| Family/Neighborhood
(FN) chaired by Tal Fair, President and CEO of The Urban League of Greater
Miami. 
- Other Family/Neighborhood chairs over the past ten years were Bill McGee, Richard
McEwen and Tanya Glazebrook.
- This Committee knew that to be successful we would need to be comprehensive and
holistic. Just as there was no one reason for the problems of drug abuse, there was no one
solution for the problems.
- During the strategic planning process, 1000 crack houses were identified - houses
that force parents to keep their children indoors and houses that damage caring
neighborhoods.
- A process was developed to demolish those houses. In ten years, 4100 crack houses
have been demolished.
- 800 houses have not been torn down, but rehabilitated; Habitat For Humanity
and several community development groups have followed up on 94 of those now empty lots
with new structures.
- The Family/Neighborhood
Committee aroused an unusual kind of grassroots concern around the issue of drugs.
People came together in righteous indignation to get things done. A prime example was Operation
Push Out The Pusher (POP).
- In this one piece of geography, the residents took action to
get the pushers out of Liberty City. They did not care where they would go, just as
long as they left this neighborhood.
- POP was a cooperative effort between Liberty City
residents, police, merchants, land owners, prosecutors, courts, code enforcement, nuisance
abatement, etc. and was championed by the Urban League.
- The success of POP helped create other neighborhood efforts
- NET offices, TEAM Metro, Carver Project, Annie Casey Project, HIDTA Empowerment
Neighborhoods, Little River Project, Melrose Program, Shenandoah Project, etc. All,
like POP, are trying to improve the conditions surrounding the lives of the residents.
- "In the family and neighborhoods, we have something to
celebrate. Things are not absolutely perfect, but we have made sufficient progress".
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