Stoneleigh Fellow Vincent Reina was featured by The Philadelphia Inquirer for research with his University of Pennsylvania colleagues linking home renovations in low-income neighborhoods to violence prevention.
I was born and raised in the Liberty City section of Miami, a crime-infested section of the city. My neighborhood had no tree coverage and was a mass of cracked concrete. There were no parks, swimming pools, or libraries.
Now I live in Philadelphia, a city with 116 homicides this year as I write this. Our mayoral candidates have proposed to declare a state of emergency, reimagine coordination between government agencies, funnel millions of dollars to gun violence suppression police units, crack down on low-level crimes, or install surveillance cameras in the neighborhoods experiencing the deepest state of crisis.
None of these policies inspires confidence.
