← Back to Community Violence Intervention

Card 10

How Are Cities Designing These Programs?

Eight design decisions shape every CVI program. What follows presents each decision through the documented choices of specific cities — what they chose, what they built, and what happened.

Decision 1: Which Program Model?

Six documented models operate across the field.

Street Outreach / Violence Interruption. Credible messengers patrol designated neighborhoods, maintain relationships with highest-risk individuals, and mediate conflicts before they produce shootings. Baltimore Safe Streets, Minneapolis MinneapolUS, and Charlotte Alternatives to Violence use this model. Sasha Cotton, who heads the Minneapolis Office of Violence Prevention, reported in 2022 that violence interrupters had more than 8,900 contacts with the public and mediated more than 1,500 incidents in six months, per KSTP.

Comprehensive Ecosystem. Chicago’s CRED and READI programs combine street outreach with workforce development, behavioral health services, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), education, legal aid, and housing assistance. The University of Chicago describes the READI design: “subsidized, supported work combined with group cognitive behavioral therapy” providing “a stable source of income to deter illegal work, an incentive to participate in therapy, a place to build and reinforce new skills and norms, and a reason to spend less time in dangerous settings.”

Intensive Individual Engagement. Orlando’s Advance Peace assigns specific workers to specific highest-risk individuals for three-times-daily check-ins, per WESH reporting.

Group Violence Intervention / Focused Deterrence. Developed by criminologist David Kennedy, this model delivers a dual message of consequences and support through structured call-in meetings where law enforcement, prosecutors, and community leaders present together, per the National Network for Safe Communities. Pine Bluff, Arkansas used this approach and went 543 days without a juvenile homicide before the streak ended in June 2025, per THV11.

School-Based Prevention. Albuquerque’s West Mesa High School partnered with Foot Locker to provide what the Albuquerque Journal described as “on campus peer-to-peer support.” Baltimore expanded Safe Streets into schools with “five intervention strategies” including “restorative practices.”

Hospital-Based (HVIP). Credible messengers deploy to the bedside after a shooting. Grady Hospital in Atlanta reported a 98% acceptance rate in its first year, per 11Alive. Cleveland documented reinjury rates dropping from 29% to 19% among 600-plus participants, per Ideastream.

Chicago and Baltimore, the two most documented CVI ecosystems, operate more than one model simultaneously — Chicago runs street outreach, comprehensive wraparound, school-based, and hospital-based programs in parallel, per the Chicago Tribune and SC2 initiative. Baltimore combines street outreach with school-based prevention, per city government reporting.

Additional documented models: In Birmingham, Alabama, ABC 33/40 (WBMA, Birmingham) reported that “homicides dropped 42% year over year” — from 152 in 2024 to 88 in 2025 — per reporter Emily Cundiff (January 22, 2026, https://abc3340.com/news/local/homicides-down-42-in-birmingham-as-city-urban-league-highlight-violence-interruption-wor). In Berkeley, California, shootings fell from 53 in 2022 to 15 in 2025, per Berkeleyside (Alex N. Gecan, January 15, 2026, https://www.berkeleyside.org/2026/01/15/live-free-usa-berkeley-gun-violence-intervention-prevention). The decline began before the city’s $2 million Live Free USA CVI contract was announced in August 2024, and Berkeleyside notes the trend mirrors a national pattern. Oakland shifted $17 million of its public safety budget to fund “doubling the number of violence interrupters,” per the San Francisco Chronicle (Sarah Ravani, July 19, 2021). UC-Berkeley studies of programs in Stockton and Sacramento found they “helped to reduce gun violence and did so at a fraction of the cost of traditional law enforcement,” per CBS San Francisco and UC-Berkeley (March 2021, https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/berkeley-study-california-gun-violence-program-saves-lives-taxpayers-millions).

The comprehensive model produces documented economic returns. The 2024 READI RCT found $182,000 to $916,000 in social savings per participant (4:1 to 18:1 return), per the QJE. Baltimore’s Safe Streets returned $7.20 to $19.20 per dollar invested, per Johns Hopkins. Orlando saved $8.3 to $8.9 million, per UC-Berkeley. The comparison baseline in all cases is the status quo cost of emergency response, hospitalization, criminal justice processing, and incarceration.

