Economic Security

Resident goal: Communities that have well-paid, stable jobs that provide enough to meet individual and family needs, access to quality housing, food, and healthcare, and agency in their economic future. Residents emphasize economic security as foundational to sustained community safety.

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Resident rationale: The experience of poverty is the most common factor underlying a lack of safety in a community. A decrease in poverty should be the leading measure of a safe community.

Resident rationale: Community residents face barriers to consistent employment, including discrimination, long commutes, and lack of affordable child care and quality education and training, and they struggle to make ends meet with jobs that are low-paid and do not cover living expenses. Employment in jobs that are accessible, pay a living wage, and allow for wage and income growth is a key measure of economic security.

Resident rationale: The ability to save for the future was unavailable for most residents who experience economic hardship. Developing and growing savings and assets is a key measure of economic security and future thriving.

Resident rationale: Housing is often the biggest expense for residents. Access to affordable, secure housing is a key component of economic security, and homeownership can also contribute to economic security and mobility.

Resident rationale: Many residents experience food insecurity and rely on government and non-profit services for consistent access to food. Increased food security is a key measure of increased economic security.

Resident rationale: Healthcare costs are often prohibitive for residents without jobs that offer insurance. High healthcare costs mean that residents forgo necessary medical care, which can undermine their physical health. Access to consistent healthcare is a key measure of economic security.

Economic Readiness

Resident goal: Communities that are equipped with the quality education and employment preparation needed for residents to succeed in the economy. Residents discussed economic readiness as a driver of economic security, as well as an indicator of the community investment and opportunity necessary to community safety.

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Resident rationale: Youth struggle to access quality education and other extracurricular opportunities that might expose them to academic and professional pathways, and disconnection from those activities can contribute to engagement in activities that undermine community safety.

Resident rationale: Youth struggle to access quality education and other extracurricular opportunities that might expose them to academic and professional pathways, and disconnection from those activities can contribute to engagement in activities that undermine community safety.

Resident rationale: Educational attainment is crucial to accessing well-paid, stable jobs and continued economic opportunity and is an important measure of economic readiness.

Resident rationale: Without pathways to attaining quality employment, residents do not have the foundation necessary to building economic security, and they see a need for increased investment in effective job training and placement programs. Access to those programs is, therefore, a key measure of economic readiness.

Local Economy

Resident goal: Neighborhood economies that support and sustain locally-owned-and-operated businesses that provide residents with quality goods and services, as well as employment and wealth-building opportunities. A thriving and equitable local economy contributes greatly to resident economic readiness and is an essential component of economic security in a community.

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Resident rationale: Locally owned businesses are pillars for local communities, providing wealth-building opportunities for business owners and employment opportunities for local residents. Community business ownership is a key measure of a local economy that supports economic security.

Resident rationale: The stability of locally owned businesses is threatened by poverty and gentrification. The stability of community businesses is a key measure of a local economy that can support sustained economic security for residents.

Resident rationale: Residents struggle with the limited number of businesses in their local neighborhood and often have to travel to access quality goods and services. Residents are often forced to choose from unhealthy and low-quality options. Availability of all essential goods and services is a key measure of a thriving local economy.

Resident rationale: Minority business owners often struggle to access the credit necessary to start and grow their businesses, and residents struggle to access affordable banking products. Access to affordable banking and credit is a key measure of a thriving local economy.

Physical Security

Resident goal: Neighborhoods where residents feel protected from physical harm. Most residents see a role for police in that protection but emphasize a need for community-led policing that can build alternatives to violent policing and foster relationship-and trust-building. A security force that is community-directed was described as an approach that could reduce incarceration and violence, and provide safety for the whole community.

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Resident rationale: Residents and police fear each other in ways that lead to police misconduct and undermine the safety of residents. Decreased use of force and invasive policing is a key measure of increased safety.

Resident rationale: Residents struggle with the high incarceration rates of family and community members and over-policing of their neighborhoods and schools. Decreased policing of small offenses and decreased incarceration overall are important measures of physical security.

Resident rationale: Many residents express a desire for community-led policing, where residents could help determine how policing happened and who patrolled the neighborhood. An expansion of community-led alternatives to existing policing is a measure of an increased sense of physical security.

Resident rationale: Violent crime has a big effect on whether people feel physically secure in their communities. Although it is only one of many indicators, a decrease in violent crime is still an important indicator of safety.

Public Services

Resident goal: Accessible and affordable public services that meet the needs of residents. Public services can provide essential support to communities who are economically insecure, allowing them to build towards longer-term security.

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Resident rationale: Residents indicated that mental health was a major challenge in their communities, given the effects of intergenerational poverty, violence, and incarceration. Mental illness was commonly cited as a cause of violent crime making access to quality and affordable mental health services essential to individual and community safety.

Resident rationale: Residents struggled to access healthcare services that are affordable, local, and of quality. Access to quality healthcare underlies physical and economic security and is, therefore, a key measure of safety.

Resident rationale: Particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, where remote schooling and working were the only options, many residents struggled to participate due to a lack of reliable broadband internet and access to computers. Access to broadband and appropriate technology is essential to the economic security that comes with engaging in the modern workforce and education system.

Resident rationale: Access to adequate transportation has major implications for people’s quality of life. Many residents struggled to access reliable transportation, which served as a barrier to employment, education, and other essential services. This is particularly true for senior residents and those with disabilities, who struggled to come by ADA accessible transit stations. Transit access is a key driver of access to employment and education opportunities, which are essential to economic security.

Resident rationale: Support for basic income, food, housing, and child care needs enables people to sustain themselves, providing short-term physical and economic safety while enabling them to seek to establish longer-term economic security.

Built Environment

Resident goal: Neighborhood physical spaces that are clean, accessible, functional, and beautiful. Residents describe investment in shared spaces as important to making people feel valued in their community, and well-kept spaces are both indicators of and contributors to economic and physical security.

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Resident rationale: NYCHA residents face crumbling and hazardous infrastructure, including buildings without working doors, elevators, and cameras, apartments with long-overdue repairs, and trash-covered outdoor spaces. Neglected spaces affect how people feel about their communities and can attract crime, making them a key measure of decreased psychological and physical safety.

Resident rationale: Poorly-maintained housing and other public infrastructure produce an unpleasant physical environment and adversely affect resident health. Poor environmental quality is a measure of lack of community safety.

Resident rationale: Residents highlighted access to gardens and other green spaces as important to their psychological well-being and physical health, making them an indicator of increased safety.

Community Power

Resident goal: An organized and engaged community that acts together through democratic structures to set agendas, shift public narratives, and cultivate relationships of mutual accountability with governmental decision-makers.

* As a domain for measurement, community power is significantly more complex than the domains above. Community power is both a catalyst for all of the above safety domains and exercised in distinctly context-dependent ways, varying significantly based on the needs, goals, and relationships of a particular place.

Given that this project seeks to measure safety in NYC, we explore community power in the context of the NYC government’s existing safety programming. Residents spoke of community power as a primary driver of community safety, and so we developed an evaluation framework for safety programming with community power as the primary target.

See the next section for a discussion.