The CRT Graffiti Abatement Pilot Project is a proactive approach to removing graffiti along the Prospect Avenue corridor of Kansas City. The Tagging Tracker Tool will provide the infrastructure to track the occurrence of graffiti and its abatement. The tool is an application that allows the team to take pictures graffiti, geolocate those picture, and store information about each building with graffiti and each graffiti tag. This data will help the project team evaluate the effectiveness of our methods and help to build a case for future funding.
“Do not invest here. This neighborhood is unsafe.” Graffiti may not say these words explicitly, but that is the message often sent when taggers or local gangs deface buildings, instantly reducing their value, and ultimately the value of the entire community. Graffiti can mark gang turf and can claim credit for crime, thereby setting off of a cycle of retaliation. Graffiti sends a signal to residents, criminals, and potential businesses that this area is not cared for and is not safe. Graffiti abatement is a critical catalyst for both improved safety and economic development.
Before graffiti abatement at 3631 Prospect Ave. The building was vacant and covered in graffiti.
After graffiti abatement at 3631 Prospect Ave. Now a restaurant is open in the building and it has remained graffiti-free!
A number of business owners along Prospect Avenue feel frustrated and almost defeated by the amount of repeated graffiti on their building. One business owner even closed their store because of the repeated tagging on their building. Local businesses experience a drain on their resources when they have to pay fines from a codes violation and on contractors to remove graffiti. One business owner has spent $3,000 over the last year on painting over graffiti, only to have it return months later. To make matters worse, a large number of buildings along Prospect are vacant or abandoned, leaving them in a no-man’s land of graffiti abatement until a concerned citizen or neighborhood association takes it upon themselves to improve the property.
In 2015, the Community Resource Team (CRT) developed out of a 3-year U.S. Department of Justice Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation (BCJI) grant and is a cross-sector collaboration of community leaders, social services providers, government institutions and law enforcement that jointly identify and address community safety issues in the Prospect Avenue corridor. CRT works to create a safer community and build collective efficacy within the 2.15 square mile area from Paseo Boulevard to Indiana Avenue and from 25th Street to 39th Streets, an area identified because of the prevalence of violent crime.
The CRT Graffiti Abatement Pilot Project area will stretch from 18th Street to 39th, 3-4 blocks east and west of Prospect Avenue. This project will indirectly serve residents and business owners in the area.
CRT members posing in front a mural at 35th and Prospect. In the photo: neighborhood leaders from Wendell Phillips Neighborhood, Washington Wheatley Neighborhood, and Oak Park Neighborhood; County Prosecutor's Office; LISC; Emmanuel Child Development; KCPD; and Councilman Quinton Lucas.
- Amanda Wilson
- Jake LaCombe
- Aaron McRuer
- Kol Kheang
- Fred Lawler
Code for KC Slack Channel: #taggingtracker
- Related backend project: tagging_tracker_backend
- Auth0 service: App Authentication
The project requires an environment file to run successfully. For dev environment, dev.env file must be created in the project directory with the following environment variables:
AUTH0_CLIENTID - ClientID of the auth0 authentication engine
AUTH0_DOMAIN - FQDN of the auth0 authentication engine
TAGGING_TRACKER_SERVICE_DOMAIN - http://localhost/ when working locally or change remote host and port otherwise
Contact one of the project owners to get a pre-populated dev.env file with all the environment variables. You can also register a new account @ auth0.com.
When connecting to Azure cloud prod instance, the following environment variables are required:
AZURE_CONTAINER_KEY - Azure container key ID
AZURE_IMAGE_CONTAINER_NAME - Azure image container name
AZURE_IMAGE_CONTAINER_KEY - Azzure image container key
Facebook has good instructions on how to get started for the iOS and Android native builds (https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/getting-started.html). Once you complete the steps for Android/iOS, you can run the following to get started:
npm install -g react-native-cli
npm install -g react-native-git-upgrade
npm install
npm run local-ios
Ensure that Tagging Tracker Backend service are up and running locally before running the application.
Read the Contribution Guide