Framework of Block by Block Proposal for Safety and Security in and around the University of Georgia Campus and nearby Athens Community

(Please note this is a framework for our proposal to be presented in person as a Power Point)

Who We Are

UGA Parents for Safety and Security (over 3400 strong) and its 501c(3) SafeD Athens (over 1300 Athens residents and UGA students, parents, alumni) are dedicated to finding solutions to enhance safety and security on/off campus for students by working with law enforcement, city government, state entities, and the University of Georgia. We want to be proactive more than reactive when it comes to Safety and Security of our students. We do not want to be in the position of the University of Texas, searching for answers, after a homeless youth raped and murdered a female UT Longhorn student.

Request

We are requesting the University of Georgia fund an Outreach and Safety Ambassador program provided through Block by Block (an SMS Holding Company). Initially this program will service the downtown area (zone 2) and main campus community (zone 1). Initial costs are estimated between $850,000 to $1,500,000 annually. This amount will cover use of Safety Ambassadors for patrol and escort services in addition to Outreach Ambassadors downtown or zone 2 and also Safety Ambassadors for patrol and escort services on the main UGA campus or zone 1. Initial programming entails a 3 year commitment but services can be tweaked and/or added to programming depending upon the outcome of the metrics used to evaluate.

Need

University of Georgia students do not feel safe on campus or especially downtown at night. Residents and guests of Athens do not feel safe downtown at night. It is just a matter of time before a student, alumnus, or tourist becomes a fatality due to gang violence (unrelated to homelessness) or involved in trauma associated with a deranged homeless person unnecessarily left alone on the streets.

City government has spent hundreds of millions through TSPLOST, SPLOST, and The Classic Center Authority to revitalize the downtown area of Athens-Clarke County. While these are positive steps, downtown Athens (frankly all of Athens-Clarke County) continues to have serious gang related shooting incidents and an increased homeless presence. Since COVID, over the last 2 years, ACCGOV has spent over $9 million in additional federal and state money on homeless services. This does not include money for low-income housing programs or normal CDBG funding, DCA Section 8 vouchers, etc. Yet, we continue to see new unsheltered homeless faces living on the streets of Athens-Clarke County. While there is a correlation between increased homeless populations and crime, it is important not to equate homelessness in Athens with crime and gang activity. On the contrary, the homeless population is most vulnerable to the present gang activity given consistent drug use among chronically unsheltered homeless individuals. Criminals tend to hide among the homeless in unsanctioned camps; sell them illicit drugs; abuse them while unreported.

The reputation of the University of Georgia is negatively impacted by increased crime statistics (primarily shootings and assaults), increased homeless encounters by students, and overall cleanliness of Athens-Clarke County. Please review Facebook Postings on our page from parents detailing their thoughts about these issues. (attachment #1)

A robust ambassador/escort program through Block by Block would be a huge step towards creating a safer and cleaner campus and surrounding student community. This program through Block by Block, under control of the University of Georgia, could be viewed as a pilot for potential use elsewhere within the University and College System of Georgia.

Background

Crime

Recently on the newly renovated Clayton Street, 9 shootings occurred downtown within several weeks of each other. During this same time period, 4 more shootings occurred within surrounding neighborhoods including student housing areas. Please note that all 9 of the recent downtown gang related shootings occurred within the 500 yard UGA police law enforcement jurisdiction. Because of this spike in gang activity, a recently elected new commissioner hosted a “gang violence emergency meeting,” Nov 3rd, 2022, at his church. The intent was for all community members to brainstorm solutions to curb this increase in gang violence.

Data collection efforts on/off campus show that UGA students do not always feel safe on campus at night even with knowledge of the LiveSafe App and most certainly do not feel safe at night within the Athens downtown area off campus.

A UGA student was raped downtown in 2020. Students have been sexually assaulted and raped in/near parking garages. Students have been in the line of fire during gang shootings, including in gated student housing. Students have been targets of many car thefts, apartment break-ins, etc. A UGA student was killed downtown on Broad Street by a reckless driver possibly under the influence who was out on a DUI bond with a suspended license. She was thrown 75 feet when hit crossing Broad Street with a friend in an area frequented by students, alumni, and Classic Center visitors. A second UGA student was killed in a hit-and-run accident after walking home from an event.

