As Mayor Brandon Johnson and the City Council wrestle with the 2025 budget, the people of Chicago should know how philanthropy, business, community and government are collaborating at “one table” to expand community violence intervention (CVI) programs. Let’s start with the data.
According to a city website, crime in Chicago is declining across most categories this year, including carjacking, robbery and total violent crime. Homicides are down 9% for this year following a 32% drop between 2023 and 2021, which is the modern-day peak for gun violence. Total shootings are down just 6% this year but dropped around 40% between 2023 and 2021.
Despite these promising trends, we understand that many people in Chicago do not feel safe. We also understand that many factors contribute to the drop in crime, including law enforcement and the economy. Nevertheless, we believe CVI is playing a key role.
Over the last decade, with mostly private funding, Chicago has built an extraordinary network of some two dozen grassroots CVI organizations that engage directly with those at highest risk of shooting or being shot. Through services such as trauma treatment, education and job training, we guide them out of street life and into the legal economy.
A growing body of research includes one study which shows that individuals who complete CVI programs are 73% less likely to get rearrested. According to researchers, reduced arrest data clearly indicates positive changes in behavior. Some research also suggests a reduction in shootings directly attributable to CVI.
Among other things, CVI groups also negotiate peace treaties among warring street factions, occupy dangerous street corners during time periods when gun violence is most likely, and directly mediate disputes among individuals in conflict.
In recent years, public investment at the city, county and state level has helped expand CVI into 37 of Chicago’s 77 communities, with the heaviest areas of investment on the South and West sides where the vast majority of shootings occur. Collectively, CVI organization are now reaching an estimated 20% of the highest-risk population.
Thanks to $100 million in additional funds for CVI raised by our philanthropic and business partners, several neighborhoods of Chicago are now “going to scale” through an initiative called SC2, which stands for “Scaling Community Violence Intervention for a Safer Chicago.”
Under SC2’s plan, “going to scale” means reaching 50% of the highest risk population in Chicago over the next five years and 75% over the next 10 years. We hope to reduce gun violence by comparable percentages over the same time period, which would make Chicago one of the safest big cities in America.
To get there, however, we need the public sector to match our investment and consistently fund CVI programs at a level that supports these goals. Twice last year, in February and July, we proudly stood with Gov. JB Pritzker, Mayor Brandon Johnson, as well as city, county and state leaders, to affirm our CVI public-private partnership.
We have also made extensive new investments in CVI in Austin, Humboldt Park, Garfield Park, Little Village, Englewood and New City. These new investments are modeled on an initial collaboration that began in North Lawndale in 2021.
To date, the North Lawndale Collaborative has served an estimated 1,400 individuals in the community over the last three years. Between 2021 and 2023, fatal and non-fatal shootings in North Lawndale both dropped by roughly 40%, considerably higher than the citywide declines over the same period. Several other communities where we are active have also seen comparable drops in shootings.
To further expand this work, we are now training additional community organizations in South and West side neighborhoods to provide CVI services to their communities. To that end, we recently secured a major federal grant to support “capacity-building” work.
Another important side benefit of CVI investments is that roughly 2,000 people, including returning citizens and graduates of CVI programs, are employed doing our work. This not only represents one of the largest jobs programs for returning citizens and at-risk individuals in the entire country, but also empowers the individuals who are closest to the problem of gun violence to be part of the solution.
In a nation with more guns than people and in a city that collects more illegal guns than any other city in America, CVI alone won’t solve gun violence. It is just one element of Chicago’s comprehensive public safety strategy, along with more effective policing, crackdowns on gun trafficking, and various city-led efforts to address the root causes of crime.
Nevertheless, we know CVI is making a difference, and we are very encouraged by the collective commitment of the state, the county and the city. They all recognize that we must continue investing in this promising and important strategy.
Esther Franco-Payne is executive director of the Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities; Vaughn Bryant is executive director of Metropolitan Peace Initiatives; Derek Douglas is president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club; Arne Duncan is the founder of Chicago CRED.
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