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METLIFE FOUNDATION COMMUNITY-POLICE PARTNERSHIP AWARD WINNER
REBUILDING LIVES
AND COMMUNITIES
Richmond, VA
COMMUNITY SAFETY PAPER SERIES
LOCAL INITIATIVES SUPPORT CORPORATION –
COMMUNITY SAFETY INITIATIVE
LISC is the nation’s leading community development support organization. Since 1980,
LISC has helped resident-led, community-based development organizations transform
distressed communities and neighborhoods into healthy ones – good places to live, do
business, work and raise families. By providing capital, technical expertise, training and
information, LISC supports the development of local leadership and the creation of afford-
able housing, commercial, industrial and community facilities, businesses and jobs. LISC
established the Community Safety Initiative in 1994 to support strategic alliances between
community developers, law enforcement and other key stakeholders in troubled neighbor-
hoods. The partners’ work creates strong, stable and healthy communities by reducing
persistent crime and disorder and spurring economic investment.
METLIFE FOUNDATION
MetLife Foundation, established by MetLife in 1976, is a long-time supporter of LISC’s
community revitalization programs. In 1994, the Foundation made a $1 million leadership
grant to pilot the Community Safety Initiative. MetLife and the Foundation have also made
below-market rate loans and grants of almost $90 million to the organization. For more
information about the Foundation, visit www.metlife.org.
COMMUNITY SAFETY PAPER SERIES
This publication is part of a series published by LISC’s Community Safety Initiative as part
of the MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Awards program. Sponsored by
MetLife Foundation since 2002, the Awards celebrate and promote exemplary community
safety strategies bolstered by collaboration between police and neighborhood leaders. For
other case studies and papers in this series, please visit www.lisc.org/resources.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We gratefully acknowledge MetLife Foundation for its continued support of the Community
Safety Initiative and strong dedication to public safety partnerships around the country.
We would like to also thank the police and community development leaders who participated
in the awards process as application readers: Lisa Belsky, Bill Geller, James Jordan, Tom
Lattimore, Nancy Howard, Jennifer Leonard, Maria D’Angelo, Theron Bowman, Ken Miller,
Jerry Oliver, and Gregory Saville.
The authors and publishers are solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and
interpretations contained herein. Such interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views
of MetLife Foundation.
Writing: Charles William Wilson
Design: B. Boyle Design, Inc.
2009 AWARD WINNER
REBUILDING LIVES AND COMMUNITIES
Richmond, Virginia
LEAD PARTNERS: Unable to sustain itself in the face of the sudden emptiness
of many of its properties, Highland Park suffered in the following
Boaz & Ruth decades from neglect and poverty. It earned a reputation in the city
Richmond City Sheriff’s Office for drugs, theft, and murder. Ellen Robertson founded Highland
Richmond Police Department park Community Development Corporation and began the slow
and steady process of restoring the empty houses and selling them
to homeowners.
In 2001, Martha Rollins supported her friend Ellen’s vision
of a healthy community by using her experiences as a longtime
Richmond antiques storeowner to start a nonprofit, Boaz & Ruth,
that focused on revitalizing the commercial corridor. With a vision
of a healthy community of healthy people, Boaz & Ruth took a
three pronged approach: work with the community citizens most
in need; create businesses and jobs in the commercial corridor;
connect Highland Park with people outside its borders to change
perceptions and attract resources for sustainable transforma-
tion. In time, the organization would work closely with the police
department and the sheriff to mentor returning offenders so that
the individuals who once helped “destroy” the neighborhood with
illegal enterprises were now contributing to positive commercial
Boaz & Ruth and the Richmond Police Department celebrate their 2009 redevelopment.
MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership award. Left to right: Boaz & Ruth’s work offers examples of how a community can
Sheriff C.T. Woody (Richmond City Sheriff ’s Office), Chief Bryan Nor- help ameliorate crime through targeted intervention, by develop-
wood (Richmond Police Department), Martha Rollins (Boaz & Ruth) and ing viable economic alternatives to crime, and by leveraging the
Matt Campbell (MetLife). police department as a supportive force rather than as a punitive
one.