Other crime data include - Downtown 6 armed robberies in one evening plus a large shootout on Clayton Street - Fall of 2021; Fall of 2021 law enforcement made an arrest for human trafficking inside a campus facility (Note: This suspect was recently acquitted of charges due to procedural failures of the DA’s office; 3 FBI Gang Task Force stings in a 12-month period netting over 150 arrests of nationally affiliated gang members and associates; Most recent shooting (last in the string of 9) happened on Clayton Street just after midnight following the University of Tennessee/UGA football game.

Shootings were up over 20% in 2022 with at least 143 reported shootings in Athens-Clarke County with 50% of them being gang related.. From 1/1/2021-12/31/2022 there have been 271 reported shootings with 43 shootings occurring within the 500 yard UGA jurisdiction. ACCPD data analyst assisted data collection with the following interactive arcgis.com map. The black background with red gun pinpoints on the map indicate reported shootings within the 500 yard jurisdiction of UGA police. Shell casing numbers are also categorized by jurisdiction.

Here are the results from the efforts of the gang task force resulting from two recent FBI stings in Athens-Clarke County.

Operation Tourniquet (Nov 2021) - Arrested 13 suspects labeled as drug traffickers and violent offenders. Previously, 37 individuals were arrested and charged in connection to this operation. This operation netted crystal meth, cocaine, crack heroin, controlled pharmaceuticals, cocaine base, fentanyl, a machine gun, 60 firearms, a land mine, and over $1 million in cash.

Operation WashOut Classic City (June 2022) was led by Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force and included FBI, ATF, DEA, GBI, GPS, ACCPD, and many others. 49 arrests to which 13 are documented gang members from - Ghostface, Gangster Disciples, Bloods, and 1831 Piru. Individuals in custody were arrested for probation violations of violent crimes, aggravated assaults, rape, and robbery. During the operation, LEO seized weapons and illegal drugs.

Between Jan 2022 - Dec 2022, the Athens ACCPD gang unit conducted 171 arrests with 365 charges. Of the 171 arrests, 63 individuals were confirmed gang members. 48 weapons were taken off the streets in conjunction with these arrests.

More compilation (certainly not comprehensive) of data from other incidents in Athens-Clarke County

Fentanyl Seizure (July 2022) - The ACCPD Drug Task Force arrested two people on Fentanyl trafficking along with cocaine and meth distribution. Fentanyl seizure was 2,000 doses or 196 grams.

Gang gunfire (July 2022) East Broad Street - 50 shots fired into a home by a street gang.

ACCPD (June 2022) - Nets their own arrests outside of the FBI stings to include stings of 47 gang members in a 4-month period.

llicit Drug Deaths - Athens-Clarke County

Opioid related deaths in Georgia increased by 207% from 2010 to 2020. Use of Naloxone to reverse overdosing has increased exponentially in Athens-Clarke County. ACCGOV has had to increase funding for Naloxone supplies to public safety agencies. Access Point in Athens-Clarke County provides free needle replacement services for drug addicts and directs them to available services. In 2021 (reported Dec 2022) there were 70 Fentanyl overdose deaths and roughly 89 additional opioid deaths in Northeast Health District (10-0) which includes Athens-Clarke County and 9 other counties (Advantage Behavioral Health also serves the same 10 counties). In May of 2022, ACCPD reported 25 overdose deaths (opioid drugs+Fentanyl, 5 months) in Athens-Clarke County. Through July 15th of 2022 this number climbed to 35 suspected overdose deaths. This would extrapolate to 65 deaths annually or roughly 40% of the reported 2021 number. Sonny Wilson, Athens-Clarke County Coroner, said in a July 2022 news report, that the county was at twice the number of drug overdose deaths as they were at the same time last year.

Anecdotally, on New Year’s Eve 2022, from just one ACCFES fire station, 3 overdose calls requiring the use of Naloxone occurred. All 3 cases were resolved with positive outcomes. One case was a college age person downtown Athens and 2 others were located in apartments near Vine and Gressom Streets. It was estimated that countywide there were roughly 5 to 6 overdose calls that evening. We also know that it is suggested parents include Naloxone in their student’s packing lists and that sorority networks are providing Naloxone to houses on a ‘just-in-case’ basis.

The following deaths are likely drug related and do not represent all “street” related overdose deaths in Athens-Clarke County within the time periods given. All of these incidents are the tragic results of dangerous and persistent criminal gang activity advancing the sale of illicit drugs.

August 2021 - Man found dead next to a dumpster at a business off Lexington Road.

