Community activists call for more youth investments as Columbus reaches new grim milestone

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — Columbus reached a new grim milestone Tuesday after a deadly shooting on the city's south side brought the homicide total to 201 for the year.

"What we are seeing in this 201 homicide is that we need to invest more money into the right programs the preventive programs," Zerqa Abid said.

Abid is a commissioner and public safety chair for the Greater Hilltop Area Commission. The Hilltop is one of the areas that has been hit hard by violent crime.

"This is not about losing one life, even though that life was important, but everybody in the community and the neighborhood is affected by it for years to come, the trauma is there for years to come and is such a negative thing for a city to live in," Abid said.

She said the lack of youth centers and programming is playing a huge role in the record-high homicide rates.

"We want to make sure that the city, the county and the state invest enough dollars, enough community dollars in this neighborhood, in the Hilltop neighborhood to help us address the homicide rate," Abid said.

Abid founded another initiative called MY Project USA that launched a pilot program in 2017. She said that by adding more youth programs in the Wedgewood Apartment complex they drove down crime -- a model she thinks the city should follow.

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"When we had good programming in the community, engaging our children, that really helped in curbing the pipeline to the gang and that helped us in reducing the homicides," she said.

To address the record year, the commission is hosting a town hall meeting at Park United Methodist Church on January 8 at 12 p.m.

Abid said they have invited the mayor, city council, county commissioners and local state representatives to join the conversation.