Bishop Willie Billips, left, talks with a man during a visit to the Marcus Garvey Village apartments in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, Monday, Dec. 30, 2013, in New York. Billips, 51, a native of Brownsville, specializes in working with gang members. Through his church and his outreach, Billips is working to make a difference in the neighborhood. Year-end boasts by Mayor Michael Bloomberg that New York is the safest big city in America ring hollow in Brownsville, a neighborhood of entrenched gang violence that has proven stubbornly immune to strategies that have pushed crime to historic lows across the rest of the city. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)