Highland Park is a neighborhood that reflects Richmond, Virgin-
ia’s troubled racial history. Founded in the 1880s as the city’s first
BLOCKBUSTING
Martha Rollins’ path to Highland Park was unlikely. In 2001, she
streetcar suburb, the community grew over the following decades
was working in Richmond as the owner of an antiques store called
into a collection of attractive Queen Anne revival and craftsman
“Martha’s Mixture.” Rollins had grown up outside of Richmond
bungalow single-family homes. In the 1960s, however, the neigh-
and had been a witness to an unfortunate legacy of entrenched
borhood became a victim of sudden and dramatic white flight.
racism. Her family’s house had been on Plantation Road, and the
Within a few years, two-thirds of the homes in Highland Park were
theme of her senior high school yearbook was “The Old South,”
vacated. It might be said in Richmond what a Chicago newspaper
offering a romantic version of the Confederacy. As a young woman,
once said of several neighborhoods there: that “integration” was
though, she had moved to New York and had heard Malcolm X
simply the period of time that passed between the appearance of
and Martin Luther King speak. She had had a black boss—a sce-
the first African-American family in the neighborhood and the exit
nario that she says would have been unimaginable to many in her
of the last white.
former community.
MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Award Winner 2009 / REBUILDING LIVES AND COMMUNITIES: Richmond, Virginia 3
Rollins wondered if she could do anything to bridge the ineq-
uity she saw in Richmond. Wealthy patrons of her store had
much more than they needed, she knew, and yet she also saw deep
poverty all around her. She voiced her feelings at a Richmond
women’s roundtable. She said she had the desire to take donated
furniture and goods from the wealthy patrons of her store and start
a business in a more distressed area, offering both jobs and hope. A
member of the roundtable, Ellen Robertson, mentioned an empty
space in Highland Park. “I said, ‘Oh no, Ellen, we don’t want to be
in Highland Park,” Rollins said. “It’s too dangerous.”
As soon as the words escaped her lips, Rollins says she realized
that she should consider the neighborhood. “I’m not known to live
in fear,” Rollins says.
Highland Park had an aging population when it underwent a The Harvest Store, a used furniture store is one of the many new enterprises
radical upheaval in the 1960s. The neighborhood rapidly emptied created by Boaz & Ruth to revive business on Highland Park’s commercial
of its white population, an exodus that matched a pattern in urban corridor.
areas across the country. In many cases, the migration was brought
on both by the fear of racial integration and the rise of a new boarded up. The neighborhood was drained of resources and job
suburbia made possible by Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway Sys- opportunities. With so few options available, young men turned to
tem, cheap gasoline and affordable cars. Neighborhoods like High- other methods to make an income. Drug dealers operated on the
land Park were also often affected by “blockbusting” on the part corners of Meadowbridge Road; dealers all tended to wear white
of real estate agents; as soon as the first black families moved into t-shirts and black pants every day, a tactic that the police soon real-
the neighborhood, agents told residents that crime would soon rise ized made them unidentifiable from one another should a resi-
and that the neighborhood would be “broken.” These fears seem dent call in with a tip or complaint. Nearly half of the population
to have played a part in the role of the rapid sell-off in Highland lacked a high school diploma, and it was one of the prime points
Park, as families unloaded their houses rapidly over a period of a of return for the roughly 9,000 men and women released from the
few years and often at a discount. Blockbusting allowed real estate Richmond city jail each year, most of whom would find their way
agents to make quick commissions because of the rapid turnover back to jail again. A single street corner in the neighborhood had
of houses—both in Richmond and throughout the country. seen six murders in two years.
LIFELAB
Rollins recalls her first visit to Highland Park. As she drove through
a corridor of four to six blocks that were all boarded up, she saw
young men loitering on street corners. There were only two viable
businesses in the commercial corridor: a convenience store and an
auto body repair shop. From a business point of view, it made little
sense to locate in an area with such a bad reputation. Yet Rollins
said she also thought “every dollar we spent would help the neigh-
borhood just by creating an economy.”
So late in 2001—with the help of a $150,000 challenge grant by
Congressman Bobby Scott (right) visited Highland Park to get a tour of the one of her antique customers and a matching $150,000 from First
Boaz & Ruth projects that led to a transformation of the community. Presbyterian Church —Rollins, assisted by six former offenders,
opened Boaz & Ruth in an abandoned 7,500-foot hardware store
By the late 1990s, Highland Park was considered so blighted on Meadowbridge Road. The inventory had been donated from
that commuters would deliberately drive around it. More than half the patrons of her antiques store. The organization was named
of the buildings in the area were empty by 2000, many of them “Boaz & Ruth” after the bible story of a wealthy landowner who
shares his wealth with a stranger.
