ANTI-CRIME PLAN FOCUSES ON UPGRADE IN QUALITY OF LIFE

Several Charleston City Council members put forward a plan Thursday that
would address the city's recent run of killings by tackling economic
disparities they argue are the root causes of violence. Raising the quality
of life in the city's poorer communities is just as important a
crime-fighting tool as a stepped-up police presence or more frequent drug
raids, they said. "We can Band-Aid the problem but if we do not go to the
root, we will not have real solutions, long-term solutions for the
community," said City Councilman Kwadjo Campbell. "We will continue to
suffer in the 21st century." Specifically, Campbell and four other
councilmen are proposing a set of policy changes and suggestions that they
plan to put before council during the next few months. The package includes
ideas such as: . Giving priority in affordable housing projects to
low-income residents who make below 80 percent of the median income in the
area. . Spanning the "digital divide" they said exists between wealthier
and poorer communities. This would be accomplished by tapping private
donors for contributions that would provide laptop computers to students in
poorer neighborhoods and modernize computer labs in peninsula schools. .
Taking a closer look at the need for improvements to parks, streets and
sidewalks and drainage systems in poorer neighborhoods. . Spending $100,000
in federal Community Development Block Grant money to train young men and
women in trades such as carpentry and plumbing. . Using CDBG funds to
provide loans to women- and minority-owned businesses in poorer
neighborhoods and to guarantee construction loans to developers of
affordable housing. . Encouraging the Medical University of South
Carolina's Department of Psychiatry to put an emphasis on working with
troubled youth in the community. "The problem is clinical as well as
criminal," Campbell said. The councilmen made the pitch at City Hall to an
audience of two dozen black leaders that included neighborhood presidents,
pastors and state representatives. Campbell asked that they support the
agenda by lobbying other members of council as well as people in their
community. He said the package isn't likely to pass unless it has broad
support. "We will have to lobby, we will have to push it. This is not a
cakewalk," he said. "What we are presenting ... is an unprecedented
agenda." City Councilman Wendell Gilliard, who along with councilmen Jimmy
Gallant, James Lewis and Robert Mitchell is also pushing the package, said
that the agenda is not driven by race. "This is not just about black
African-Americans, it's about the human race," he said. "This is about
social and economic injustice." Those attending made several suggestions,
such as finding ways to get more parents involved in school issues and
investigating whether banks are giving minority borrowers adequate access.
City Councilman James Lewis said he knows someone who planned to develop
apartments in the East Side neighborhood but was turned down for a loan
because of trivial issues in his credit history. "Are they redlining us? We
need to find out," he said. Comparatively little of the discussion directly
involved the recent string of murders that culminated in January's slayings
of a policeman and a rescue worker. But Lewis credited the city's police
department for stepping up efforts to crack down on the street-level drug
dealing many blame for generating more serious problems.