ST. LOUIS – A three-year contract between the City of St. Louis and Cure Violence, a program aimed at reducing violence, ends in July. The program trained individuals familiar with certain neighborhoods to intervene and meditate to prevent violence before it’s too late.
City leaders said the end of the contract is not the end of the work that’s been done to keep neighborhoods safer.
“We’ve worked with partners to make sure that there are still trusted messengers, credible messengers that will be working in the communities that had Cure Violence sites,” said Wilford Pinkney, Office of Violence Prevention director for the City of St. Louis.
He said the city is also looking to enhance future collaborations.
“All the work we do around our re-entry work, around our youth diversion work is about bringing partners together,” Pinkney said. “Because we want to meet people where they are, but then we want to connect to them to the services that they need, and that takes partnerships.”
Critics of Cure Violence have questioned whether it was a good deal for taxpayers. There have been residents and business owners who credit the program for reducing violence in their neighborhoods.
The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis received a grant from the City of St. Louis to implement Cure Violence. Even though the grant is expiring, the agency plans to build on what it calls successes.
“The grant may be ending, but the experience is still there, and we’re going to expand with even more initiatives,” said Mulugheta Teferi, Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis chief of staff.
The Office of Violence Prevention for the City of St. Louis released this statement Wednesday:
The Office of Violence Prevention engages with national partners and surveys their work with violence intervention in their cities. Through this collaboration, we are always improving. Most recently, we released an RFP in March that outlines a more collaborative violence prevention model with management and technical assistance that aligns with our other public safety systems. To date, two organizations have applied in close proximity to the contract expiration date, and no decision has been made on applicants.
In anticipation of this issue, OVP has a plan in place to ensure work in these neighborhoods will continue through a partnership with the St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission. We also intentionally listen to the community. We can assure residents in Dutchtown/Gravois Park, Wells Goodfellow/Hamilton Heights, and Walnut Park East and West that interrupters continue the work through summer as we determine a full-time provider.