The Little Village Gang Violence Reduction Project in Chicago

with the African-American gang problem. There was no significant discussion about integratingLatino and African-American community gang concerns.At a later October NAGV meeting, M.L.G. also reported the results of a conversation shehad with the director of the city’s Youth Development Task Force. M. L. G. surmised from thedirector that the “Mayor is not supportive of what NAGV is doing.” The Department of HumanResources Commission, under instructions from the mayor, was providing funding for otherorganizations in the city interested in the gang problem, but only for prevention programs, andnot for NAGV. According to M. L. G., the close involvement of NAGV with the GVRP andChicago Police Department was not regarded as consistent with the mayor’s approach.An NAGV retreat took place at a Catholic priest-training facility in the suburbs, north ofChicago, in November 1993. Again its purpose was to initiate “ a process, structure and set ofprograms of community mobilization involving local residents and organizations to deal with thegang problem.” A relatively small group of about 11 persons attended, including M. L. G., N.C., the conference facilitator, the 10 th District Neighborhood Relations clerk officer, two Projectyouth workers, the Project’s Coordinator and Assistant Director, two local citizens known to M.L. G, and a target gang youth who was also a leader of one of the major factions of the LatinKings in Little Village. Key community groups and agencies were not represented.The conference facilitator helped the group to identify NAGV’s strengths, weaknessesand pressing concerns, and to discuss other NAGV issues. The most important strengths ofNAGV, in order of priority, were identified as “strong vision,” “youth workers,” “ability tocommunicate with families,” “act as intermediary with various organizations,” and “need forNAGV services.” The most pressing concerns were “the perception that NAGV was too close to7.21