Keith Bennett, Live Free Detroit Coalition program manager and organizer, left, and Alia Harvey-Quinn, Executive Director of Force Detroit, are prepared to use federal funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Funds and reduce crime in the city.
Photos provided by Tatiana Grant
The City of Detroit is “on fire.”
It’s on fire because of the increase of violence that has spread throughout the city like wildfire – and Detroit community leaders are looking to do something about it through federal funding.
The City of Detroit will receive upwards of $879 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Funds, and during a virtual press conference on Tuesday, Jun 28 with community leaders (including Detroit Councilman James Tate) spoke in-depth about their recommendations on how a large allocation of those federal funds should be used for the community to bring about down gun violence intervention and prevention efforts, outside of law enforcement, according to a press release.
This large chunk of change is coming from the American Rescue Plan, the fifth-largest amount of any city in America is coming to Detroit. The 1.9 trillion federal stimulus bill was signed into law in March 2021 to help alleviate the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic.
On June 7, the Detroit City Council gathered to ask community members how they feel the money should be spent.
“I wanted to lift up fighting intergenerational poverty as well as neighborhood investments as well as parks and small businesses. If we can leverage neighborhood investment to include early childhood support, that’s best. If you don’t have children, you don’t have a community. It’s imperative that we start putting more emphasis on early childhood development so that our children can move the city forward, said Tamara Grice in an earlier published article from the Chronicle.
The payments will be broken up into two payments of 413 million distributed this June 2021, with the second equal disbursement in May 2022.
The community-based coalition, LIVE FREE Detroit Coalition, led by FORCE Detroit (Faithfully Organizing Resources for Community Empowerment) along with activists, faith-based organizations, faith-based leaders, and others also spoke during the event. The FREE Detroit Coalition, trains organizing and narrative building fellows, leads participatory research efforts, and supports the advocacy and community organizing efforts of youth and directly impacted Detroiters.
Violence in urban communities is a national trend that staff and volunteers at Force Detroit and partnering organizations have conducted extensive community research on and strategized with neighborhood organizations and social services organizations on how to combat the societal issues plaguing Detroit in addition to the pandemic.
Alia Harvey Quinn, director of Force Detroit, spoke during the press conference and said that the organization is aligned with other national networks and campaigns doing work like violence interruption, advocacy work, civic engagement immigration policies, and more.
She added that one organization cannot solve violence.
“We couldn’t disrupt violence across Detroit’s 139 square miles, and we’ve seen this (violence) grow,” she said, adding that COVID-19 fueled the highest homicide rate in the country in years. “(It) had a disproportionate impact on the same communities already disproportionately impacted.”
The Detroit Community American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) created a Funding Fact Sheet detailing how the federal funds could be spent.
For decades, gun violence has been the leading cause of death for Black males 15-34 and the second leading cause of death for Latino males and Black females of the same age. COVID-19 has brought new levels of trauma and despair to these same communities and helped bring historic spikes in violence in already vulnerable neighborhoods, per the sheet.
“This is a racial equity and public health issue that cannot be ignored,” the document stated.
To address the national public health crisis, the federal government recently enacted the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) with significant portions allocated for city, county, and state support. Without reducing Detroit’s increase in gun violence, those of us in the most impacted communities cannot begin to fully recover from the negative fiscal and public safety impact of COVID-19.
To effectively reduce the violence in our most impacted communities, the community leaders are asking that 2% or $16 million of these recovery funds be invested in targeted programs to address gun violence.
“Funding these programs at the community level will not only decrease violent crime but will also provide jobs and economic development to areas that have suffered from high rates of unemployment during the pandemic,” per the document.
Some effective programs, which have reduced violence in Detroit include:
- Ceasefire Detroit
- DLIVE
- Detroit 300
Maurice Hardwick (Pastor Mo The Streetsweeper) spoke heartfeltly during the event about his role in helping end violence in the city.
“No other people are experiencing the murder rate on public record … as young African American people … nobody else is experiencing the violence and the trauma,” he said, adding that people are “so desensitized” to systemic violence and trauma.
He wants to continue showing up in the community and do his role to help reduce violence and “reach” the seemingly unreachable who are enacting the violence.
“I don’t think police can reach them,” he said, adding that they typically show up when “something happened.”
He added that young people have “been defunded” and they “feel like people don’t care.”
“So, they don’t care,” Hardwick said, adding that it’s hard to help others without a budget.
“When we come saying, ‘We care,’ how do they expect us to show up … and fight a fire with no water? No other body is asked to do that but activists,” Hardwick said. “We’re expected to leave (our) house, family and risk our lives … with no resources, no backing no nothing.”
He added that “the city is now on fire” and with the proper funding allocations “we’re here saying, ‘We’re present and ready.’”
Tate said that he appreciates the work being done and a “game plan” is being laid out to protect residents.
“It’s imperative that we utilize all of the resources we have already,” Tate said. “(We) have the human resources, we need to … get more troops in this fight … we’ve also gone to look at how do we unpack issues residents have that has been caused by these generations of trauma.”
For more information about Force Detroit, visit: http://forcedetroit.org/
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