When HUD stopped funding the Public Housing Drug Elimination Program, RIHA did not abandon its commitment to ensuring the safety and well-being of the residents it serves. Instead, the Rock Island Police Department (RIPD) and RIHA partnered to develop the Community Policing program. The RIHA-funded program maximizes the Liaison Officer's talents and commitments and increases her visibility and availability to residents. The program established a true sense of goodwill and cooperation between residents and the police department and reduced crime and crime-related activities at all properties by 50% during the first year of its implementation. The RIHA Community Policing Program has allowed the Liaison Officer to establish strong lasting relationships with multiple public housing individuals, families and children. The success of the program has created a new awareness and mutual respect within the community between authorities and residents alike. She has also been actively involved in expanding the number of supporting partner organizations and agencies.

The Community Policing Program allows the RIHA Liaison Police Officer to:

	Be an advocate for the elderly, disabled, families and children living in public housing
	Be a positive role model for the children and youth in the community
	Coordinate safety, educational and self-sufficiency activities with RIHA Self-Sufficiency Programs
	Be a "friend" and someone that can be trusted and depended upon no matter what
	Provide hands-on involvement and support
	Respond to, intervene, refer, report and accompany victims of domestic violence and child abuse to appropriate social service agencies
	Be actively involved in the lives and the positive life-changing experiences of the residents
	Accompany residents to a variety of meetings, interviews, interventions and appointments with community and social service agencies
	Establish an annual bicycle round-up working with kids to register their bikes and teaching bike safety. The program has eliminated stolen bikes in the area
	Bring the police department into the housing authority to build a strong rapport with residents
	Create an atmosphere and opportunities to build strong positive relationships between other officers and departments and public housing residents
	Open doors for communication, cooperation and support between authorities and residents
	Get more police departments involved at the properties by making vacant housing units available to officers for various training sessions including room and building searches, SWAT team exercises, how to extract dangerous individuals from buildings and role-playing hostage situations. The training sessions also allow officers to become familiar with the properties and apartment floor plans and become acquainted with residents. The very visible presence of the officers also is a deterrent for criminal activity
	Set-up and oversee neighborhood watches
	Provide training for drug prevention and how to identify drug related activity, problems and/or use
	Provide training on how to identify and prevent gang related activity on RIHA properties
	Develop and teach yearly safety programs that include the fire department, juvenile detectives, community caring conference, and the youth services bureau to let kids know the consequences of bad behavior
	Provide police car rides complete with hands-on operational light and siren instruction
	Sponsor and chaperone annual trips to Great America and local water parks for public housing kids in the summer
	Sponsor and chaperone an annual read-a-thon at Martin Luther King Community Center for public housing kids

Bicycle Give-Away
The RIHA Bicycle Give-away is volunteer program initiated by the RIHA Liaison Police Officer. She and RIHA maintenance staff solicited funds, purchased the bikes and organized repair efforts and gave away 19 pre-owned bikes to economically disadvantaged children. The public housing children, who were between eight and nine years of age, did not own bikes. The event is a positive community-based program. It is an opportunity for children and parents alike to learn the bicycling rules of the road and gain some valuable safety tips. It builds a rapport between police officers and children and adults; between maintenance staff and public housing residents; and between residents and local business owners. The drawing was followed with pizza, pop and a bicycle safety rodeo presented by the Rock Island Police Department. Other children with bikes participated in the rodeo and each child who did not have one received a helmet.

G.R.E.A.T. Program
Rock Island Housing Authority (RIHA), the Rock Island Police Department (RIPD), Martin Luther King Community Center (King Center) and the Rock Island-Milan School District #41 collaborated to deliver the federally funded Gang Resistance Education And Training (G.R.E.A.T.) Program to elementary and middle school children in Rock Island, Illinois. The G.R.E.A.T. program compliments the already existing District #41 Positive Behavior Interventions and Support (PBIS) program. The primary G.R.E.A.T. Police Officer received two weeks of instructor training as part of the program. The one-year grant funded program began September 1, 2007 and will run through August 31, 2008.

The G.R.E.A.T. program is a school-based, law enforcement officer-instructed classroom gang prevention curriculum. The program is designed to encourage positive behavior in school, at home and within the community. It is based on the concept that when children have a safe, secure, peaceful environment in which to learn, they will thrive and have the opportunity to reach their full potential as successful contributing members of their families and communities.

The three District #41 schools that are participating in the program include Edison Junior High School, Rock Island Intermediate Academy and Frances Willard Elementary School. These schools were chosen because they host the majority of the children living in RIHA public housing and/or whose parents are Housing Choice Voucher recipients. These schools were also experiencing higher levels of negative behavior than other schools in the district and therefore would benefit the most from the program.

The G.R.E.A.T. program consists of four components. The elementary and middle school components are delivered to participating 4th through 8th grade students during the regular school day by two RIPD police officers. The program will be taught three times over the course of the school year. The G.R.E.A.T. classroom experience also encompasses activities including skits, panel discussions, roundtables, mock-trials and field trips - each of which are provided by multiple program partners.

Continuing G.R.E.A.T. program outreach will be provided at three after school venues including Edison Junior High School, the Intermediate Academy and the King Center. These programs run from Monday through Friday with time slots ranging from 3:00 PM through 7:00 PM depending upon the venue. Activities include life-skills training, Spanish Club, computer skills training, master gardening and music and dance lessons supported with homework assistance and tutoring. The primary G.R.E.A.T. - trained officer will be available during these sessions to reinforce the lessons taught during regular school hours.

The summer component of the program will take place at the King Center and will become part of its already established summer program. Transportation to the King Center for the summer program will be provided. The primary G.R.E.A.T. - trained officer and the Teen Reach Coordinator from King Center will oversee this component. This course will run for eight weeks and include mock-trials and field trips and is open to children from the entire community.

In addition to the three primary program partners, RIHA has identified a number of partner organizations that will provide programming focused on life-skills lessons, decision making skills, behavioral training and personal development including the Youth Services Bureau, Rock Island County Juvenile Probation, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Workforce Investment Board/Partners in Job Training, the University of Illinois Extension and Bethany for Children and Families.