Jenny Pirie, Peter Kastner and Jeff Mudrick A Short History of Ocean Park, Ocean Park Community Organization, 1982, (With a 1983 update.) 15 pp. 1983, 1982, 1978
"By 1978, Ocean Park residents were better able to deal with all these problems. In April of that year, the struggle to preserve the community took on a specific organizational form: "Ocean Park Projects" (OPP) was incorporated, with the same Board of Directors as the Church in Ocean Park. The new organization's stated purpose was a commitment to "creating a sense of community and improving the quality of life for all residents of Ocean Park, regardless of age, sex, race, or economic status." OPP's first organizing effort was the community anti-crime project called "COMMUNITAS", for which the neighborhood received a Justice Department grant in the fall of 1978.
"COMMUNITAS set about creating a safe and secure community in Ocean Park through the establishment of a network of "block clubs". The plan was successful. It included "Neighborhood Watch" programs - neighbors coming to know and watch out for one another as a way of reducing crime; there was a project to place identification numbers on all valuable items of property; and self defense classes were held at regular intervals.
"People began to realize that unlighted streets were not a necessary fact of life, and the Navy Street Block Club succeeded in getting the City to install street lights. Over the course of the program, the community succeeded - through its own efforts - in reducing crime in Ocean Park by as much as 16%.
"A special project in Ocean Park's drive to reduce crime was called "Making It Safe." It was a series of activities created and organized by women artists as a way to alert the community to the problems of violence against women. Merchants, media people and politicians - men and women - participated in the summer-long event, which included lectures on incest, wife abuse, rape and pornography; dialogues with older women, men's groups and third world women; potluck dinners; poetry, photography, painting, performance and much more."