Norwood News

An explosion of street violence upended three Bronx communities in recent days, taking the lives of two teenagers and severely injuring a girl, all of whom appear to be ordinary kids guilty only of crossing paths with errant gunshots. (On Thanksgiving, three people were shot on the Grand Concourse, near Fordham Road.)

Crime is indeed down, but that doesn’t change the realities of these tragically truncated lives or the neighborhoods that have not benefited equally from otherwise welcome statistical trends.

There is no single answer to solving this problem, but there are many things that can help and we should try them all and more.

Here are just a few:

• Whatever your opinion of Mayor Bloomberg, he is a national leader on the gun control issue. We should support his efforts any way we can.

• As stated above, there are neighborhoods where the city’s statistical drop in crime has not been felt on the street. When the inevitable budget cuts are proposed to cope with the economic downturn, cuts to youth programs and police should be a last resort, especially in neighborhoods where crime has gone the opposite way of the citywide trend. In fact, we need to find a way to increase funding for youth programs, whether that comes from the city, state or federal government.

• Advocate for jobs that pay a living wage. Poverty is a major determinant of community safety, and even wages of $10 an hour, like those being sought at the Kingsbridge Armory, still barely pull a family of four above the poverty line.

• Just pay attention. Get to know your young neighbors by name. Ask them how they’re doing. Help them with their homework. Volunteer at a local youth program.

Last week, Heidi Hynes and her staff at the Mary Mitchell Family and Youth Center in Crotona gathered an impressive array of community leaders, elected officials and youth together for an emergency meeting after a daytime shooting spree alongside the Center’s playground led to a troubled apartment building where a 19-year-old died.

In attendance were Council Member Joel Rivera, Fordham University president Joseph McShane, and Chauncey Parker, who directs a program overseen by the federal drug czar.

A number of programs were discussed but no new resources were yet offered. It was obviously just a beginning. But these discussions are important and they must continue.

We all need to be a part of the solution by taking action in ways large and small, and advocating loudly for the resources our neighborhoods need.