The city of Birmingham next week will begin blocking off streets in an attempt to reduce neighborhood crime, Mayor Randall Woodfin said this afternoon.

Beginning July 8, several streets in the East Lake neighborhood will be blocked as the city launches its Project Safe Streets, a 90-day pilot crime prevention program.

“Safer Streets is designed around an historic neighborhood that has all of these entrances and exits points, to decrease them to limit and decrease the opportunity for people to just drive in and commit illegal activities,” Woodfin told AL.com in an interview this afternoon.

“We are not in a position to regulate guns, so this is also a creative, innovative way to regulate space,” he said. ” We have to decrease people’s opportunity to just drive in a neighborhood to be able to freely shoot and drive out.”

Woodfin called the initiative a collaboration with residents after he held multiple conversations since April to talk about ways to address crime. The initiative follows a two-hour town hall meeting, visits to businesses, churches and individual homes.

“I cannot stress enough that this is not doing something to them, this is done in conjunction with them,” Woodfin told AL.com this afternoon. “There has been ample residential engagement to get their buy-in, to get their support and for them to know why we are doing this, how we’re doing it and when we’re doing it.”

Woodfin said consistent complaints from residents included street prostitution and illegal dumping in alleys and drug houses.

“But the worst thing is shooting in occupied dwellings,” he said. “The outcome of this is to not only make people feel safe but to make sure they are safe. That’s my shared desire for those residents.”

Woodfin said the initiative is not just about taking away something – street accessibility — but it also includes bringing new hope to the area and to “support the residents, many of them who have lived there 30 or 40 years”

“It’s an aggressive blight removal program, an aggressive cleanup effort, more stop signs, and a little more of everything in how we make the quality of life better for the residents of East Lake,” he said.

The barriers are decorated with art from two artists who live in the neighborhood along with volunteers.

“Police aren’t taking the lead on this, the residents are taking the lead on this,” Woodin said.

Woodfin, in an interview on the Urbanham News podcast on Monday announced a pilot project to reduce entrances and exits in some neighborhoods. He outlined the details today.

Woodfin’s plan is similar to one launched several years ago by the Housing Authority of the Birmingham District where streets were closed with concrete barriers to limit easy access to high-crime areas.

In all of Jefferson County, there have been 98 homicides including the 75 in Birmingham.

The East Lake initiative is the latest strategy from Woodfin. The mayor in May was met with mixed reaction when the city council approved his plan for a Citizens Observer Patrol, where volunteers who are not police officers would help patrol neighborhoods.

Woodfin this week also appointed retired Birmingham FBI supervisor, Jeffrey Brown as deputy chief of investigative operations.

The mayor previously removed Assistant Police Chief La’Quaylin Parhm Mack and Deputy Chief Shelia Frazier-Finney from their roles.

Woodfin in his podcast interview Monday expressed his frustration with residents who do not cooperate with law enforcement when crimes occur in their communities.

Woodfin said the city would track and assess the effectiveness of the East Lake program. Data points will include information from the police department’s Shot Spotter program, 911 calls and incidents of illegal dumping on a daily, weekly and quarterly basis.

“We were very honest with the residents. If it doesn’t work, we will open it back up. If it does work, we will look to not only continue it there but bring it to another neighborhood to say this is a way to decrease gun violence in your community, this is a way to stop other illegal activity.”