Thread: SC-Crime-ridden neighborhoods targeted by new group

Crime-ridden neighborhoods in southern Beaufort County targeted by new group
By LIZ MITCHELL
lmitchell@islandpacket.com
843-706-8169
Published Monday, August 18, 2008


Tucked away from major roadways in Bluffton and on Hilton Head Island, some residents are living in poverty in neighborhoods fraught with crime and drug and alcohol abuse.

These residents are often unemployed, have little education and have limited or no access to health care and social services.

Organizations exist to help pay the rent when times are tough, provide food for hungry families and temporary shelter for the homeless. But a new local group says such temporary assistance is not enough, and a permanent solution is needed.

The Neighborhood Outreach Connection, formerly known as the Latin American Council, says it will focus on finding that solution through a variety of efforts aimed at empowering the residents to improve their lives.

The group plans to start with three troubled locations:

• Bluffton House and Simmons Cay Apartments off Simmonsville Road in Bluffton

• A cluster of apartments on Hilton Head off William Hilton Parkway and Southwood Park Drive consisting of The Oaks, Sandalwood Terrace Apartments and Hilton Head Gardens

• And the Squire Pope, Wild Horse and Gumtree road areas on Hilton Head.

"Poverty. Hunger. Social distress. All these things compound as the economic slowdown continues," said Narendra Sharma, a retired World Bank economist and chairman of the group. "The only way to change it is to empower people socially, economically and politically. ... They (the residents) have to be part of the solution and also have a stake in how programs are implemented."

The NOC is broadening its outreach beyond the Hispanic community to include all races, focusing especially on low-income families, low-wage workers, day laborers and new migrants, Sharma said.

In July, the group received $53,000 from the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry to support the promotion of social and economic progress in neighborhoods with a high rate of poverty, said spokeswoman Carolyn Torgersen. The Heritage Classic Foundation also donated $10,000 to help the group establish high school general equivalency diploma, or GED, programs.

The NOC is looking for more volunteers and financial backers, but Sharma said project launches have begun. He and outreach director Luis Bell, former executive director of the Latin American Council, have met with apartment managers to pitch their project and are planning resident meetings over the next few weeks.

To change the distressed areas, the group intends to first compile demographic data and information about where residents are going, if anywhere, to find help.

This information will be used to create neighborhood profiles in what Sharma calls "mapping the need."

Then a "spearhead team," consisting of neighborhood leaders and experts in social services, health care, microfinance and education, will develop programs unique to each neighborhood's needs.

The group intends to bring assistance to the neighborhoods by doing the following:

• Creating education programs to teach English, offer GED classes and vocational training

• Establishing a database of referral services

• Facilitating access to social services, health care, personal finance assistance, affordable housing and legal services

• Encouraging voter registration to promote participation in the political process

• Starting drug and alcohol prevention programs

• Offering microfinance (small start-up loans) and entrepreneurial guidance.

The Native Island Business and Community Affairs Association plans to provide the business assistance, said CEO James Mitchell.

"What we are looking at is providing technical assistance for small businesses, working with the banks and trying to find capital for businesses," Mitchell said. "We will work with what's already there in fostering business start-ups."

Kelvin Peoples, also on the NIBCA board, said he would be coordinating GED programs and youth mentor programs.

Peoples has been collecting contact information from men between 16 and 30 who are interested in obtaining a GED.

The NOC plans to offer classes to help those in need of education and is also developing a video/DVD or online course for those without transportation or who need a flexible class schedule.

Peoples is also mentoring young men in The Oaks, Sandalwood and Hilton Head Gardens area -- where recent violence has included shootings and the unsolved murder of Harry Fripp III. Fripp was stabbed in the parking lot of Sandalwood Terrace on April 9.

"For so long, a lot of areas have been neglected," Peoples said. "This project is coordinating agencies to create a definite change."

Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner commends the NOC's efforts to improve public safety and community welfare, but said the group shouldn't offer services to illegal immigrants who live in these neighborhoods.

"I think there are families in our community that do need help, and we need to focus on what that need is," he said. "But one of the things, I think, has agitated the community is they are vocally overlooking or, to a degree, ignoring the fact that we're talking about foreign-born illegals. That cannot be overlooked."



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And we keep importing more poverty...