SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Leaders of the Black Child Legacy Campaign said their coalition of community based organizations are the extra layer of public safety. For the past five years, they have worked to prevent gun violence in disadvantaged neighborhoods by being on the streets and acting as cultural brokers.
In June, the coalition asked for $2 million in funding, and on Wednesday night during a city council meeting, they're expected to get it.
In a era of racial reckoning, it was a moment of recognition.
"We are making a commitment to invest today and tomorrow and going forward," Councilmember Rick Jennings said to the group after a comprehensive presentation to the council.
Sacramento City Council is promising to invest $2 million of federal coronavirus relief funds to the Black Child Legacy Campaign.
"We absolutely need to be able to double down on our strategy that we know is working well," Kindra Montgomery-Block, Associate Director of Community and Economic Development at the Sierra Health Foundation, said.
She said the structured, on the street, network helped reduce and eliminate youth homicides over the past five years. In 2018 and 2019, the number of children shot and killed in the city fell to zero.
That changed with the pandemic hit. Like many cities in the country, gun violence spiked.
At least 24 people have been killed this year so far, exceeding the 19 homicides last year and climbing. The numbers were not broken down by age, but presenters noted an 18-year-old girl was shot and killed in Sacramento Tuesday night.
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"We know that this a direct cause of [COVID-19. It] affects many different communities in many different ways- it's not just disease," Montgomery-Block said.
Leaders said the public health aspect has brought underlying conditions that lead to violence, such as poverty and inter-generational trauma, forward. That's why they say the investment is so urgent.
The coalition presented their intervention methods and impact. Using numbers from the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, which estimates each homicide would cost a city $2.5 million dollars per death, they estimated their prevention work saved the city nearly $32 million when it comes to young people getting shot and killed.
The council and the mayor sang their praises.
"All of you who are out in the community and do this work day in and day out are the real heroes here," said Mayor Darrell Steinberg.
In discussions for future funding sources to support the Black Child Legacy Campaign, the mayor suggested using already dedicated gang prevention funds.
Though there have been countless of calls to defund and divest from police these past months ,there was no discussion of taking funds from the police budget, whether it be from the general fund or Measure U.
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