HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — When homicides in York were surging, leaders looked far and wide for ideas and adopted what’s called “group violence intervention,” or GVI.

Now homicides in York have plummeted, but they’re up in Harrisburg , which — although cities nationally have embraced the idea — didn’t have to look far and wide for ideas.

York is mentoring Harrisburg.

This isn’t just about physical proximity. York leaders also mentor their counterparts in faraway states , and Harrisburg leaders looked just as far and wide as York once did for inspiration.

“We went down to Miami-Dade [County, Florida],” which has a well-regarded GVI program, said Angelo Craig, Harrisburg’s GVI project manager. “But Miami-Dade — their culture and their setup is not conducive to Harrisburg” — plus Miami-Dade’s police department serves more than two million people; its size and coverage area just aren’t analogous, Craig said.

But York is rather similar in those and other important ways, so some of the best ideas turned out to be barely a half-hour’s drive down Interstate 83.

Which is not to say Harrisburg can just photocopy York’s plan.

“They have to allow what is happening in Harrisburg right now to be the reason they follow this playbook, play by play, but then also modify it so that it works for Harrisburg,” said Tiff Lowe, York’s GVI project manager, who is advising Craig as he launches Harrisburg’s program.

Key GVI tactics include visiting a neighborhood experiencing violence to speak with everyone affected, including people who are a part of the problem.

“I’m not coming to talk about your past,” Craig said, characterizing what he tells those people. “We’re not coming to arrest you. [Craig is not a police officer.] I’m coming to offer services” — education, employment help, social services and so forth. He carries laminated cards listing local partner agencies, with his business cards — including his cell phone number — stapled to them.

Lowe said York experienced initial skepticsm from people who equated a knock on the door with likely arrest — and community attitutes gradually evolved.

Craig knows he’ll experience some of the same skepticism, but in his first two weeks of knocking on doors (alongside countless other things like visitng Harrisburg schools or Dauphin County’s drug court), he has been relatively encouraged.

“When we go to a home and there’s no one there, I will leave my card,” Craig said. “And believe it or not, three of the four homes that [where people] were not there, I’ve gotten a return phone call.”

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Lisa Bailey, who — like her mother and sister — lives on Derry Street, steps away from where 13-year-old Naryah Wright was shot and killed last month , said she welcomes the new approach.

“If it’s going to help our community, I would love to see that happen,” Bailey said. “We need to do better, and I would love for them to come up here and make a change.”

Bailey said her family used to enjoy cookouts at a side yard alongside the attached homes where they live, but now it feels too dangerous, even during the day: “We wanted to have a big party” in the yard for her mother’s 80th birthday, but instead they went to a restaurant. A window in her mother’s home still has a bullet hole from a shooting last year.

“We’re just waiting for the first individual say, ‘You know what, I really want to dedicate my life to something better,'” Craig said. “Once the first one happens, I think things are going to begin to have a snowball effect.”

Lowe said the keys for York have been — and the keys for Harrisburg will be — sticking consistently with the program and keeping their word with the community, so people (for example) can trust GVI staff when they say they’re visiting someone’s home to talk about the future rather than to gather information that could lead to an arrest.

“Harrisburg, don’t give up,” Lowe said. “This is just the beginning of the fight.”

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