In areas served by Firehouse programs there was an almost 3x reduction in shootings and homicides relative to the City of Chicago (52.63% vs 16.49%).
Further, Firehouse areas had a 6.74% decrease in shot spotter alerts compared to a 9.3% increase across all of Chicago. Firehouse areas showed significant reductions in almost all categories of relevant crimes, including a 32.48% reduction in violence and gang-related 911 calls, and an 8.8% reduction in reported crimes.
Individual service sites have shown similar levels of crime reduction. For example, in the K-Town area, shooting and homicides, juvenile arrests, and violence and gang-related 911 calls decreased by 50%, 33%, and 27%, respectively.
The 16th street site also showed significant decreases in shooting and homicides (-40%), violence and gang-related 911 calls (-36%), and shot spotter calls (-21%).
The Cermak location showed significant decreases in shooting and homicides (0 reported between January and June 15, 2022), and violence and gang-related 9-11 calls (a decrease of 35%), but did show significant increases in shot spotter calls—from 6 in 2021 to 20 in 2022. This suggests gun violence may be rising for this service site and more targeted gun-related programming may be needed.
Crime data was pulled from the City of Chicago Data Portal. In order to compare crime rates across years, incidents from January 1st to June 15th were used. The Public Safety database contains all reportedincidents of criminal activity including date and time, block and geographic information, primary and secondary descriptions of incident, and whether an arrest was made by police.
Tim "Big Chop" Gates was a great dad and grandfather. He was one of the most beloved staff members of the Firehouse and was one of the longest employees of the Firehouse.Tim took care of the Firehouse like it was his own house and he loved all the youth who entered our doors.