As a recipient of the Bureau of Justice Assistance grants, Organization for a New Eastside (ONE) has helped residents reclaim dozens of eastside streets from open air drug dealers, and shut down more than 100 known drug houses.

One of the worst of these streets was Dearborn Street, located between the stoplights of two major thoroughfares. Two-thirds of the homes on the block were abandoned because of bad loans, and resident flight. Most people in the community were afraid to drive down let alone take up residence.

“We can’t event get people to rent on this block, let alone buy a house,” said longtime resident Charlie Conover.

A phone call by a concerned resident to ONE in late 2001 started a two-year campaign to reclaim Dearborn Street, a street long forgotten by the surrounding community.

The phone call came from a woman who had just attended a ONE meeting in a local school. People at the meeting were talking about new trashcans and how much better their blocks looked, and she wanted some to be put on her block.

Because of the BJA grant, ONE was able to do more than sympathize with the caller’s plight. A community organizer was dispatched to meet with the caller and learn more about the situation on Dearborn.

Soon after, a block meeting was held at a church on the corner. It turned out that the block was in such disrepair that the only residents lived on opposite ends of the street separated by dozens of abandoned buildings. At the meeting, residents reunited and shared memories of a once proud and active block club.

It was discovered during the meeting at the church that several residents had contacted the Indianapolis Police Department about starting a Crime Watch and were told they couldn’t unless 50 percent of the houses on the block agreed. This posed a huge problem for the residents because not even 50 percent of the houses were occupied.

At that first meeting, residents and ONE staff etched out a plan to reclaim the block, starting with the trashcans.

Dearborn Block Club members decided to hold a meeting with representatives from the city trash department to press their cases for new trashcans, and the department agreed to the demands of the block club.

Realizing that they had accomplished something big, the block club went back to the police department with a new request for a Crime Watch to be set up on their block. Unfortunately, the club’s demands were not met, and the residents turned to the Police Department’s Community Policing Branch to help solve the crime problems on the block.

As a result of that relationship, for the next two years, block club members met regularly with their Community Policing Sergeant, the Narcotics Division and the district level prosecutor from the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office.

Sadly, also during the two years, a community-policing officer was shot and two homicides occurred. The block club organized a Court Watch to track the criminal cases of those arrested on the block, which resulted in lengthy prison sentences for the offenders.

In Sept. 2003, a domestic disturbance escalated into yet another homicide. ONE organized a neighborhood/landlord summit attended by the Indianapolis Police Department, the Marion County Prosecutors Office Nuisance Abatement and District Level Prosecutor and the Marion County Board of Health. As a result of that meeting, absentee property owners were put on notice that if they rented to drug dealers, they would loose their property.

In Nov. 2003, the Dearborn Block Club held its first annual block clean up, where neighbors shoveled gutters, trimmed trees and hauled away trash.

And last but not least, after two years, an Indianapolis Police Department Crime Watch Coordinator has agreed to help the group set up a Crime Watch on their street.