4 MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Award Winner 2009 / REBUILDING LIVES AND COMMUNITIES: Richmond, Virginia
Early on, Rollins and her staff began to reach out to the police
department and sheriff ’s office to support their unique approach to
One of three former drug houses
community revitalization. Sherriff Woody had the benefit of get-
restored by employees of the
Boaz & Ruth company, Cathe- ting to know some of the inmates in the jail who would be return-
dral Construction. Many of ing to the neighborhood, and he would often put people in touch
the newly renovated apartments with Boaz & Ruth even before they were released. “I would say,
have gone to individuals par- ‘This guy is getting out six months from now, you guys need to
ticipating in the Boaz & Ruth interact with him and give him something to do,’” Woody said.
training program to reintegrate “And as they began to achieve results, people started believing in
former offenders and the unem- them.”
ployed in the neighborhood.
HUGE, CARING HEART
Rollins and her chief operating officer, Claude Stevens, structured
the training program with the goal that its participants would also
Rollins’ broader hope is to renew community investment and play a direct role in the revitalization of the Highland Park commu-
provide the community’s residents with opportunities for success. nity. They both recognized that the furniture store would not pro-
She realized that in the past, many outsiders have come into neigh- vide enough work or space for the number of people who needed
borhoods they have not known only to have their good intentions their services. As Boaz & Ruth’s financial and organizational
crash against a harsh reality. Highland Park seemed particularly capacity grew, it began to acquire some of the neighborhood’s
resistant to hope; it was home to some of the highest numbers most blighted buildings. Among them was a long abandoned 1915
of repeat offenders in Virginia. The reason for this was no mys- firehouse provided to them by the City of Richmond, and three
tery. “They are in jail, they get out, they have nothing to do,” says former drug houses.
“They are in jail, they get out, they have As Boaz & Ruth took on these properties, it simultaneously
fostered new micro-enterprises to fill the unique opportunities
nothing to do. They are put back in the same provided by them. A company called Cathedral Construction
community with no jobs and no education. was founded to provide training for a dozen people who were in
the organization’s yearlong training program. The participants
There was no after care.” learned through apprenticeship with an experienced contractor
— Richmond Sherriff C.T. Woody as they converted the firehouse into a restaurant and community-
gathering place; Boaz & Ruth was able to raise $500,000 to reno-
Richmond Sherriff C.T. Woody, who has worked in Highland Park vate the stucco-and-brick building through donations, historic tax
since the late 1960s both as a beat cop and as a homicide investiga- credits and grants.
tor. “They are put back in the same community with no jobs and
no education. There was no after care.”
Rollins earliest steps were to initiate a transitional jobs and
training program that sought to reintegrate former offenders and
the unemployed in the neighborhood into a sustainable life. The
aim was both to provide immediate paid work while also building
social skills, work readiness and skills for self-sufficiency—abilities
that would allow participants to retain work in the future.
To graduate from the program involved a yearlong commitment.
The workday typically begins at 8 a.m. with classes that address
everything from cooking and home maintenance to reconnecting
Boaz & Ruth renovated a vacant firehouse into the Firehouse 15 restaurant.
with estranged family members. Then at 10:30 a.m., “LifeLab”
The restaurant is operated by Boaz & Ruth graduates and apprentices and
begins: paid apprenticeships. The men and women learn employ- serves as a neighborhood gathering space and a business incubator for local
ment readiness skills as they work at jobs and service assignments entrepreneurs.
to revitalize the community. The training builds abilities that help
people to find other paid work even if a single job falls through.
MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Award Winner 2009 / REBUILDING LIVES AND COMMUNITIES: Richmond, Virginia 5
The construction crew also restored former drug houses in
LEAD PARTNER FAST FACTS the neighborhood into clean and safe apartments. Many of the
new living spaces went to people in the Boaz & Ruth training pro-
Boaz & Ruth
gram. A small moving company (“Mountain Movers”), furniture
Established in 2002
restoration business (“Parable Restoration”) and catering business
(“Diamond Catering”) were soon added to Boaz & Ruth’s reper-
Development history:
toire of small businesses. All of these businesses were opened by
Redeveloped problem properties formerly incarcerated men and women as a way of “giving back”
Created community gathering spaces including a to their community. With the renovation of the firehouse alone,
Boaz & Ruth was able to train and pay stipends to 30 formerly
restaurant and garden
incarcerated men over a period of a year and a half.
