The Nassau Guardian
Urban Renewal plans to visit every New Prov. home
Urban Renewal officials will begin canvassing inner-city communities next week to obtain a profile of households, the program’s Co-Chair Cynthia ‘Mother’ Pratt said yesterday.
Pratt said the canvassing will begin in areas that have Urban Renewal centers and then expand to other communities throughout New Providence. There are Urban Renewal centers in nine constituencies on the island.
Pratt anticipates the process will be completed in a few months.
On Friday, Prime Minister Perry Christie announced that the government had instructed officials of Urban Renewal to launch the data collection program.
Pratt said officials will get information on the needs of people throughout the island, particularly those from poor backgrounds, and examine how their circumstances connect to crime.
“We are hoping that we will be able to collectively take it door to door and have enough persons to get this information and try to see if we can understand some of the challenges people are facing and also to know who is in the house, things that need to be addressed,” Pratt told The Nassau Guardian.
“We will know right off the top if something should happen in the area, who needs what.
“This is the only way you’re going to gather information and then you will be able to address some of the challenges, and in that way we will be able to address the crime. That is what we did in the first Urban Renewal [program].”
Urban Renewal was launched by the first Christie administration.
“We will be properly organized so we won’t be duplicating anything and we will co-ordinate it with social workers,” Pratt continued. “The members of Parliament also will assist because they had to campaign and they are likely to know where a lot of people live, and so that will cut down on the foot work.
“We don’t know where the problems are so it must be the whole island, but it will take time, but we will deal with those inner-city [areas] first.”
Pratt, who served as minister of national security in the first Christie administration, said Urban Renewal is not a panacea for crime, but is an instrumental part of the government’s crime-fighting strategies.
Pratt said the prime minister has assured that the new campaign will get additional funding, but she said she does not know the exact amount.
In the 2012/2013 budget, the government allocated $15 million to introduce initiatives like Urban Renewal 2.0 and facilitate home repairs and community improvement in the inner-city.
The government allocated $10 million to Urban Renewal in the 2013/2014 budget.
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