The City of Pasadena through the Pasadena Public Health Department will be receiving a little over $2.5 million grant funding from the California Violence Intervention and Prevention Grant Program.
While several other cities in California receiving the grant money have already outlined specific uses of the funds, Pasadena is yet to allocate the grant funding, intended to be used for reducing violence in the city.
The City said it would be issuing requests for proposals from community organizations before determining how to use the money.
The PPHD’s grant proposal published by the California Board of State Community Corrections said the funding was sought to implement a new violence intervention project called Project Safe Pasadena, which is intended to target youth ages 11-24, who are most at-risk of getting involved in gang life and perpetuating violence.
The project would be based on the Cure Violence model, which is a public health approach to reducing gun violence.
By comparison, the City of Long Beach will be using the $3.9 million in grant money it received to expand its Activating Safe Communities program citywide. The efforts will be focused on 13 neighborhoods disproportionately impacted by gun violence in North and Central Long Beach.
The City of Salinas, which was awarded a $3.13 million grant funding, allocated the money to various non-profits and departments such as the Natividad Medical Foundation and the Partners for Peace, as well as the Salinas Police Department, which is set to receive $1.2 million, to be used on intervention programs for at-risk youth exhibiting delinquent behavior and create a new community outreach team to reduce violence, support intervention activities, services and build community trust.
Meanwhile the City of San Francisco will use its $6 million grant funding for the expansion of the San Francisco Violence Reduction Initiative.
While the Board of State Community Corrections requires that at least 50% of grant funds be passed through to external, non-law enforcement agencies, the PPHD is proposing the allocation of 61% of the grant funds to violence prevention work by Pasadena nonprofits, which will be determined through a city-wide bidding process.
In July, the PPHD plans to release a number of Requests for Proposals for contract opportunities “to deliver prevention, intervention, and system development components of the program.”
A city-wide bidding process will be put out to local nonprofits, asking them to propose specific use projects for the program.
Meanwhile, in a statement, PPHD said the violence reduction strategies that will be implemented in line with the program will be anchored on three components: prevention, intervention and system development.
Project Safe Pasadena will provide youth and young adults access to Multi-Dimensional Family Therapy (MDFT) and support a Youth-Focused Gang Outreach Worker to focus on building relationships and trust with youth in the community through direct outreach to promote MDFT.
The program also seeks to establish a consortium of community partners to build, improve, and maintain collaborative community capacity to provide prevention services that are necessary to reducing youth gang and gun violence in Pasadena.
“Violence does not occur in a vacuum and several factors influence the likelihood that a young person engages in activities that lead to violence. Through the CalVIP grant, the Public Health Department is focusing resources on prevention to improve protective factors that decrease the risk of engaging in violence. This program alone will not end community violence so we intend to coordinate and support the efforts of community partners who have been working for years, if not decades, to address community violence.”
“The CalVIP grant provides critical resources to enhance these partnerships to coordinate activities, create a shared vision, and provide the support needed to pursue collective impact to address the needs of youth before they are involved in activities that can lead to violence,” PPHD said in a statement.
A new PPHD Program Coordinator II position will be created to manage the program, according to PPHD.
The position will be responsible for managing contracts and monitoring and reporting program outcomes, among other tasks. PPHD is required to submit progress reports regarding the program to the BSCC on a quarterly basis.
For more information regarding the program, visit https://www.bscc.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/pasadena_eval_rpt.pdf
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