Baltimore. A city where one tragedy has had a lasting impact about the way crime will be handled all over the country and the world forever. But what about those of us who live in Charm City?
We are left cleaning up the remnants of a broken city. Violence in Baltimore has reached an all time high since the death of Freddie Gray in April and the rioting that followed it. The trials are starting but the ripples of his death are still very evident in the community today.
There have already been 282 homicides so far this year and if the number continues to increase, it will surpass 300 homicides for the first time since 1999, when 305 people were murdered. Baltimore is a city of about 623,000 people and has nearly surpassed New York City — which has 8.4 million residents — in homicides so far in 2015. Almost 100 people have been murdered in Baltimore in the past three months alone.
The federal government has began to take action because of the increased rate of homicides. Baltimore received $1.5 million dollars from the government to combat crime in the city.
They are focusing the money towards the youth mainly, in programs like the Safe Streets program. There are already four such organizations throughout Baltimore and this money is going toward another location in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood. The program’s main goal is to reduce the number of shootings in general, which is at around 775 this year so far, by having ex-offenders mediate conflicts.
Another large part of the money is going to the Department of Justice, which is to focus on engagement in the faith community by hiring an outreach coordinator.
As a part of the Baltimore community, this problem concerns me and I’m happy to know that the government is taking initiatives on the issue. Baltimore has always been a city of extremes.
From the Inner Harbor, where people from all over come to see the National Aquarium and Orioles games at Camden Yards to the boarded up row houses on the other side of town, where dealing heroin in alleys and selling cheap booze from liquor stores behind bulletproof glass are seen as normal.
This issue has forced these two divided sides of Baltimore together, making Baltimore deal with this issue as a whole. Baltimore has long been divided, but for the first time in a while, the issue seems to have new hope for the future. With the new funding, along with the concern all over the city, Baltimore has the chance to recover.