Fall 2021 - OD death behind Whistlebury (now the Rive) near the Lark. Body had been there 2 weeks and was found by students. There have been more reports of dead bodies found in the river near this location.

Jan 2022 - Dead body pulled from Middle Oconee River near Macon Highway.

July 2022 - A dead body found in a wooded area off Lexington Road

Deaths of a 15 month and 6 month old babies exposed to Fentanyl (June and August 2022)

Sept 2022 - Woman drops off a dead body in dentist parking lot off Oglethorpe then vanishes

December 2022 - 61 year old man found dead with a syringe in his hand near the river across Willow Street from the Lark.

Jan 2022 - Dead body pulled from Middle Oconee River near Macon Highway.

Homelessness in Athens

Our homeless population continues to grow for a multitude of reasons. We know that roughly half of the homeless in Athens-Clarke County come to Athens from outside the county and have been in town less than 6 months with many approximately one month. We have documented evidence of homeless coming to Athens via bus, van, on foot, and dropped off by other counties (direct communications with service providers and ACCPD).

We also know that once here and entered into the ClientTrack HMIS (Homeless Management Information System) in Athens-Clarke County, individuals are then identified as Athens-Clarke County residents (direct communications with ACCGOV). This is more than likely a prerequisite to maintain federal and state funding sources.

The presence of Advantage Behavioral Health in Athens creates a hub for mental health services for the 10 surrounding counties. ABH is also the coordinator of street outreach services in Athens and is integral to the management of many homeless housing options in Athens. In 2022, they secured some type of housing for over 300 homeless individuals. Roughly 80% of their Rapid Rehousing efforts for homeless individuals have been located in Athens. While these are extremely important services for those inside and outside the community, they do place a disproportionate burden on Athens-Clarke County in terms of funding and adding to the workload of already burdened public safety personnel.

Athens-Clarke County provides 54% of the total funding supplied to ABH from the 10 counties they serve. Approximately 72% of ABH total funding is invested in Athens-Clarke County - $28 million.. ABH total revenue is just north of $40 million annually.

Advantage runs the only Crisis Support Unit available within the 10 counties.

Advantage runs homeless outreach services unavailable in surrounding counties per se.

ABH coordinates with the sanctioned encampment to track clients through HMIS.

With a disproportionate number of homeless residing in Athens-Clarke County from other counties, Fire Department Services are impacted, as the number one call to unsanctioned homeless camps are fire related, followed by overdoses, followed by medical health calls which are mostly diabetic related. In December of 2022 there were two extremely large fires within two weeks of each other at the same exact location. These fires left resources drained with limited capacity should another large fire have occurred simultaneously. Still under investigation, it is believed these fires which took days to extinguish were caused by careless homeless camping at the location. In the last couple of years, ACCPD reports 6 hours per day is spent attending to calls involving homeless individuals.

The Athens Homeless Coalition acts as the Continuance of Care authority for HUD funding, etc., for Athens-Clarke County. Required by HUD, annual Point-in-time homeless population data is collected and published. Between COVID and the spread out nature of unsheltered homeless populations in Athens-Clarke County, it is difficult to obtain accurate numbers valuable to identifying trends.

One of the best ways to identify trends specifically in the unsheltered homeless street population is to look at ACCPD calls over time. From this graph you can clearly see the unsheltered street homeless population is increasing in Athens-Clarke County.

Our Mayor and Commission have not addressed panhandling through ordinances or the presence of homeless individuals sleeping on the streets. All the while, Advantage Behavioral Health has difficulty finding needed employees to increase outreach services. ACCPD has created a dashboard comprising homeless data where the top 10 offenders for ‘number of calls’ are tracked.

M/C authorized $2.5 million (ARP SLFRF funding) for a sanctioned encampment within a mile of UGA and provided $314,000 for a ‘Portland Loo’ (College Ave and Clayton Street) which is essentially a homeless port-a-potty known to attract illicit behavior including drug use. Please note this Portland Loo is located within the 500 yard UGA police jurisdiction.

Benefits of Block by Block to Stakeholders – UGA, ACCPD, Business, Advantage Behavioral Health

Benefits to all Agencies:

Block by block is fully insured and takes all liability for the implementation and management of the program

Block by Block uses a platform they built and proprietary called SMART Technology. SMART stands for Statistics Management and Ambassador Reporting Technology

Core Functionality of the SMART Technology includes Basic activity entry, Maintenance Reporting, Incident Reporting, Persons of Interest Interaction, “Board Ready” Reporting, Supervisor Auditing, Ambassador Walk Paths, Activity reporting by property/business/parcel, Automatic sending of Reports, Street fixtures management database, BBB Management Site Visit Audits, Customer Portal to Best Practices and Reporting.

