A woman hangs out of her truck's driver’s side window, attempting to flag down the police cruiser rolling down East Washington Street. She needs help. She wants the officer to pull over.

Police patrolman Adam Perkins, with paramedic Shane Hardwick riding shotgun, steers the cruiser onto the next side street, pulling up behind the woman’s truck. She exits and marches back to the car.

Without an introduction, she launches into her story: She’s on a mission to find her daughter, who is strung out on heroin. The daughter is somewhere in the neighborhood, and there’s a warrant for her arrest. The mother wants her daughter found and put in jail, fearing it's the only way to save her. “I had a dream last night that she died,” the woman says. “And she did die a month ago.”

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Getting to know the back stories of people in need is a key to success for Perkins and Hardwick, a unique public safety pairing in Indianapolis. Unlike just about everywhere else in the country, where cops ride in police cars and paramedics ride in ambulances or firetrucks, these guys ride together as partners.

The idea was the brainchild of people at the Shepherd Community Center, which has been fighting poverty on the east side for 30 years. A year ago, Shepherd launched a new effort, called the Shalom Project, a thrust into the neighborhood that involves efforts to get at the root causes of poverty, crime and despair. With support from a number of local foundations and supporters, it added five new positions, including people to help the neighbors get jobs, budget their money and navigate the often confounding landscape of social services. Key to the initiative was the hiring of a community police officer who would be dedicated solely to the neighborhood. All in all, Shalom is a $300,000 annual expense.

For the rest of the front-page story about the Nazarene compassionate ministry center's project, visit The Indianapolis Star