The Baltimore Police Department has made one arrest in relation to the shooting: a 17 year-old who is not charged with firing a gun is being charged as an adult. Police believe multiple shooters are responsible for the carnage.
Tuesday will be Day 45 -- the last day of the city and communitywide stabilization plan for Brooklyn Homes after a July 2nd shooting killed two people and wounded 28 others.
What’s next for residents who live in a community that they have said feels forgotten?
The Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement, MONSE, is the mayor’s non-policing public safety agency. It’s spent at least one day a week in Brooklyn Homes talking to residents about various ways they can connect them to city services. That work will continue after the 45-day response through the help of community partnerships, said Stefanie Mavronis, the interim Director for MONSE. The agency will work as a middleman between churches, nonprofits, and other local organizations to connect residents with city services.
“We want to make sure that we're able to lift up and support, as a city government partner, community driven events,” said Mavronis. “And make sure the resources don't stop just because day 45 has come. We’ll continue to play that role in partnership and as a connector.”
Mavronis said that they have expanded their partnership with local community organizations since the stabilization plan began on July 2nd, the day of the Brooklyn Day mass shooting. She did not specify which local organizations with which they would be partnering. MONSE already assists Catholic Charities in administering the Safe Streets violence interruption program which has an office in the Brooklyn neighborhood.
MONSE still has its work cut out for them when it comes to building community trust and a feeling of safety going beyond the 45 days.
A survey released in late July, conducted by the Greater Baybrook Alliance’s Violence Reduction Leadership Team, found that 98% of Brooklyn Homes residents still felt unsafe after the shooting. 97 residents partook in the survey from July 14-27, 54 were from Brooklyn Homes and the others were from surrounding Brooklyn neighborhoods, according to The Baltimore Sun who reported on the survey first.
The survey also identified three major priorities for Brooklyn Homes residents.
“Residents were most likely to say that they wanted investment in youth activities and programs. Relocation and housing support was a very close second, and food access again, just really important to this community,” said Meredith Chaiken, Executive Director of the Greater Baybrook Alliance.
Mavronis said she found the survey results “affirming and validating” because those priorities aligned with what the agency heard from residents in the earlier part of the stabilization.
In that same survey, residents were able to specify which organizations they trusted. Number one was “community churches” followed by Safe Streets, and the Brooklyn Homes Tenant Council.
“That was not surprising. We know that the churches have a huge role in this community, and they have been at the forefront of providing services and being… a safe place of refuge for community members for many, many years now,” said Chaiken with GBA.
There were 16 people who responded that they trusted “no one.”
“That’s pretty strong,” said Mavronis. “That's something that I think makes me feel like the Brooklyn community [is] the kind of community that can most benefit from a sustained presence of providers of services of connection to government agencies that are looking to serve people.”
Not everyone in Brooklyn Homes has felt served by MONSE so far. Some residents told WYPR that they haven’t seen any representatives from the agency since the initial crisis response in the days immediately following the shooting.
“I think there's been this idea that we were doing a 45 day Resource Fair, which isn't exactly what we were doing. That was what the immediate response needed to look like given the fact that we had a huge need for specific direct services and therapeutic supports,” said Mavronis.
One Brooklyn Homes resident, Yolanda Smallwood, said she had signed up for help with MONSE “many” times and only heard back once.
“They don't want to talk to you like, ‘Oh, what do you need?’” said Smallwood, who says she did get one MONSE worker to send her something. “You will click on it and it'll say, ‘Oh, do you need help with paying your gas, electric, or your bills?’ And when you click onto it, it sends you like, ‘Oh, do you need to sign up for this? Do you need to sign up for them?’ Like, that's spam, that's not helping me.”
Mavronis said over 600 individuals put in requests for assistance in the immediate week and a half that followed the shooting. Responses are triaged; MONSE's immediate focus has been servicing primary and secondary victims of the shooting. The agency also received 91 requests specifically from Brooklyn Homes residents looking for assistance with relocation.
She also said the agency is working on an after-action report. “We're making sure that all of that information, particularly about the 45 day period, and our outreach and engagement are also things that we can be transparent and report out on.”
There will be a second Baltimore City Council meeting into the city agency response to the Brooklyn Day shooting on September 13th.
Correction 08/11/2023: After this story published, MONSE provided WYPR with more accurate specifications on the number of Brooklyn Homes residents looking for relocation help. The agency also clarified the timeline for when the 600 individuals put in their requests for assistance. An earlier version of this story said the agency was working on closing out "91 cases out of 600". That statement was inaccurate.
