Department of Neighborhood Enhancement

Augusta
Department of Neighborhood Enhancement

Formerly Weed and Seed

This department was developed from the Barton Village Weed and Seed Initiative. As a part of the County’s plan to sustain the program. Then on January 17, 2006 commissioners to create a department to provide the same Weed and Seed services citywide.

Weed and Seed, a community-based strategy sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), is an innovative, comprehensive multi-agency approach to law enforcement, crime prevention, and community revitalization. CCDO oversees the Weed and Seed initiative.

Promoting the long-term health and resilience of the community is a true goal of Weed and Seed, so sustainability must be a key part of a site's structure. The foundation for sustainability involves maintaining the steering committee as a mechanism for ongoing implementation of the Weed and Seed strategy beyond the life of the grant and identifying and securing existing and new resources and funding sources.

Overview

Occupied shotgun homes in the Turpin Hill Community
Occupied shotgun homes in
the Turpin Hill Community

This is an overview of a county-wide strategy that would be a cooperative effort initiated by the Richmond County Commissioners, which involves the collaboration of services in coordination with those of local agencies to promote community and economic development. The department would utilize local partnerships to focus on revitalizing selected neighborhoods with social problems.

The department would be designed to assist in the efforts of enhancing the social, physical, and economic conditions that contribute to the building of healthy and

Public Safety ( Law enforcement and Community Policing)
Family and Community Enhancement ( Prevention and Intervention)
Education and Training
Restoration and Economic Development ( Community Revitalization)

Motto: “Making a Difference, One Block at a Time”

Mission Statement: It would be our mission to promote a comprehensive community-based strategy to create positive change in our communities through a multi-agency and collaborative approach to reflect the endeavors of residents of Augusta-Richmond County.

Goal: It will be our goal to enhance the quality of life in the communities across Richmond County by providing programs to empower social and economic change.

Vision: Safe and Thriving Communities

Core Compancy: Working within the best interest of our government and citizens.

Our Purpose

The mission of this department will be to initiate and sustain long term quality of life goals in areas ravaged by crime and other social problems. The task of the department would be to work through the coordination of appropriate public and private resources to accomplish all neighborhood enhancement projects.

Function

The Weed and Seed Director
embraces Community
Policing Officers from the
Sheriffs Office.

The function of this department will be to act as a liaison between the citizens and service delivery organizations in a problem solving capacity. The department will organize meetings in communities where there is a need for the redirection of social and quality of life issues. The department will establish a means to address the problems of the community by creating communication (Agenda for Action), finding service providers to address the problem and find resources to eliminate the problem. This analytical objective would be administered through contractual agreements.

The department will maintain partnerships with various organizations to whom would provide services. This collaborative effort would be secured by a memorandum of agreement. This contractual agreement will outline specific areas of effort which has been identified as the community’s “Agenda for Action.” One of the most important components of the MOA will be the dedication and ongoing technical support maintained by the Augusta-Richmond County Neighborhood Support and Development Department.

The department will ensure that there are partners from outside agencies who are linked in under the umbrella for neighborhood support and development. We will establish links between law enforcement, social services providers, educators and economic development organizations for the following four core area:

Public Safety - work as a liaison for a task forces comprised of Federal, State and local police and prosecutors to secure and sustain the safety of residents in the participating communities through intensive law enforcement that remove overt criminal activities and subsequently introduce community policing efforts and related community organization and resident mobilization efforts as well as appropriate pre and post adjudicatory correctional services.

Family And Community Enhancement - establish neighborhood-based service delivery centers in high risk areas to deploy a broad range of prevention, intervention and treatment services, both health and social service oriented, that are and very assessable to families and other residents within the participating communities.

Education - establish neighborhood-based opportunity academies that provide a highly integrated network of educational and vocational services to address the immediate and long term employment needs of the various resident populations in the participating communities and a prototypical university campus dedicated to working with a collection of disenfranchised populations.

Economic Development - establish a working relationship with community development corporations and related financial organizations organized on a municipal and neighborhood basis that secures and disburses the public and private resources necessary to encourage the establishment of businesses and industries and subsequently revitalize the participating communities both physically and economically.

Objectives

To manage the implementation of the county-wide strategies to encourage the participation of the target communities.
To expedite the coordination of Federal, State and local resources, both public and private, pursuant to specific plans of the participating communities through technical, policy and legislative support.
To manage all Weed and Seed endeavors; future and present.
To initiate a process and impact evaluation to access the effectiveness of the county-wide strategy throughout and immediately following its implementation.
We will work towards the following achievements:

Build Relationships
We build networking relationships with neighborhood organizations, block groups, civic organizations, business organizations, city departments, social service agencies, ethnic and religious groups, educational institutions and individuals for the purpose is of being proactive in addressing community concerns.
Community Assistance
As a County Department, we would assist Augusta Cares to assist in helping citizens in finding solutions to problems affecting neighborhoods to appropriate city departments.
Facilitate Collaborative Efforts
We help groups come together toward a common goal. We are the facilitation program to help groups work through a process and form a collaborative effort to better the quality of life throughout Augusta.