon at the City Hall’s Civic Pavillion.
StreetWorker's Conference
Isaac and Matt attended the New England Streetworker’s Conference, hosted yearly by UTEC at Gillette Stadium. This conference is aimed at ensuring that smaller, but important intervention organizations from across New England have the knowledge and direct access to resources that larger organizations do. By sharing the common goal of violence prevention, these groups are all working together to shape a safer future for all of New England.
Survivors March
Isaac and Matt attended the Survivor’s March on Washington, organized by Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice. Thousands of survivors from across the country traveled to Washington to hear from other survivors, to meet with Congress and emphasize the importance of ensuring that survivors of crime and their families receive the support they need to properly heal following acts of violence on them, or their communities.
October
Safest in the Nation
In October, citing Boston’s back to back years of record reductions in levels of gun violence, the National League of Cities chose Boston as a host site for its “Reimagining Community Safety” cohort. This group saw leaders from cities across the country come to Boston to learn the processes and people involved in Boston’s record low gun violence rates. With presentations and site visits to The Boston Public Health Commission, Boston Regional Intelligence Center, InnerCity Weightlifting, Boston Project Ministries and The Louis D Brown Peace Institute. These partners are essential in the day-to-day work making Boston the safest city in the country.
Cities United
In October, Isaac Yablo and Matt Parker once again traveled to spread the word and show support - this time to the Cities United convening in Seattle. Since 2011, Cities United has brought together officials and community leaders from across the country with the sole focus of stopping gun violence, specifically in communities where gun violence predominantly affects Black men and boys.
November
Staffing Up
In November, the Community Safety Team added Alain Davis to our roster. Alain previously served as the Director of Operations, Planning and Evaluation for the Boston Public Health Commission’s Division of Violence Prevention. In his role of Policy, Research and Narrative Manager for the Community Safety Team, Alain will oversee the implementation of the Plan To End Violence, which he was instrumental in building during his time at BPHC.
Spreading the Word
After their visit in October, the National League of Cities invited Senior Advisor Isaac Yablo to speak at their national conference in Tampa Florida. NLC celebrated their 100th anniversary, and officials from cities across the country traveled to Tampa to learn more about how to make their cities more safe and sustainable.
Tailgate 2gether
Throughout the fall, the Community Safety Team hosted 10 tailgates across the City complete with free food, football and video games for youth in community. These tailgates were designed to bring together community members after summer had ended, ensuring that the areas activated continue to be cornerstones of safety and community for everyone in the neighborhood.
December
Staffing Up
The newest member of the Community Safety Team is Jisca Phillipe, previously the director of Youth and Schools in the Mayor’s Children’s Cabinet. Jisca has already made her impact known across the City in her short tenure with the team - she coordinated the donation and delivery of toys for more than 50 families across the City in time for Christmas.
Spreading the Word
Senior Advisor Isaac Yablo traveled to Minneapolis Minnesota to attend the 10th annual National Public Safety Partnership Conference. This conference, hosted by the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, is meant for law enforcement and community safety officials from around the country to come together yearly and collaborate on best practices to keep their communities safe.
Regional Convening
Boston has cemented itself as the safest city in the nation through each of the activations and events mentioned above. However in a rare instance of mirrored data - the rate of individuals from Boston leaving the city and committing crimes is rising at the same time as individuals from outside of Boston coming into the city and committing crimes.
We worked with town managers and superintendents to find the best way to address this. We invited every town executive east of Worcester to the first ever Eastern Massachusetts Peer Exchange. Attendees heard from The Boston Regional Intelligence Center, Boston Public Health Commission’s Life Course Unit, Hospital Violence Intervention Program Collaborative, and Louis D. Brown Peace institute on their best practices and recommendations to ensure that Metro-Boston can become - and stay - the safest region in the country.
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