Started six commercial enterprises Rollins also sought to use Boaz & Ruth to create a new atmo-
sphere between the police department and the community.
Notable Programs and Activities: Though the Richmond police had long attempted to use a com-
Boaz & Ruth and the Department of Public Works munity policing model, there was a high level of distrust of law
employment partnership enforcement in Highland Park. The presence of Boaz & Ruth
gave the police a natural venue to demonstrate a more collab-
Long Walk to Freedom orative role with residents. “With police officers, you often see the
hard stuff,” says Rollins. “I did not realize what huge caring hearts
Richmond Police Department our law enforcement officers have.”
Chief of Police: Chief Bryan T. Norwood Rollins saw this aspect of law enforcement when police officers
agreed to serve as mentors for ex-offenders in Boaz & Ruth’s reen-
Special Initiatives: try training program, providing guidance as the students drew up
Community Assisted Public Safety personal development plans. The Chief of Police and Sheriff also
began to faithfully attend the annual graduation of Boaz & Ruth’s
Police Athletic League
training program. They also hosted the event at the Police Acad-
HOPE Unit emy. Rollins speaks of these graduation ceremonies as offering a
spirit of reconciliation; at one graduation, she remembers an offi-
Volunteers in Policing
cer hugging a new graduate that he had arrested five years before.
In time, the collaboration between Boaz & Ruth and the police
became more expansive. Boaz & Ruth opened the front part of
one of their buildings in the neighborhood to the police for a tru-
ancy reduction program that involves a team of juvenile officers
who monitor young people skipping school. The officers seek
to intervene with families and potentially to connect the young
people to city services—hopefully before they have any more sub-
stantial trouble with law enforcement. In 2007, the police chief
Rodney Monroe also played an important role in establishing a
relationship between Boaz & Ruth and Richmond’s Department
of Public Works. Boaz & Ruth now receives city funding to hire
and support 30 to 50 people who work on or drive the city’s solid
waste trucks. This arrangement provides both community jobs
and sustainability for the organization.
“What Boaz & Ruth does is essential to community policing,”
A partnership between Boaz & Ruth and the Richmond Department of says John Hall, who was precinct commander in the district for
Public Works led to the creation of more than 30 city jobs for Highland four years, and who says his department benefited a great deal
Park residents. from the collaboration with the community group. “They are con-
6 MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Award Winner 2009 / REBUILDING LIVES AND COMMUNITIES: Richmond, Virginia
structing something that brings entrepreneurship into the com-
munity and teaches someone ‘how to fish.’ That can’t help but be
LONG WALK TO FREEDOM
a good thing.”
RESTORECORPS
The results this far indicate that Boaz & Ruth’s efforts have indeed
been a good thing. The total number of crimes committed in
Highland Park from 2006 to 2008 dropped by more than a third,
a decrease four times larger than the Richmond city average in the
same period. And the recidivism rate of the students that graduate
from the Boaz & Ruth yearlong training program is only 10 per-
cent, compared to a state average three times higher. Seven new
businesses in the area provide more than 60 new jobs to area resi-
dents. Of 65 people who participated in the Boaz & Ruth training
program in 2008, 46 were able to secure stable housing—many
of them now residing in the eight residential buildings that the Over 400 walkers participated in the “Long Walk to Freedom”, an
organization has helped renovate. event hosted by the partnership to raise awareness around restorative
justice.
Among the lives affected by the efforts of Boaz & Ruth is
Alton Mitchell, whose family moved to Highland Park in 1968. By
the time Mitchell was nine, he had tried drugs; as a teenager, he Rollins has repeatedly sought to use her organization to heal
dropped out of school. By 2008, he had served time both in fed- divisions between Highland Park and wealthier communi-
eral and local prisons and had suffered from a heroin addiction. ties in the city. “People in white gated communities often
When Mitchell returned to Highland Park, he was connected with don’t know that they’re locked up,” says Rollins. “Once they
Boaz & Ruth. He began the life skills training and was assigned to come over and discover relationships in this community, it’s
construction. “I had done a little bit before,” Mitchell says. “But wonderful.”
