New community liaison center in Elkhart

ELKHART, Ind - The new center is in the Washington Garden housing complex and ABC57's Ryan Jaghab spoke to a resident there. 

He's hopeful about this new community engagement and hopes this will be the first step to continuing improved relations between the police department and residents of Elkhart. 

“Kids have nothing to do there's been a lot of problematic things and chaos throughout the complex," said Dacarri McGhee.

Dacarri McGhee, a lifelong Elkhart resident, recognizes the community’s need for a stronger trust with police.

Living in the Washington Gardens complex, he’s seen many young adults have run-ins with law enforcement and feels there is a growing need for guidance and support from officers.  

"The new center being built it brings a lot of outlook in the community and outreach for the kids that are less privileged I also feel like the police force is very involved into the community center, it can help the children not be afraid of the police but more they feel like they have aid and somebody they can go to like the big brother program,” said McGhee. 

The new center located in the Washington Gardens complex aims to connect residents with various resources, including financial literacy and kitchen safety courses. 

Adrian Riley, the city of Elkhart's community liaison, emphasizes this center’s purpose is to bridge the gap between the community and police department, regardless of past experiences with law enforcement. 

“A safe place to have dialogue and also a place where they can come find out about resources, cause they don’t always know, not everyone looks online, so listening to all of that, I said why don’t we just create a place where we can all just meet in all-in-one place,” said Riley.

Riley says it's important to make the center an inviting place for children and young adults.  

“Give out candy sometimes, popsicles, and then you can have a dialogue, what's going on in your life,” said Riley.

Jessica McBrier, the public information officer for the Elkhart police department says the best way to know what the community needs is to simply have a conversation with them. 

“What's exciting about this is we have this initial vision and this initial buy-in of certain community groups, we're hoping to keep expanding that and as we’re going, a lot of this is about listening to what the community needs,” said McBrier.

They are still fleshing out the hours of when services will be available. 

Community liaison here, Adrian Riley will be your best point of contact for services here at this new community center.