INDIANAPOLIS – The Indianapolis East Promise Zone and the John Boner Neighborhood Centers have been awarded a Department of Justice (DOJ) Community Based Crime Reduction (CBCR) Grant. The three-year, nearly $1 million grant will be used to target root causes of crime in a portion of the IndyEast Promise Zone. The area includes Sherman Park, 10th and Rural, Rivoli Theatre and the 10 East Art and Design District, and Englewood Village.
The area designated for the CBCR grant is entirely within the 46201 zip code and is bounded by 10th Street to the north, Emerson Avenue to the east, Washington Street to the south, and Rural Street to the west. Statistics gathered by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) show this area, which accounts for about 1 percent of Marion County’s population, has a consistently high level of crime.
The CBCR grant money will be used for coordinated efforts by city departments, IMPD, community leaders, and neighborhood stakeholders to address key barriers in the area, including poverty, family economic instability, substance abuse, mental illness and a decaying environment. The coordinated efforts will include a focus on targeted enforcement, community policing and wraparound social service programs.
In 2015, the John Boner Neighborhood Centers, in partnership with the City of Indianapolis, received a federal designation from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as a Promise Zone. A committee was formed, Safe IndyEast, which as been meeting quarterly since 2016 and works to improve community policing, youth outreach and prevention, reentry, and public safety.
Work with the grant money begins this month and continues through September of 2021. Year one will be an intensive neighborhood planning process to develop community-oriented revitalization strategies that improve quality of life for residents and reduce crime in the area. Year two and three will focus on the implementation of that plan, pending its approval by the DOJ.