Public Safety Info: 2022 Community Safety Works Grants (DHCD)

2022 ended up being a great year for FHNA Public Safety grant awards. Through the MD Department of Housing and Community Development Community Safety Works grants we were able to secure $192,032 for multiple efforts within the Federal Hill community.

Spring 2022
In the spring cycle we were awarded $97,032 for two projects.

1. LPR Cameras ($63,262)
   One of the unique aspects to our community across the peninsula is that there are only a few points of entry/exit. In talking with BPD Command Staff from the Southern District and other community leaders it became clear that an effort to cover every point of South Baltimore with LPRs would be a task we could accomplish collectively. When you hear about multiple incidents or patterns of crime in our community more often than not they are being committed from a stolen vehicle. Vehicles are stolen in other district’s and brought into South Baltimore for the purpose of committing other crimes. By covering the entry/exit points with LPRs, BPD can ideally be alerted to the presence of a stolen vehicle in our community so that they might act prior to multiple incidents taking place. Also, if you are the victim of a car jacking or stolen automobile these LPRs will alert BPD to the direction your car was taken out of the community so it can hopefully inform connections with other cameras in the community/city. The funds requested are for two LPRs which should be installed near the footprint of FHNA.

2. Pedestrian Lighting - Battery Ave. and Federal Hill Park ($33,770)
   If you get an opportunity to talk to our current Major in the Southern District, Major Samuel Hood III, he will tell you about the importance of well lit areas on public safety. One area we recognized as being horribly lit was the stretch of Battery Ave. from Key Hwy. up to Warren Ave. Our goal was to purchase a few lamp posts to install along that part of Battery Ave. However, in the time that we were waiting for our grant funds to be dispersed, our friends from South Baltimore Gateway Partnership came in and installed several lamp posts. These have done an amazing job of increasing lighting along this stretch. At this point we are seeking to modify our request to either focus on Warren Ave along the park or lighting inside the park. We are waiting to hear back from DHCD on our request to modify so as to use these funds for lighting near Battery Ave and Federal Hill Park.

Fall 2022
In the fall cycle we were awarded $95,000 for three projects.

1. Right of Way Art Mural at Light St. and Warren Ave. ($60,000)
   Our largest project for the fall cycle was what BDOT refers to as a community-led placemaking right of way art mural. You can learn more about what that is here. The goal for this project will be to address some of the issues surrounding this key intersection. Currently, there isn’t a basic cross walk painted on the surface of the street even though there are pedestrian walk signs posted. This is the most basic element of pedestrian safety that is absent and has been absent for some time. In addition to proper crosswalks our project will also focus on creating a mural on the sidewalks and street surfaces under the theme of hope. Our artistic director, Saz Ross, will work to engage the students at Fed Hill Prep to get their ideas on what the artwork might look like. We will also seek to engage a handful of students from Digital Harbor who are seeking to pursue art as a career. Our goal would be to pay them similarly to how the YouthWorks program pays young people to serve in various parts of the city. We will seek to add some flex posts to the intersection to help direct traffic. Additionally, we’ll be looking to add some planters to the area filled with native plants as another element of traffic calming measures as well.

2. Cameras ($30,000)
   It doesn’t take long in a conversation with the new Southern District Major to understand how powerful cameras are as a tool for solving crime. Major Hood previously served as the CityWatch director prior to being assigned to the Southern District. There are city owned cameras in the community and there is a large network of privately owned cameras in the community as well. If you have a camera system at your home (even if it is just one single Ring doorbell camera) we would invite you to register via our community camera survey. This enables us to communicate with a specific subset of the community following a criminal incident. It helps to make the BPD Southern District’s response more effective and efficient which is important for a staff that is short handed. With this grant funding we (as well as other community partners) will be looking to add camera arrays in strategic locations in the community. These areas will focus on spots that don’t currently have city cameras or a strong presence of private cameras. We’ll be working with BPD, Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office, the Mayor’s Office and other community partners to determine the location and oversight of these cameras.

3. Connected Community ($5,000)
   The smallest portion of our fall grant award will be designated to what we describe as our connected community effort. This may pay for a community announcement board to be installed in a central location within the community. Or it may help us pay for additions to our website or to develop new social media platforms. We may look at using some of these funds to further advance our already successful block captain initiative through offering a matching grant for block parties or beautification efforts.

2022 was certainly an exciting year for grant awards in FHNA. However, the most exciting aspect of this is how multiple groups/organizations/associations have chosen to collaborate so we can do more together. We are not the only group to be awarded grants via the DHCD Community Safety Works grant application. Federal Hill Main Street, Riverside Neighborhood Association, and South Baltimore Neighborhood Association all applied and won grants as well. Hopefully in 2023 we can get more groups to step up and apply so that we can have even more funds pouring into the peninsula for community and public safety efforts.

If you would like to get engaged in what we are doing please email us at fhna.publicsafety@gmail.com. If you don’t live in the FHNA boundaries we would be more than happy to connect you with leaders in your neighborhood association on the peninsula.