Community Violence: Richmond Community Unites to End Violence and Demand Green Jobs

Economic Security | Safe Neighborhoods

Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization (CCISCO), November 22, 2009, Oakland Local

"I brought a picture of my brother, Clyde Ralph Smith, to show you tonight. I wanted you to see what kind of man he was," said Gwendolyn Goodbeer at the Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organization (CCISCO) event "A Voice for the Village" at the Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church in Richmond last Thursday evening, November 19th.  "My brother was 64 and weighed 160 pounds... He walked with a cane. He was no threat to anyone."

"They tied him hand and foot and knocked him to the floor.  He was beaten.  They kicked him.  They stabbed him with a knife.  They put a plastic bag over his head.  They set his apartment on fire.  And they left him," said Ms. Goodbeer.   "Somehow he managed to get one foot free.  He worked his way to the front door." 

Mr. Smith survived this brutal beating to be taken to the hospital.  Ms. Goodbeer recounts that when police contacted her last month and told her what had occurred, "I felt what he felt. His blood runs in my veins."

CISSCO is a multi-ethnic, multi-generational, interfaith federation of 25 congregations and youth organizations representing over 35,000 families across the county, most of whom are low and moderate income that is organizing in Richmond around two issues: ending violence in the city, and providing jobs.  The Thursday  public event was attended by more than three hundred people, including pastors from eight congregations, and many public officials, including Mayor Gwendolyn, Superintendent of the West Contra Costa Unified School District, Bruce Harter, and school board member Antonio Medrano.  Police Chief Chris Magnus and Police commissioner Roberto Reyes, Public Housing director Tim Jones, a representative of the DA's office, Richmond City Council member Nat Bates, and several planning commissioners and labor leaders all also attended.

As one of several community witnesse discussing the impact of violence, Angela Tate of the Iron Triangle Neighborhood Council told the meeting "My neighbors and I are scared.  Sometimes my children and I cannot leave the house because of the shooting."

Church member & research committee volunteer Estelle Paysinger reported on the interfaith effort to research the violence problem and identify possible solutions. She reported that police estimate that there are an estimated 150 "shooters" - individuals who have perpetrated gun violence - in this city of 103,000, most of them young men living in the Iron Triangle area.

The situation of young people of color in Richmond is desperate, Paysinger reported. She stated that of people of color entering the the 9th grade class at Richmond High, only 33 percent of go on to graduate.  Only one percent graduate college ready.  And there are few jobs for these youngsters.  California has a statewide unemployment rate of 11.6 percent, but in Richmond, 17 percent are unemployed.  For young African-Americans, the rate is 36 percent.

"People want us to leave," said high school student and CCISCO moderator Jackie Valencia.  "People tell me to graduate, to go off to college and never come back.  Do you want a Richmond without teens?"

The prison system is not working to prevent violence, Paysinger stated.  Every year 900 people return from prison to Richmond. The prison experience has not improved their ability to find a job in the current economy, or prevented them from continuing to be violent or to be victims of violence.  "Sixty-five percent of shootings involve a former prisoner, either as the shooter or as a victim," she said.

Paysinger's committee discovered that prevention alternatives were vastly less costly to society; it costs $253,000 a year to keep a juvenile offender at the California Youth Authority, and only $10,000 for an entering a youth into an average job training program. 

Nevetheless, attendees and conveners agreed that training is only helpful if there are jobs to graduate to.  "I have worked for many years in construction," local resident Jesus Hermosillo testified to the meeting.  "I tried to apply to the refinery for a job.  I found out that all the jobs went to someone out of state.  How come our community gets all the pollution and none of the jobs?"

Attendees at Thursday's event felt that traditional heavy industry may not be the answer to Richmond's economic woes,but for the 30 percent of working age adults in Richmond who live in poverty, green jobs might offer a way out.  Roughly a third of the jobs in Richmond green industries require a high school education or less, and green industry firms in Richmond are currently employing 18 percent Richmond citizens, she noted.  Graduates of RichmondBuild, a construction skills and green jobs training program, earn between $15 and $35 per hour.

Moving from jobs to violence, the group also asked: If prisons are not the answer to Richmond's violence problem, what is? 

Working in concert with the Richmond Equitable Development Initiative (REDI), CCISCO  shared a series of demands they have developed that were formally presented to city officials at the community meeting.  Their proposal approached violence reduction through mentorship, job training, and job creation programs, and through new public safety measures.  Various speakers stated that, although no single policy constitutes a full solution, together the package represents a serious effort to respond to the community's problems.

The Rev. Dr. Alvin Christopher Bernstine asked the members of the community gathered at the event to sign cards that had been distributed, committing to becoming mentors for young people.  He said that they were looking for 50 volunteer mentors for a new program, initially targeting Richmond and Kennedy High School.  76 people submitted commitment cards to become mentors.  He also asked DeVone Boggan of the Richmond Office of Neighborhood Safety to commit on behalf of his organization to training those volunteers.

Mr. Boggan agreed to provide such training.  But he cautioned that real commitment was necessary, stating that too many mentoring programs around the country had failed because of high dropout rates, not of students, but of mentors.  "Most students who enter these programs have already been failed by some part of the system," Boggan said.  "We don't need mentors who will just fail them again...  They say it takes a village to raise a child. But who is raising the village? In the words of James Baldwin ‘Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them'."

Other demands this evening from the CCISCO group included a higher local hiring requirement for city employees and contracts, and better enforcement of those requirements. 

In response, Mayor Gayle McLaughlin pledged that this would be done.  She also promised a new Youth Job Corps that would create paid jobs for youth city departments, concluding that she wanted us all to "encourage our youth to speak truth to power."

But not all the CCISCO demands led to unambiguous statements from city officials that they would be met.  These open demands include that two percent of all city capital project funds be dedicated to local job training, and that energy upgrades be required on foreclosed homes prior to or as part of resale by the banks.

Mayor McLaughlin committed to introducing legislation that energy upgrades be required on homes as part of real estate sale or foreclosure.

CCISCO demanded a number of public safety measures that included that the city issue a clear code of conduct for public parks with a high incidence of crime and publicly subsidized multi-family dwellings, and provide ongoing security at parks with a record of safety problems. 

Anthony Allen testified to the meeting that he had moved to a house in the Iron Triangle area largely because of the attractive park across the street, but soon learned that it had become a haven for violence and drug use.  "I want you to imagine that sitting at your dining room table helping your daughter with her homework, when you have to hit the deck for fear of bullets coming through the walls."

City Manager Bill Lindsay promised to work with community members from park neighborhoods and subsidized multi-family housing to develop the codes of conduct within sixty days, and promised to provide additional security and the most dangerous parks.  He promised to convene a meeting of the owners of the project housing and to hold them accountable for effective security in their buildings.  He also agreed to implement another of CCISCO's demands, to create summer employment for youth rehabilitating blighted Iron Triangle properties and turn abandoned land into community gardens.

As she told the meeting, Gwendolyn Goodbeer's brother Clyde Ralph Smith died shortly after being taken to the hospital.

"This is my city," she said. "I don't want to see it burn.  But I have a fire in my heart...
I have been apart from the problem of violence in my city too long
I am not going to be afraid
I am not going to be silent
I want us to be one people again, one city united
I want peace in our neighborhoods
and I want jobs for our people."

TAKE ACTION
For further information about the campaign to fight violence in Richmond through jobs, training, and mentoring, contact CCISCO