Organizing Functional Communities: A Community Intervention Approach

Organizing functional communities is a community intervention approach that would best apply to my community development project. The purpose of this project is to organize as a group, with a common interest, in order to improve the quality of life for our community. In this case, to clean-up the neighborhoods in our community in an attempt to thwart gang activity. The project started out small with a few volunteers from our Crime Prevention Center, all of whom are interested in keeping our community safe and free from unwanted gang related art work or graffiti. Hopefully, our efforts will become widespread throughout the community with the use of two key aspects at the foundation of organizing functional communities. These two elements include, technology, as well as, education. To begin with, technology has been used in the form of emails, advising committee members of upcoming meetings. The internet has also been helpful in the gathering of information and research
Graffiti has been prevalent for a long time. It is easy for people to become oblivious to seeing the same things day in and day out without even thinking about it or realizing that the problem has gotten worse over time as more and more gangs move into the area. While most graffiti is not gang related, many citizens may not know that any graffiti can attract dangerous gang activity. Once gang activity has entered an area it can spread like a bug infestation. Educating the public on how graffiti attracts more graffiti and other types of crimes, may give individuals the motivation they need to report the crime or even volunteer to be a part of the clean-up project. Technology can also assist with the education piece. Through social media or the City of Billings website, the educational information can easily be disseminated at a minimal