Residents help change Chad Brown

PROVIDENCE, R.I., (WPRI) - Changing Chad.

It's been talked about for decades. Residents of the troubled, sometimes violent housing complex say the change is underway. When Eyewitness News spent a night in Chad Brown about five years ago sometimes timid neighbors blamed the drug and violence problems on outsiders.

From that dark image blossomed the idea to give Chad Brown back to the residents of Chad Brown by pushing that element out and more police in. Neighbor after neighbor said Chad is less dangerous and more of a community.

The inaugural community day celebrated that with a trash clean up- and this basketball game between Chad and Providence Police. Now, children run around and play out there. At the end of day, there was a one point winner on the court but a sense that the season is only beginning.

There are plenty of skeptics who don't believe chad will ever be thought of as the best, but one woman we talked to didn't even think it would be better, until now.