To the Editor:
September 28, 2011

I want to thank you for the great coverage of the Window Dressing on the buildings at 3512 and 3516 Independence Ave. This project has been a goal of the HELP Center’s Public Safety Committee for many months, and thanks to Rebecca Koop and the Northeast Arts Council, it was brought to fruition with 10 artists working in the rain to address this blighted building. We also thank Nate Pare and Mike Schumacher of the KCMO Neighborhood and Community Services Department for their partnership.

While the committee members realize that painting boarded up windows doesn’t eliminate blighted and abandoned buildings, we do know that research shows that such activities as caring for blighted buildings, cleaning up neighborhoods, creating block watch programs and Community Improvement Districts and an active police presence walking the streets discourage criminal elements from hanging out where they don’t belong because they know the neighbors care and are watching their every move.

This activity in turn encourages the neighbors to clean up their properties, lets them know others care about them and want to improve their conditions and in turn an entire community is lifted up. We as residents, business and property owners, neighborhood association boards and agency leaders must come to understand that we are a diverse community in many ways and we cannot isolate ourselves but instead must connect beyond our own block or neighborhood and get involved in key issues that negatively affect our entire community’s quality of life-crime and grime.

Leslie Caplan
HELP Center Public Safety Committee Chair