The choice between models involves documented tradeoffs. Street outreach is documented as the fastest to launch and least expensive to operate, but provides the narrowest intervention — a credible messenger who mediates a conflict but cannot connect the person to employment, housing, or therapy has addressed the immediate trigger without changing the conditions documented across the field. Comprehensive ecosystem models address root causes but require multi-disciplinary teams, higher budgets, and longer timelines: the READI model’s documented savings depend on the full package — outreach plus employment plus CBT plus case management — not just the outreach component, per the QJE publication.

Group Violence Intervention occupies a different design position because it structurally involves law enforcement. The dual-message call-in (consequences and support delivered together by law enforcement and community members) requires police participation that pure CVI models do not, per the National Network for Safe Communities. Cities that choose GVI are building a different stakeholder dynamic than cities that choose outreach-only models.

Decision 2: Where Does the Program Live Organizationally?

CVI programs have landed in at least six documented configurations.

Health department. Baltimore’s Safe Streets has operated through the health department since 2007, per city government data. Mayor Brandon Scott, who uses the term “trusted messengers,” has maintained this placement, per WMAR reporting.

Office of Violence Prevention. Minneapolis’s OVP, led by Sasha Cotton, coordinates the teams that produced 8,900 contacts in six months, per KSTP. North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper established a statewide OVP, describing the goal as replicating programs “across our state”.

Community Safety Department. Albuquerque houses CVI within its Community Safety Department, per Albuquerque city government — a cabinet-level agency providing co-equal standing with police and fire.

Nonprofit. Chicago CRED, Force Detroit, and the Institute for Non-Violence are operated by community organizations with city funding, per the Chicago Tribune and Detroit Free Press. Pittsburgh allocated $50 million to support 13 local nonprofit CVI programs, with Focus on Renewal receiving $1.3 million to hire a “job coach and supervisor.”

Hospital. HVIP programs report through violence prevention program leadership integrated into hospital trauma departments. Dr. Randi Smith at Grady, Dr. Amy Makley in Cincinnati, Dr. Michel Aboutanos at VCU Richmond, and others have built programs inside their medical systems, per multiple sources.

Statewide coordination. Ohio appropriated $51 million, Montana allocated $8 million, Indiana established competitive grants, Minnesota funded 109 CVI programs statewide through the CCIP grant program (Minn. Stat. § 299A.296), per state government reporting.

Harris County, in the mobile crisis domain, initially contracted out its program and then brought it in-house after the contractor failed — with service linkages increasing 228% after the transition, per Harris County data. The pattern applies across alternative response: the institutional home can change as the program matures.

Additional institutional placements: Dallas allocated $1.6 million with Mayor Eric Johnson’s support, per KERA News (Alejandra Martinez, May 4, 2021). https://www.keranews.org/news/2021-05-04/dallas-city-council-signs-off-on-new-violence-interrupter-initiative-to-reduce-crime Pittsburgh committed $50 million across 13 local nonprofit CVI programs, with Focus on Renewal receiving $1.3 million specifically for a “job coach and supervisor” and securing commitments from “at least 20 local businesses” to hire participants. Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention partners with nonprofits, enabling hiring of credible messengers who might not qualify for direct government employment due to criminal records while maintaining program flexibility and community trust.

The choice of institutional home has implications for Medicaid billing. Programs housed in health departments or hospitals have more direct access to Medicaid reimbursement pathways. Nine states have established Medicaid reimbursement for CVI, per HAVI. Dr. Kyle Fischer described Medicaid as providing “stability and certainty” that helps “shield a city’s violence prevention programs from the downstream effects of different political priorities,” per a Health Affairs article by Fischer, Colleen Morris, and Dan Piening.

The University of Virginia’s “In Their Own Voices” report, per the Virginia Mercury, drew on 58 interviews with youth, community leaders, violence interrupters, and law enforcement to understand the roots of youth gun violence. The report found that “holistic and comprehensive community responses [like Community Violence Interrupters] are effectively and creatively lowering the rates of gun violence,” per reporter Charlotte Rene Woods. Oakland’s Department of Violence Prevention is creating “a training program for violence interrupters, unarmed civilians who de-escalate situations and prevent retaliation after shootings and other forms of violence,” with the first training cohort launching in 2027, per Oaklandside reporter Roselyn Romero (October 14, 2025, https://oaklandside.org/2025/10/14/oakland-community-violence-intervention-academy/). These developments document the field’s investment in institutional infrastructure beyond individual programs.

