West Riverside Operation Weed and Seed

You’ve read quite a bit here about the Burton St. neighborhood’s renaissance.  In just a few years, the residents there have transformed their area from a center for drug and gang violence to an up and coming Asheville success story.  One of the keys to that success is the West Riverside Operation Weed & Seed.  The WROW&S covers the area from the French Broad River to Louisiana Avenue and from Patton Ave. to Amboy Road.  From their mission:

To improve quality of life by ‘weeding’ out crime and ‘seeding’ positive community change through resident leadership and creation of sustainable partnerships

Weed and Seed is funded largely through the federal Department of Justice.  The program has four components – Law enforcement, Community Policing, Prevention/Intervention/Treatment, Neighborhood Restoration. About 300 W&S areas across America receive up to $1 million over a five year period.  Our west Asheville Weed and Seed area began in February 2007.  They’ve established partnerships with the Asheville Police Department, LEAF in Schools and Streets, ARP Phoenix, Asheville Green Opportunities, OnTrack Financial, Community Garden experts, and many more.  They’ve built programs to provide leadership experiences to area youth and parenting groups to area families. They’ve repainted homes, cleared trashed lots, built signs, and landscaped.

Since establishing the Weed and Seed program:

- Drug calls for service have decreased 48%.
- Violent crime has decreased 1% and
- Weapons offenses have decreased 28%.
- 41 individuals have been charged as habitual felons, getting them off the street forever
- 2666 rocks of crack cocaine and 9762 dosage units of ecstacy (street value of $236,500) have been seized
- $42,116 seized during arrests
- installed speed humps
- Trained Head Start staff to handle violent incidents
- Created homework clubs that improved End Of Grade testing scores

On Monday the 16th I toured the Weed and Seed area with Captain Tim Splain and Community Relations Guru Melissa Williams. Capt. Splain explained that one of the greatest challenges in overcoming the drug markets in areas like Pisgah View Apartments is that it’s become a multigenerational economic standby for a lot of families. Another serious challenge is the fact that children have nowhere to go once they return to their neighborhoods except the streets.

Pisgah View Apartments has its own universe of challenges. PVA is 12 acres of public housing in rows that has a long history of drugs and violence that isn’t going to be solved through any one intervention alone. Violence is down from its peak in 2005-2006 due to the Weed and Seed programs efforts, but there’s still a long way to go to make PVA a safe place for kids and families.

The WROW&S program hasn’t yet reached its halfway mark and already they’re seeing a lot of successes.  The amount of community involvement inspires hope.  The APD’s genuine work towards erasing a long history of distrust inspires hope.  Partner agencies and individuals showing up and giving their time to address the panoply of problems inspires hope.

If you’d like more information about Weed and Seed, you can contact Director Dawa Hitch at dhitch@ashevillenc.gov .