Door to door, city arms youths with data on jobs, programs

Volunteers gathered at Mozart Park in Jamaica Plain listened yesterday as they were told the streets they would visit and hand out information on summer programs and activities. (Globe Staff photo by John Tlumacki)

Black baseball hat backwards and brow furrowed, Jean Carlos Tirado had one question for Mayor Thomas Menino yesterday morning at a rally designed to keep teens away from gangs.

"Can you get me a job?" the 16-year-old asked the mayor.

The mayor leaned into the handlebar on Tirado's bike and spoke with him privately for several minutes. Afterward, city workers took Tirado's name and phone number.

"You have to put them to work," Menino said. "We've got to do something to give them opportunities."

Police and dozens of volunteers fanned out across several of the city neighborhoods gripped by gang violence, going door to door to give younger children and their parents information about this year's lineup of summer programs.

The programs were designed to keep 8- to 14-year-olds in the city busy and out of the reach of gangs.

The message had special resonance after a 6-month old girl was struck by a bullet as her father cradled her in his apartment in Mattapan.

Police are investigating whether the shooting was part of an escalating feud between two Jamaica Plain gangs.

Police are also investigating three suspected gang shootings since Monday, two of them fatal.

Yesterday along Mozart Street in Jamaica Plain, some parents opened their doors a crack, only allowing volunteers to slide information through to them.

Other times, children answered the doorbell, happy to learn about pool hours, drop-in events and activities at community centers, and neighborhood parties with food, music, and kickball.

As volunteers canvassed Mattapan, they met people like James Charles, who was looking after his 3-year-old nephew on his front porch. Recently laid off from his job at a bank, Charles said soaring gas and food prices have caused his family to cut back on trips to the beach this year.

"Without the programs, you just have to stay home," Charles said of the city's efforts. "We're not taking vacations like we used to."

Young people are more susceptible to gang influences in idle times, said Chris Byner, one of yesterday's volunteers who manages youth outreach programs for the city.

"There's peer pressure to do a lot of things," he said. "When it's all around you, it's hard" to resist.

Byner and other volunteers walked through several Mattapan neighborhoods yesterday, passing by weed-strewn lots, For Rent signs, and large, neat homes where residents sat on porches. Children sat on stoops looking bored and hot. "Today I'm just hanging out," said Amaiya Mitchell, 11. "I would love to go to the mall, a pool, or the beach."

Paul Alves, a streetworker with Boston Centers for Youth & Families, said several gangs exist either as loose conglomerations of friends who have grown up together or as part of larger organizations like the Bloods and the Crips. They often resort to gun violence, he said, to solve petty problems "like somebody stepping on your new sneaker."

Alves and City Hall employee Nancy Grilk passed out about 100 information packets to groups of people on stoops, mothers driving carloads of children, and a large family gathering for a funeral.

Alves said it takes only a few "troublemakers" to unsettle a neighborhood, but a large outreach effort to win it back.

He said he approached a group of young people hanging out in Mattapan yesterday morning, handing them the material and inviting them to join the activities.

"There were a couple [of teens] stone-faced; they won't speak," he said. "But when you're talking, they're all ears. They'll take the information from the younger kids when we're gone."

This year's expanded program hopes to engage 85,000 children in summer activities, 50,000 more than last year.

The city is scheduling "rock-and-splash" parties every Thursday night throughout July and August. They are a series of family events with food and music at parks and pools across the city.

Menino said earlier in the day that it's no coincidence that gang-related problems in the city escalate during August, after many outreach programs close.

Because of boredom, some young people "might make a wrong turn in life," he said.

Glenda Hydes, mother of a 12-year-old who was among family members at a funeral gathering, said she was grateful for the city's efforts.

Plans to send her daughter to her native Honduras to learn Spanish recently fell through.

"You don't want them at the computer all day or watching TV inside, and a lot of the camps are really expensive," she said. "You want to keep them busy."