All agencies can be connected – ACCPD, Advantage, UGA Police, Maintenance Depts, etc. could have access to the real-time data. It also brings accountability to the field with staff logging in and out within area locations. ACCPD is scheduled to implement the Julota platform to integrate service histories of current/past inmate populations (possibly HMIS clients in the future) coming from the various services providers, i.e., Advantage Behavioral Health, Piedmont Regional, Corrections Department, District Attorney Office, etc.

All modes of transportation are available – auto, bicycle, scooter, walking, depending upon geography and needs. Block by Block Ambassadors job descriptions may vary depending upon program needs and given zones with stakeholder input. Ambassadors also can work flex shifts in any/all given zones with stakeholder input.

Benefits to the University of Georgia:

Crucial to UGA would be the presence of Safety Ambassadors on the streets as a deterrence to illicit behavior and gang activity. Recently, we have seen 9 localized downtown shootings in the same area; 4 more outside of downtown in the same time period. The perception of safety is enhanced by their presence.

There is a strong desire and perceived need to implement an escort service on campus. Ambassadors can be escorts on or off campus by demand on a flexible schedule. A call number for an ambassador walking escort could be provided to students. A student survey could be conducted initially to estimate the scope and hours needed for escorts.

Ambassadors may selectively monitor student activities for reporting purposes, communicating findings with appropriate UGA staff. For instance, underage drinking could be a highlighted activity by downtown ambassadors. Ambassadors could become escorts for the safety of inebriated students on weekends.

During football season (other high impact events), Ambassador presence could be increased, adjusted for game days to help with crowd management, handing out maps, parking, and general hospitality on and off campus, or zone dependent.

Ambassadors could focus on monitoring parking garages on and off campus at night or peak hours, providing escorts as well. This could be even specific to one garage of interest or time of day.

Select student housing could be their focus, perhaps with landlord buy-in.

The Student Center and Campus Libraries could be of focus. UGA Police could tailor the needs dependent upon ambassador reporting, UGA Police staffing levels, camera locations, etc.

Benefits to ACCPD:

As mentioned, having Safety Ambassadors on the street is a deterrent to illicit behaviors including gang activity. On a real-time basis, Safety Ambassadors can communicate observations, incidents, and situations to the Athens-Clarke Police Department (ACCPD) as a proactive measure of assistance.

ACCPD reports spending 6 hours per day on calls involving homeless persons and has created a dashboard devoted to nothing but tracking homeless incidents and selected individuals. Having unique Outreach Ambassadors can reduce the number of homeless calls. Studies have shown that more engagement with unsheltered homeless on the street reduces unwanted public incidents and detours their level of comfort loitering and camping directly on public thoroughfares. ACCPD has roughly 40 officer vacancies – the presence of Safety Ambassadors can free up officers to attend more serious calls and affording time to offer more community policing efforts.

ACCPD Uses 3 co-responder teams for mental health calls. They are funded for up to 7 teams but have difficulty finding credentialed staff. These teams frequently deal with unsheltered homeless who have mental health issues and addictions (roughly 60% of the street population). Having Outreach Ambassadors may help alleviate some of their burden.

ACCPD now assigns officers on bicycles to patrol the 9 miles of walking/biking trails in Athens-Clarke County but with low frequency. It is important to note that students do not use the trails because of crime and stalking incidents. Female students in general will not walk these trails alone. Safety Ambassadors may be employed on bicycles to assist patrol of these 9 miles of trails with new trails being planned.

Benefits to Business Owners:

Ambassadors may relieve business owners of having to provide security. For instance, Chick-fil-A provides security 5-8pm Monday thru Thursday and a former security guard at lunchtime to closing at 10Pm on peak days. The primary focus for this security is to deter unsheltered homeless individuals from loitering and harassing customers. Business owners could ask Outreach Ambassadors to engage with homeless or Safety Ambassadors to simply patrol looking for certain types of incidents around their establishments. Examples – loitering, panhandling, theft, etc.

Business owners could at times ask Ambassadors to hand out coupons, etc. and have the phone number of a Safety Ambassador to call to assist with an annoyance or incident.