Decision 3: How Are High-Risk Individuals Identified?

CVI has no 911 dispatch. Workers identify risk before incidents occur. Six documented methods:

Street intelligence. Credible messengers who live in targeted neighborhoods know the people, networks, and conflicts firsthand. Practitioners describe this as the method that produces the deepest identification, per the 2023 ProPublica investigation, but it is the hardest to systematize.

Social media monitoring. Workers track disputes as they develop online — the Minneapolis scenario documented by KSTP involved social media chatter about an escalating dispute.

Hospital notification. When shooting victims arrive, hospitals notify CVI teams. Pittsburgh’s QR code system provides “name, age, where they were shot and whether they’ve consented to receiving services,” per Public Source.

Police data sharing. Programs that accept police data gain analytical capacity but risk the perception that CVI is a police intelligence operation, per the 2023 ProPublica investigation, which documented this as the field’s central information-sharing tension.

Court and reentry referrals. The 2024 READI evaluation found that the outreach-referred subgroup showed a 79% reduction in shooting arrests — stronger than the 65% for the full cohort that included criminal-justice referrals, per the QJE publication.

School referrals and self-referral. West Mesa High School in Albuquerque and Baltimore’s school expansion use these pathways, per the Albuquerque Journal and Baltimore city reporting.

Yale physician Kirsten Bechtel has noted that shooting victims are “much more likely to be involved in a homicide or an assault with a firearm in the next six months” — the clinical evidence for why hospital notification is a critical identification pathway.

The identification system faces documented operational challenges. Dispatcher hesitancy has been documented as a limiting factor, with 911 operators sometimes reluctant to route information to civilian responders rather than police. Coordination between CVI programs and existing systems — police, hospitals, schools — requires negotiation of roles and responsibilities described across documented programs as an ongoing challenge. Staff retention is difficult due to the emotional toll of the work and competition from positions with better compensation.

The identification infrastructure also requires data systems. Programs that cannot document their outcomes cannot defend their budgets, per multiple city reports. Data systems, evaluation partnerships, and the staff time to collect and report data are operational necessities. The metrics that have survived budget hearings across documented cities include shooting reductions in targeted areas, participant-level outcomes from evaluations, reinjury rates for HVIP, cost-benefit ratios, and contact volume — but building the systems to track these requires investment that many funding sources treat as optional overhead.
No comparative study has tested different CVI program designs against each other — a gap that leaves implementation decisions informed by city examples rather than experimental comparison.

Decision 4: Who Is on the Team?

The core workforce is credible messengers. As the field describes: “certified violence prevention professionals” who are “trained in conflict mediation, crisis intervention, and trauma-informed care” and who are “from the neighborhoods they serve.”

The University of Chicago Leadership Academy provides six months of intensive training and has reached 21 cities, per the Chicago Defender. Four hundred CRED participants have earned high school diplomas across nine graduations. More than 40 companies in 17 industries hire graduates. Blommer Chocolate Senior VP Bob Karr wrote in a 2023 Chicago Tribune op-ed: “Business leaders cannot sit back and hope that others will solve crime.”

Chicago’s comprehensive ecosystem adds case managers, CBT facilitators, job coaches, behavioral health specialists, and legal aid providers alongside credible messengers, per the SC2 initiative. The University of Chicago operates approximately 20 violence recovery specialists around the clock under Executive Director Dr. Chico Tillmon, connected to 60-plus community agencies, per UChicago Medicine reporting.

The READI program design illustrates the comprehensive team model. Per the University of Chicago, the program provides “subsidized, supported work combined with group cognitive behavioral therapy” with the job component providing “a stable source of income to deter illegal work, an incentive to participate in therapy, a place to build and reinforce new skills and norms, and a reason to spend less time in dangerous settings.” Participants also receive “referrals to housing, substance abuse, mental health, and legal services when needed,” per the University of Chicago.

