Khalif Ali has knocked on doors all over Homewood for the past two months. He is standing on a porch on Inwood Street, waiting for someone behind the door to yell “Who is it?”

On a porch across the street, Ryan O’Donnell is answering that question from behind another door. His voice rings out: “I’m from Operation Better Block. We’re doing a community survey.”

Working for Operation Better Block, these two men have conducted the door-knocking part of a vehicle Homewood advocates are steering toward the goal of creating what educator Geoffrey Canada created in Harlem with the Harlem Children’s Zone.