I learned much more. We were doing so many different things: Beginning in 2007, the Richmond Police Department and the
drywall, painting, carpentry, a little bit of plumbing.” Sheriff’s Office have partnered with the organization to host
Mitchell says the program gave him paid work, marketable the “Long Walk to Freedom,” a walk to raise awareness of the
skills and a more solid foundation both emotionally and materi- challenges of reentry. The walk begins at the Richmond City
ally. “It is hard for an ex-convict to come home when there are Jail with Sheriff Woody saying, “ You’re not free just because
no jobs,” says Mitchell. “Doors were closing in my face. This is a you leave this place. It’s a long walk to freedom.” Last year
wonderful program. They need more programs like this one.” the route led over 400 walkers past critical places of influ-
Rollins and her staff have begun to consider how the model ence in the reentry journey: the courts, probation and parole,
they have created in Highland Park might be cultivated else- department of social services, the capitol and the governor’s
where. One way, they feel, is for the federal government to make mansion. Police, trustees from the jail, recently released for-
some slight rule changes in the grant provisions for AmeriCorps, mer offenders, families of inmates and Richmond citizens
which provides a stipend and an education grant for individuals caring about restorative justice travel the 3.5 mile journey
participating in service work. Boaz & Ruth hired several former culminating in displays set up by nonprofit and government
offenders through the program in 2005. Rollins has proposed service providers about the challenges facing those who have
five changes to the existing rules that might expand AmeriCorps recently been released from jail or prison. In 2009, the walk
work with ex-offenders through the creation of what she calls a raised $12,000. In total, Boaz & Ruth estimates it brought
“RestoreCorps,” where ex-offenders could receive modest assis- 2,400 people from outside the community to Highland Park in
tance as they do the work of restoring and assisting their own 2008 through its community events. Rollins sees these efforts
communities. “There is documented evidence that people who as tools to break down fear and negative perceptions.
give back recidivate the least,” Rollins says. “This is an oppor-
tunity to allow people to impact the community in which they’ve
returned in incredibly positive ways.”
MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Award Winner 2009 / REBUILDING LIVES AND COMMUNITIES: Richmond, Virginia 7
“There is documented evidence that
people who give back recidivate the
least. This is an opportunity to allow
people to impact the community in
which they’ve returned in incredibly
positive ways.”
— Martha Rollins, Boaz & Ruth
Highland Park residents enjoy a new sense of safety and peace of mind in
their neighborhood.
PARTNERSHIP INFORMATION
“HEALED ENOUGH”
The police don’t have any power at all unless they can win the trust
of the community they work in,” says Sherriff C.T. Woody. Through
INCEPTION DATE
its collaboration with Boaz & Ruth, Richmond’s law enforcement
2007
has ultimately been better able to demonstrate a cooperative spirit
with the residents of Highland Park. Rollins and her staff have also PRIMARY POLICE CONTACTS
found ways to bring officers into the community in an informal way Sheriff C. T. Woody
to meet residents at community events like its annual Martin Luther Richmond City Sheriff’s Office
King, Jr. Day celebration. “The police participate in that, but we Phone: 804-334-1945
don’t coordinate it,” says Commander John Hall. “I think it speaks
Chief Bryan Norwood
volumes when they see our members.”
Richmond Police Department
Commander Hall says that the organization has also made an
Phone: 804-646-6700
impact by “visibly changing the quarter”. Vacant structures that had
once been symbols of the neighborhood’s blight have been restored. PRIMARY COMMUNITY
Boaz & Ruth’s model also suggests how the creation of small busi- DEVELOPMENT CONTACT:
nesses coupled with a training program can benefit everyone - Martha Rollins, President / CEO
residents are given a second chance with skills to match the new Boaz & Ruth
Phone: 804-329-4900
employment opportunities and businesses are guaranteed a qual-
Email: Martha@boazandruth.com
ity workforce. “That’s what I think is different about us,” says Rol-
lins. “The healing is more than the job. It’s about becoming stable Photos courtesy of: Boaz & Ruth
enough and healed enough to get the job.”
8 MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Award Winner 2009 / REBUILDING LIVES AND COMMUNITIES: Richmond, Virginia
