Connecting Capitol Hill: Strengthening Safety Through Community
By Cortney Gosset, Events & Communications Specialist, GSBA
Capitol Hill is often described as a collection of distinct neighborhood corridors. Broadway feels different from Pike/Pine. Businesses along 15th Avenue experience different challenges than those on 12th Avenue. Each corridor has its own character, priorities, and concerns.
The GSBA Capitol Hill Safety Advisory Committee was created with that reality in mind: to ensure these perspectives are heard, shared, and connected.
“The GSBA Capitol Hill Safety Advisory Committee was created to bring together diverse voices from stakeholders on Capitol Hill from various areas and locations. These stakeholders keep us all informed of what safety priorities are top of mind in their areas while discussing ways to mitigate concerns with GSBA, city officials, and departments to help foster a vibrant and thriving Capitol Hill neighborhood for all.”
Ilona Lohrey
President & CEO, GSBA
Each month, representatives from across the neighborhood come together to compare notes, share concerns, and learn from one another.
“No single organization, business, neighborhood group, or public agency sees the entire picture. Each of us experiences Capitol Hill through a different lens.”
Mac Scotty McGregor
Committee Member, GSBA Capitol Hill Safety Advisory Committee
That exchange of perspectives is central to the committee’s work. As Capitol Hill Neighborhood Safety Coordinator Jen Carl notes, safety can look very different depending on a person’s lived experience.
“Safety looks different for everyone. Without hearing other perspectives, I’m limited to my own viewpoints of what mental, emotional, and physical safety look like.”
Jen Carl
Capitol Hill Neighborhood Safety Coordinator, GSBA
For committee member Heather Smith of 4N Properties, these conversations have reshaped how she thinks about the neighborhood itself.
“These conversations have helped me think about Capitol Hill less as separate corridors and more as an interconnected neighborhood where what happens on one block can affect the next.”
Heather Smith
4N Properties
Building Trust Through Conversation
Relationships make it easier to share information, coordinate responses, and address challenges together. GSBA’s Safety Advisory Committee creates a space where business owners, residents, service providers, public safety partners, and community leaders can move beyond assumptions and build trust through ongoing conversation.
The committee also helps inform the work of GSBA’s Capitol Hill Community Safety and Advocacy Team, including Gabe Neuman, Director of Policy & Advocacy, and Jen Carl, Capitol Hill Neighborhood Safety Coordinator. Through this connection, community concerns, emerging issues, and neighborhood priorities help shape GSBA’s safety and advocacy efforts on the ground.
Carl sees that collaboration as essential to finding solutions that work for the broader community.
“Safety isn’t and can’t be the responsibility of just one person, department, or organization. We all play a role in public safety.”
Jen Carl
Capitol Hill Neighborhood Safety Coordinator, GSBA
Community Safety in Action
The impact of these relationships is often measured in the outcomes they help create. Smith pointed to one example: an individual who had been living on the porch of a neighborhood business for nine months before securing housing.
The outcome was not the result of one organization stepping in with a quick fix. It happened because multiple community partners stayed in communication, shared resources, and worked together to help the individual find stable housing.
For McGregor, that kind of collaboration reflects an important truth about community safety.
“The safest communities are those in which everyone understands they have a role to play.”
Mac Scotty McGregor
Committee Member, GSBA Capitol Hill Safety Advisory Committee
Whether that means neighbors looking out for one another, businesses sharing information, service providers connecting people with resources, or public agencies building stronger relationships with the community, meaningful progress often starts with people sitting down at the same table.
That is ultimately what the Safety Advisory Committee provides: a place for conversation, collaboration, and connection.
