A new social services project called CARE — for Community Action Resource Engagement — launched Monday with a new center in southeastern San Diego.
It's designed to focus on crime prevention and community intervention, said District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis, who stood with police officers, civic leaders and community advocates to announce the center's opening.
“Law enforcement needs to address the underlying issues that lead to criminal behavior such as poverty, lack of educational opportunities, substance abuse, mental health treatment and other socioeconomic factors,” Dumanis said. “This new CARE Center is bringing a variety of resources directly to the residents who need them and eases the inconvenience of traveling out of the area for assistance.”
Dumanis said as the nation reels from last week's slayings of five police officers in Dallas and the deaths of two African-American men at the hands of police in Minnesota and Louisiana, the timing of the center’s opening couldn’t be better.
"I think if we reach out in programs like this and acknowledge that there are issues that we have to face — racial bias on both sides we have to face — and talk to one another," Dumanis said, that the relationship between law enforcement and the community improves.
"That’s what we do in San Diego is talk to one another and reach out to the community," she said.
The CARE Center will offer a computer lab, workshops, trainings, community forums and other events. It is at 12 N. Euclid Ave. in National City, on the border with southeastern San Diego.