Ambassadors may be contracted to maintain the Portland Loo – this facility is frequented by homeless in and around downtown.

ADDA is reviewing architectural landscape designs for the area near the Elections Office (across from Condor Chocolates). This is a new area that will need to be monitored for homeless sleeping, panhandling, and illicit activity.

With the expansion of the Classic Center handling more large events, Safety Ambassadors may play an important role in its success by offering information and cursory level incident control.

Benefits to Advantage Behavioral Health:

Outreach Ambassadors may circulate through the Baster Street Library to assist the Advantage Outreach person who is only there on a part-time basis. Tracking a Block by Block created homeless “most active” list at the library may help Advantage know where people are congregating. There are several other locations for this as well. It is known that on any given day, there are typically at least 20 homeless individuals using the library for internet, sleeping, bathroom facilities, and gathering.

The library employs security guards during periods when ACCPD cannot make rounds efficiently. Safety or Outreach Ambassadors may assist by offering real-time incident reporting for agencies to better understand homeless needs at the Baster Street Library and other locations.

Outreach Ambassadors may engage with the Barber Street Homeless Encampment. Currently, many unsheltered homeless will not go to the camp and camp reporting is an issue. Advantage Behavioral Health does HMIS (Homeless Management Information System) intake at the camp one day per week. Outreach Ambassadors may help get intakes done more efficiently under the guidance of ABH by locating those in real-time who need to complete an intake.

The Alternative Response Team (mental health team) is comprised solely of mental health clinicians and managed by Advantage Behavioral Health. This program is designed to relieve ACCPD of fielding mental health calls. Again, staffing is an issue for this program. While programming is not exclusively to assist homeless individuals, again a significant amount of time is taken with this population. Outreach Ambassadors may assist this program through engagement with the unsheltered street homeless. Also, since there is a shortage of social workers for hire in these jobs, Outreach Ambassadors employed by Block by Block, could be targeted by the UGA Dept of Social Work to help provide training and certification necessary for them to join the ART or the ACCPD co-responder teams.

Block by Block Proposed Program

Because of increased interactions and incidents with unsheltered homeless individuals on and off campus, SafeD Athens (our 501c3) contracted with Block by Block to do a 5-day on-the-ground assessment and provide recommendations re: homelessness in Athens-Clarke County. Our goal was to build a BBB program based on data that will reduce the influx of homeless into Athens and facilitate homeless services to those already here, thereby reducing crime and incident calls related to unsheltered homeless individuals.

These data were instrumental in prioritizing BBB program functions (ambassador types, hours, locations, etc.) for our initial program approach and design. Included with this proposal outline is the actual assessment conducted and our summary of findings.

The Backbone of the program

Safety Ambassadors monitor street level activities and report any potential incidents in real-time to alert law enforcement or other involved agencies. They are eyes and ears on the ground and are tasked with providing escort to students on an as needed basis. An escort telephone number is provided for students to call if needed. These Ambassadors may help local businesses with any potential public nuisance issue while also providing hospitality toward local patrons (offering directions, helping carry packages, handing out coupons, motorist assistance, parking meters, etc.). They can also be assigned to sweep sidewalks, pick up trash, weed abatement, and other general maintenance. They are not law enforcement nor appear as law enforcement but through their patrols they track activities in real-time and communicate back to law enforcement. They act as a deterrent to crime, identifying trends in public behavior, all the while providing a welcoming experience to downtown guests and escorts for students as needed for various reasons.
Outreach Ambassadors - Specialized Ambassadors trained (many with social work backgrounds) to connect with the unsheltered street population. Studies show that the more a homeless population is engaged on the street the more likely these individuals are to move on or accept help. Through engagement we will see the number of homeless on the street drop within the zone areas we talk about below. Engagement means connecting the homeless with services in real-time, maintenance tracking of high frequency homeless individuals, and reporting of incidents. These Ambassadors will be helpful to both Advantage outreach and ACCPD. Ambassador BBB data entered into the SMART System can be shared directly to both ABH and ACCPD by providing each agency with SMART System Application access. Outreach Ambassadors as necessary can fill in for Safety Ambassadors.

