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January 05, 2018

RCPD awarded $750,000 grant to stand up ‘Quality of Life Unit’

The Rapid City Police Department, working in conjunction with Rapid City Collective Impact, has been awarded a $750,000 grant from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The grant is provided through the IACP’s ‘Collective Healing Initiative.’

These funds will be used to create a RCPD Quality of Life Unit. Conceptually, the unit will be comprised of police officers working hand-in-hand with caseworkers in order to provide boots-on-the ground social work services to homeless and vulnerable members of our community.

The Quality of Life Unit will focus its efforts throughout Rapid City’s downtown area. This focus area will run East Boulevard to West Boulevard, North Street to Columbus Street.

The grant was written to create a Quality of Life Unit under the advisory/collaboration with a multidisciplinary team consisting of these agencies:

  • Rapid City Collective Impact
  • Behavioral Management Systems
  • Center for American Indian Research & Native Studies
  • Working Against Violence Inc.
  • The Hope Center
  • RCPD Community Advisory Committee

Following the hiring process, the Quality of Life Unit will attend extensive training and strategic planning with local service providers to build and foster a collaborative relationship among various service organizations within Rapid City.

The RCPD plans to house the Quality of Life Unit within the Pennington County Health and Restoration Center Campus.

“Quality of life issues effect everyone in the community, which is why the program will attempt to bring support and care to the street level,” says Assistant Chief of Police Don Hedrick. “We feel that this Quality of Life Unit will further compliment the services offered by the planned Restoration Center campus and the vision for the Transformation Center. The RCPD believes that a measure of any community can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”

Currently, the RCPD is working with the International Association of Chiefs of Police on the beginning stages of implementation and funding. It is the RCPD’s intention to have the full Quality of Life Unit operational by summer 2018.