Pia Hansen: Urban gardens offer gang alternative
Last spring, I heard from a reader in the West Central neighborhood who was worried about a string of fires – this was before an actual arson investigation had begun.
Usually, people who call the paper are eager to see their names in print. They are activists, concerned citizens, whatever you want to call them – and I guess this reader was as well, with one exception: This reader did not want to get in the newspaper.
When I asked why, the reader said: “Nothing but bad news comes out of West Central – I don’t want to contribute to that.”
I didn’t understand where this reader was coming from, but after spending some time talking with Connie Copeland Malone – co-founder of Riverfront Farm and lead organizer of Jobs not Jails – and Pastor W. Thomas Soeldner of Salem Lutheran Church on West Broadway, I’m beginning to see the light.
On Friday, Riverfront Farm’s Farmhouse is having an open house in the late afternoon, inviting neighbors to stop by and visit, check out the yard, meet its newly hired urban farmers and find out about projects that need to be completed.
What’s the connection, you ask, among farming and gangs and arsons and West Central?
Riverfront Farm is an employment and ecology project for at-risk and gang youth of the West Central neighborhood.
The project’s farmhouse sits on one of six garden plots spread throughout the neighborhood, waiting to be cultivated by residents. After spending this winter getting organized, come spring Copeland Malone hopes Riverfront Farms will have not just the urban gardens up and running but a landscaping service ready to go staffed by West Central youth.
Actually, they have realized one important thing that most of the gang rhetoric is missing: Our gang problem is not just about graffiti. If we want to limit the impact gangs have on Spokane, we have to build a community where joining a gang is no longer attractive.
“Housing, poverty, gangs – all the issues are connected,” says Soeldner, whose church is hosting God’s Gym – a late-night basketball program – every Friday. “What we are talking about here is re-neighboring.”
Is that what you do when you drive all the “bad” neighbors off a block and clean up the neighborhood?
No. Re-neighboring, Soeldner explains, is about encouraging people with resources to relocate to neighborhoods that lack resources.
Wait, but that’s what the half-million-dollar condo owners are doing on West First – how is that not gentrification?
“This is about so much more than money,” Soeldner says. “The wealthy have a lot to learn from people with limited resources. Re-neighboring is about redistribution of resources through partnering (between people and organizations).”
And it’s about reconciliation between groups, he adds.
So how exactly does gardening – the project is part of HOPE (Helping Our young People Excel) – prevent gangs?
“This is about giving kids a different choice than just joining a gang,” says Copeland Malone when we meet at the Book Parlor next to Salem Lutheran. “It’s about giving them something to do between the time when school is over and someone is home at their house.”
Erasing graffiti and cracking down on the criminal activity of gangs are necessary – but it’s all about treating symptoms, not the root of the gang problem.
“We need to look at why there are gang kids,” Copeland Malone says. “We have not done a good job of being available to our youth. We have simply failed.”
Riverfront Farm is relying 100 percent on resources and support from West Central.
And no, not even God’s Gym is a thinly veiled missionary outfit.
“Some people are worried about that,” says Copeland Malone, “but as it often goes with these (outreach) programs, it’s the people of faith who show up.”