Shooting brings St. Paul neighborhood together

On Thursday, May 10, a shot rang out in St. Paul. 

A young woman, standing on her porch, was grazed by a bullet. The shot echoed through the neighborhood, and the act echoed through the community.

The woman hit by the bullet was Diamonde Moran, daughter of first-term State Rep. Rena Moran. Directly across the street is 670 Aurora, one of our newly rehabilitated homes, where Afework Abegaz and Tigist Kidanewolde and their family were due to close in three weeks.

Vaughn Larry is the community crime prevention coordinator at Aurora-St. Anthony Neighborhood Development Corporation, one of our Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative(NRI) partners. He runs a program called Summer of Peace, during which community members go to ‘hot’ corners to develop a peaceful presence. 

One week after the shooting, Rena and Afework and Tigist and Vaughn, Director of Community Development Andy Barnett, Habitat staff Shannon Eckman and about 40 other neighbors showed up in an emergency Summer of Peace event. We had hot dogs, Kool-Aid, conga drums (Andy is one heck of a drummer) and speeches.

Rena spoke movingly about her situation – she came from Chicago 12 years ago with her kids, started in a homeless shelter, became a member of Aurora-St. Anthony’s lease-to-own program, MCASA Homes, and bought her house. She became a neighborhood activist and then the first African-American State Representative from St. Paul. She told people the shooter had been caught, but that he was another young African-American male who was going to start a prison record, and that wasn’t a victory. That this neighborhood has too many close calls, and too many tragic times when it’s not a close call.

I was able to speak briefly; to let the neighborhood know that we are committed to them, that we don’t think ‘bad kids’ or ‘bad neighborhoods’ are disposable. There are no disposable people. There are no disposable neighborhoods. Our faith says so, and we will act from our faith and work to include everyone. I pointed to Afework and Tigist, and they got a round of applause as the new neighbors.

Afework and Tigist were worried before the event. After meeting five of their neighbors, the directors of the neighborhood organizations north and south of University, the local police commander, the local block club and others, they felt much better.

This was our NRI work at its best. We had a wonderful rehabbed house, a dedicated family, a community that reacted well together and strong community partners. While the neighborhood does have lower incomes than many, while there are kids running around who feel like no one cares, we worked to show that yes, we do care.

John Slade, NRI Outreach Associate