Safety We Can Feel Survey Lifts Up Philadelphians Views on Community Safety
What do you think our communities need to be safe?
Beginning in the fall of 2020, we worked with our allies in Movement Alliance Project, Vietlead, Juntos, Pennsylvania Working Families Party, Reclaim Philadelphia and Philadelphia Community Bail Fund to ask this question of community members across Philadelphia.
Over 1,300 Philadelphia residents responded to the survey and gave us a snapshot of where Philly feels we can find real community safety.
As we work to divest from policing and to fight for resources for our communities, we believe we must highlight the concerns of everyday people and work to engage and empower their voices.
You can download Safety We Can Feel report below or learn more about this important effort at the Safety We Can Feel website.
Here are some key findings:
- The police are not keeping us safe
- 75 percent of respondents think the police are bad at preventing violence in their neighborhood.
- Of those that had to call the police for help this year, the majority (59%) said the police were unhelpful. Only 10 percent thought they were ‘very helpful’.
- The city is not prioritizing key services for funding
- Affordable housing, mental health services, and public schools & community colleges were the essential services respondents said the city prioritized the LEAST for funding. Community violence prevention, drug treatment, and youth recreational programming were also frequent choices.
- People overwhelmingly support reallocating police funding towards community services
- Respondents wanted to see more funding going towards centers for mental health and addiction recovery (58%), housing and stability assistance (57%), and education and youth programming (53%) as approaches to addressing violence.
- 96% of respondents support the decision to reallocate funds from policing to these programs and services.
