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	Clergy Rev. Jeffrey Brown Rev. Ray Hammond Rev. Eugene Rivers Mark Scott
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Mark Scott
Director, Ella J. Baker House
Ten Point Coalition

One of the things I think we've learned is that you've got to really be there. It's one of our philosophies. And so the reason why I think we've had some impact on this neighborhood is that we're here. If something happens, I'm right here.

Nobody has the language that we have. Nobody can talk about peace, hope and love. A probation officer's objective in a person's life is that you don't re-offend. "I don't want you to go back out there and commit a crime and break some chapter and verse in the Mass General laws." My goal for a person's life is that you have peace, love and joy, that you have hope. And nobody else has that language. It's good that you don't want somebody to re-offend, that's an important thing. But there's another level of language that we bring to the table.

Well, it won't erode because a lot of the relationships are so layered now. It's a relationship between the Commissioner of Police and Superintendent of Schools. But it's also a lot of relationships between residents and teachers and regular patrol officers. And it's just such an inter-connecting kind of web that if one piece sort of stumbles and breaks down a bit, the other pieces can kind of make up for the slack, and put some pressure on those other pieces that are breaking down to pull themselves along.

One thing is the kids do it themselves. You know, being resilient and finding a way. Most kids would rather play baseball than sell drugs, given a choice. So that's what they did.

And if you came around here ten years ago, if you were an eight, nine, ten year old kid, and you came out on your porch, that's what you would see, just people in the drug dealing, street corner gangster kind of lifestyle. So you either went back in the house and tried to avoid it, or you tried to get yourself into the mix. And now that a lot of the gangs around here are gone, when they got taken off by the police, by turning their own lives around, by burning out, by going to jail, we were here to replace it.

So now, a kid comes on his porch and it's still a very poor neighborhood. It's a distressed neighborhood. There's still enough drugs and violence to go around. But there is something else here now too. And so it gives them a little bit of an option.

We have developed what I call "pick up the phone" relationships. So if I need to reach out to somebody in the Department of Youth Services, or somebody in the courthouse, or somebody in the Suffolk County House of Correction, or somebody in the Police Department, then I can call them. Or vice versa, they can call here. So there is a network of people that you can call up to work on very specific problems.

I think one of the interesting things about the cops and the clergy that I think has happened is that they are both historically reactive places. They were both trying to mature and go beyond being reactive to engaging in community organizing. The police via community policing and the church via building coalitions. So we’ve both been evolving together. As they do community policing, they find a certain amount of community in the churches. And as we try to do long range planning, we found some institutional partners in the law enforcement community.

I don't think we can ever go back to the bad old days where you didn't have these kind of relationships. I don't think it can erode.