Last Thursday, I attended a meeting in Columbia’s north neighborhood that focused on ways to improve life in the community. Columbia city officials determined that three neighborhoods, north, central and east, experienced higher rates of crime, poverty and unemployment than the rest of the city.

So, a three-year strategic plan that started in 2016 aims to address and fix these disparities by first hearing from the residents themselves about the issues they face in their community.

As I am relatively new to this story and the situation in this neighborhood, I had parachuted in on this meeting and these people’s lives without a lot of background on what really went on.

While I did read previous Missourian stories to have some grasp on the story, I feel like there is more for me to find and a deeper level to the reporting I can do on this community.