FLINT, Michigan — Eight homicides in the first four weeks of the new year, an arson rate that won't quit and more emergency calls for help than on-duty police officers can handle.

Flint, desperately trying to claw its way out of a budget deficit, is also in the middle of a public safety crisis that has residents, clergy and professionals calling for outside help.

It hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Sometime in March, Gov. Rick Snyder will unveil a three-pronged public safety strategy for Michigan that will also target cities with the highest crime rates — namely Flint, Detroit, Pontiac and Saginaw.

Snyder’s office is keeping quiet on the details of the proposal, which is still under development, but residents will start to see some pieces of it in his Feb. 9 budget presentation to the Legislature, Snyder spokeswoman Sara Wurfel said.

The public safety plan will focus on three areas: law enforcement staffing, the criminal justice system and jobs and education, she said.

“He’s going to be looking at all three of those things, and he has mentioned targeting the hardest-hit communities,” Wurfel said. “How do we best target the resources initially, and how to do it regionally and statewide.”

Some of the proposals under consideration include funding to increase the number of officers on the streets, she said, but declined to give any specifics. The governor also hopes to increase resources for the city’s urban areas, she said.

In Flint’s most recent layoffs in 2010, the city lost 66 police officers. Subsequently, emergency response times increased, especially for lower-priority calls. Flint also saw a record 66 homicides in 2010, followed by 57 in 2011.

Flint resident David Veasley said jobs are the most important component of any comprehensive public safety plan, and he hopes the governor will roll out a plan to employ young people.

“Thirty years ago, if you told me Flint would get this low, I’d have said ‘No way,’” said Veasley, 79. “GM (General Motors) was gonna be here forever. Well, forever don’t last long.”

Veasley said the young people of Flint need jobs and consistency. He cited the new Hamilton Community Health Network clinic on the city’s north side as an example of new, good-paying jobs in Flint.

“Those are the kinds of jobs we need,” he said. “We can have any type of business come to Flint if we stop the killings, stop the crime.”

Veasley is a member of the local Breakfast Club, a group of residents who discuss current affairs over coffee most mornings at the McDonald’s on Dort Highway near Lapeer Road.

Fellow members Julious Strange, 72, and Richard Cavette, 67, agreed that putting more officers on the streets isn’t the only answer to Flint’s crime problems.

“The people got to want a clean city,” said Cavette, of Flint. “If you can reprogram the youth, program them to be able to live and love one another as human beings.”

Flint Mayor Dayne Walling said a long-term public safety strategy will only work if it’s combined with an economic development component and a plan for jobs.

The city has lost a significant portion of its tax revenue over the past decade, straining the public safety portion of the budget.

“The best crime-prevention program is a job,” Walling said. “There needs to be federal and state funding for summer youth employment.”

Walling also stressed the need for ex-offender training and re-entry, “so we don’t have to continue to spend public funds in a reactive fashion,” he said.

Veasley suggested a crackdown on sentencing for repeat offenders.

“They don’t feel the law at all anymore,” he said. “Why put them in for a month and then let them out again?”

State Rep. Woodrow Stanley, D-Flint, said he hopes the governor’s announcement will include an enhanced summer employment program.

“Just arresting people, putting them in prison, triggering the release of a number of other folks out of prison, is a short-term strategy that really requires additional thought,” he said. “It’s not just about putting young people in jail and in prison, which is a dead-end strategy.”

He suggested more funding for drug courts or drug-treatment programs in addition to more police officers on the streets.

“We have to deal with some of the things that cause the uptick in crime and the persistence of crime in our community,” he said.

In an effort to reform the criminal justice system, Attorney General Bill Schuette rolled out a plan last week to use some of the state's projected budget surplus to hire 1,000 law enforcement officers. He also wants to establish a minimum sentence of 25 years for criminals convicted of four violent offenses.

State Rep. Jim Ananich, D-Flint, said Monday he’s working on legislation that would put Schuette’s proposal in action.

Ananich, who sits on the state House Appropriations Committee, said he agrees that a “substantial portion” of available funding should be used for communities’ public safety efforts.

“More police on our streets will help businesses feel safer investing and hiring, students feel safer learning in school, and families feel safer in their homes,” he said. “Hopefully, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle will see the value in giving law enforcement the tools they need to do their job.”

Wurfel said any plan to hire more police officers has to be sustainable. Using the projected budget surplus next year won’t guarantee communities will still have the funds to keep police on the streets in the future, she said.

“That’s one-time money,” she said. “The governor is planning how to address it holistically, but also in the short-term, mid-term and in the long-term.”