He is worried about a group of 25 to 30 youths who he said are trying to take over the community. He wants more policing, but also wants a new influx of renters and more transient residents to take responsibility, and he wants landlords to treat their properties as if they lived there.

"If everybody does what they are supposed to, the situation will improve. We have a group of kids, and the neighborhood is being terrorized. They're out there on the corners. They work in shifts, like an organized gang. The police all know their names. I try to teach people not to give up. I don't want the mayor and other officials to give up on a community that people have lived in for 40 years."

The pastor talked about his church's outreach programs, including a group that scours the street for youngsters for Bible study. "They go out and grab these children while they are still tender, bring them into the church on Thursday nights and teach values." Another group of women called Ladies in the Hood help young, single pregnant teens.
 
He complained that long-time homeowners are being replaced by renters, and that means lessons taught one year don't stick the next. "I'm constantly starting all over again, telling the kids, 'Don't throw paper in the street. Don't cuss. Don't leave your bicycle here. Every year, I'm getting older. It's training and teaching, training and teaching."

Of the kids hanging out at night: "They are a hostile, violent group of boys. They meander from street to street doing drugs. I know them. They know I know what they do. They see me, they respect me enough tha they don't do it in front of the church or my office."

Pastor Haynes wants to help people, but he also said there is a time for people to go to jail, and he wants the police to enforce the anti-loitering statutes, even if there's criticism that officere are targeting young black men. "We have this strong voice that continues to say we are profiling blacks, and locking them up indiscriminately. But I don't think they are addressing the problem the right way. Some of our own police officers, and lawyers and judges need to get together and make a statement. If you are caught four, five, six, seven eight or nine times with drugs, take these men away. If you have a record and have been locked up for possession and you're hanging out on the corner, you need to do some time. It's like having snakes in the community and you say we don't have enough places to put the snakes so we just let them run around. That doesn't make any sense."

He applauded efforts by the mayor to round up juveniles breaking curfew but said that's only part of the solution. "Just picking them off the street doesn't put anything into their minds."

Today, the pastor plans on being in another troubled part of the city, Spaulding Avenue in Northwest Baltimore, helping ministers up there hand out religious literature.

When I thanked him for taking so much time to be interviewed, Haynes shot back: "I preached, you listened."

He summed it all up this way: "People need God all over the place."