Zoning

Program design is flexible and also fluid depending upon scope, needs, and budget. Geographical areas or zones are defined so that Ambassador teams can be assigned and held accountable for service to a zone. The amount of time spent in a particular zone is completely flexible so is the number of ambassadors at any one time. A zone may be void of Ambassadors during certain hours or numbers may be increased during certain hours but all data are logged into the SMART System by defined geographical zones. Athens-Clarke County is unique as it can be viewed as a fairly large city geographically or a very small county and maintains a unified government with both a County Sheriff and ACCPD operations. There is also a lot of green space even within the core of the downtown area which makes patrolling more difficult. Bike patrols are extremely useful in certain zones with larger geographies or bike trails, etc. Zones can be any size and consideration should be given based upon the types and density of services required in an area.

For an initial program effort we are proposing two zones. Zone 1 is the main campus area defined by Broad Street to the North, College Station Road to the South, the West edge of Campus, and the river to the East. This area does not include any off campus but close by residential patrol areas could be added. Safety Ambassadors may escort a student off campus to student housing within the 500 yard jurisdiction of the university in any direction.

Zone 2 includes Downtown Athens and a small section outside the 500 yard jurisdiction solely for outreach ambassadors to better interact with unsheltered homeless living off of North Ave and Willow Street.

Scheduling Hours for Zone 1 and Zone 2

We have reviewed data from all sources and propose the following staffing levels for both zones 1 & 2.

Zone 1

Safety Ambassadors in Zone 1 (on Campus patrols) will patrol on bicycles in teams of 2 during the night hours. The size of the UGA main campus lends itself to the use of bicycles while on patrol.

A phone number to call will be provided to all students which can be used to request a safety ambassador meet and escort them on campus or within the 500 UGA police jurisdiction.

In effort to disperse homeless individuals on campus, an Outreach Ambassador is assigned for morning and afternoon to evening hours daily (8 hours total per day). Pre-identified buildings such as libraries, the student center, dining common areas, etc. will be patrolled and visited by an Outreach Ambassador daily. Their findings will be accessible for use by Advantage Behavioral Health to facilitate homeless services from various providers in Athens-Clarke County.

Zone 2

Safety Ambassadors in Zone 2 (downtown Athens) in teams of 2 will be used to patrol during the night time hours. No night time hours are provided for Sunday evenings. 5 hour patrols are used on Mon-Wed nights while 8 hour patrols are assigned Thurs-Sat nights until 3am on Sunday morning. These are the hours students are usually downtown with the largest presence on Thurs-Sat late when bars and music venues close at 2am. Safety Ambassadors will be patrolling all of downtown with emphasis on Broad Street, Clayton Street, and College Square.

A phone number to call will be provided to all students which can be used to request a safety ambassador meet and escort them on campus or within the 500 UGA police jurisdiction.

One Safety Ambassador will be available during normal business hours to assist businesses and may act as a hospitality ambassador providing needed information to patrons of downtown businesses. They will also act on patrol for any incident which requires their attention. Student escort services will not be available during these daytime hours from the downtown area.

The majority of homeless contact will be within Zone 2. In effort to disperse homeless individuals from the downtown area, an Outreach Ambassador is assigned for morning and afternoon to evening hours daily (8 hours total per day). Predetermined hotspots where homeless individuals are known to congregate will be patrolled and outreach efforts made. A fluid list of individuals known to Advantage Behavioral Health will be identified in the SMART System for tracking and communication purposes to ABH. All data and incident reporting in the SMART System will be made accessible for use by Advantage Behavioral Health to facilitate homeless services from various providers in Athens-Clarke County. ABH may have access to the SMART System application for real-time decision making for individuals they track in the state mandated HMIS called ClientTrack.

Note that Zone 2 contains several parking garages and some dense multistory student housing complexes.

Costs

With the proposed level of staffing we estimate the cost of initial programming to be between $1-$1.25 million for a one year contract and would include a 3-year committment to Block by Block. A 3-year committment allows them to staff appropriately and allows time to collect metrics on performance annually to tweak program details. Block by Block programs are flexible and fluid. Dependent upon real-time community needs, ambassador type and hours can shift and change zones.

Key to this programming is leadership by team leaders. Since we have two zones identified we have funded two team leaders, one for each zone. These team leaders would handle ground operations and also perform safety and outreach ambassador duties. They would be responsible and accountable for data entry to the SMART Technology by ambassadors.

Use of bicycles requires some extra BBB training so low turnover rate of safety ambassadors is key to successful bicycle patrols. Given flexibility, depending upon campus needs, bicycles patrols may be periodically diverted to patrol the walking/bike trail section in Zone 2.