Central City Weed & Seed

Combining Hi-Tech and Hi-Touch to Achieve Results

Background

Weed & Seed is a U.S. Department of Justice funded strategy that brings law enforcement, public, and community-based organizations together to improve life in traditionally high-crime neighborhoods. The shared goals of the strategy are to prevent, control, and reduce violent crime, drug abuse, and gang activity. In April 2005, Central City Weed & Seed of Grand Rapids received the first year of up to five years of funding focusing on a 0.74 square mile area of the city’s Southeast side.

As part of the evaluation for this strategy, CCWS is required to conduct an annual random sample survey of residents in the Weed & Seed designated area. For help in this, they turned to CRI. As CRI worked with CCWS, it quickly became apparent that it would not be possible to conduct a survey through the mail or by telephone. These two methods generally carry low response rates which would not generate a sample large enough to be statistically valid. In addition, because the Weed & Seed designated area does not conform to any ZIP code or telephone prefix boundaries, it would be impossible to guarantee that respondents actually reside in the area.

Hi Tech

CRI proposed that the best option available to collect data from verified residents of the designated area was to conduct a door to door survey. By using data taken from the City of Grand Rapids land parcel data set, GIS specialists at CRI were able to create maps showing the location of every address that falls within the Weed & Seed designated area. A researcher used software to generate a random sample of addresses that would give every resident of the area a statistically equal chance of being interviewed for the survey.

Hi Touch

In order to complete the survey in a timely and cost-effective manner, Weed & Seed chose to recruit volunteers to interview the randomly selected residents. Researchers at CRI designed training materials for the volunteers and led a training workshop where volunteers had the opportunity to practice their interviewing skills. Immediately after the training volunteers went out into the neighborhood and collected a large number of interviews.

The Results

Because of the combined efforts of CCWS, CRI and the dedicated volunteer interviewers, residents of the Weed & Seed designated area have an annual opportunity to share their perceptions of neighborhood safety, desirability, and issue priority. The data they provide informs the ongoing planning of the CCWS strategies. Everyone involved in this project shares the goal of making the designated area a safer and more desirable place to live.