The workforce development outcomes are documented. Four hundred CRED participants have earned high school diplomas across nine graduation ceremonies, per the Chicago Tribune (August 2025). More than 40 companies in 17 industries hire graduates. Blommer Chocolate Senior VP Bob Karr wrote in a 2023 Chicago Tribune op-ed: “We will keep hiring them because they are hardworking, talented and hungry to succeed… Business leaders cannot sit back and hope that others will solve crime.” Pittsburgh’s Focus on Renewal placed participants with 20-plus local businesses through dedicated job coaching.

The populations served reflect documented disparities in violence exposure. A 2024 national survey found 79% of Black voters and 78% of Latino/a voters express concern about gun violence in their communities, compared to 58% of white voters. Programs prioritize the communities where violence concentrates.

Decision 5: What Geographic Scope?

CVI programs operate in specific neighborhoods, not citywide. In Chicago, fifteen neighborhoods account for roughly half of gun violence, per the Chicago Tribune. Detroit’s Force Detroit documented a 72% drop in targeted neighborhoods versus 37% citywide, per the City of Detroit. Baltimore’s Penn North site went 478 days without a homicide, per the Baltimore Banner.

Dallas’s CVI program focused on Oak Cliff, which had been the “number one violent crime hot spot” for decades before the program contributed to its removal from the police list in 2023, per WFAA. Baltimore Safe Streets operates in designated zones, with five long-running sites showing the greatest documented impact, per Johns Hopkins. Charlotte’s Alternatives to Violence logged more than 1,500 hours canvassing specific neighborhoods and documented “lower rates of homicides committed with a gun,” per the 2023 UNC Charlotte Urban Institute evaluation.

The geographic concentration has implications for coverage gaps. Chicago’s fifteen neighborhoods account for roughly half of the city’s gun violence, per the Chicago Tribune, but CRED currently reaches only about 15% of the people assessed as highest-risk in those neighborhoods, per the SC2 initiative. The gap between geographic presence and population coverage exists in every documented city.

Decision 6: What Does the Team Do on the Ground?

Six documented functions:

Conflict mediation. The ProPublica investigation documented interrupters arranging 2 a.m. meetings between rival groups and resolving disputes before they produced shootings.

Community accompaniment. The same investigation documented workers physically accompanying threatened individuals — riding the bus for several days.

Daily check-ins. Orlando’s three-times-daily contact schedule with highest-risk individuals, per WESH.

Wraparound services. READI’s “subsidized, supported work combined with group cognitive behavioral therapy,” per the University of Chicago. CRED’s diploma programs and employment partnerships, per the Chicago Tribune.

Neighborhood canvassing. Charlotte’s Alternatives to Violence logged 1,500-plus hours, per the 2023 UNC Charlotte Urban Institute evaluation.

Post-shooting canvassing. When a shooting occurs, workers deploy to the affected area to contain the emotional response that drives retaliation. As Sasha Cotton described to KSTP, this is not investigation — the goal is preventing the next shooting by being present with the people most likely to retaliate.

“Honorable exits.” Programs provide what Albuquerque describes as “honorable exits” from violence — pathways that address both the practical dimension (employment, education, housing) and the identity dimension (leaving without losing standing), per Albuquerque city government.

The depth of on-the-ground work is documented in specific cases. In Oakland, violence interrupter Joseph Truehill met the family of a murdered 15-year-old at the hospital, where the teen “was pronounced deceased on arrival, and he stayed with them until 5 a.m.,” per ProPublica. He then “connected the mother to long-term support, checked on her daily for two weeks, ordered DoorDash meals, helped with funeral costs, provided personal care services before the funeral, organized support for her surviving children, and connected her to a support group.” The mother testified: “If I didn’t [get support]… I might be in retaliation mode because I didn’t get help that I needed back then… I would have been so buried in anger… Without them, I don’t think I would have made it through mentally.”

The time dimension distinguishes CVI from other response models. As Seattle CARE team crisis responder Brooke Hernandez told KOMO News (Joel Moreno, February 10, 2025, https://komonews.com/news/local/new-care-team-expands-to-north-seattle-easing-pressure-on-police-with-crisis-response): “Both police and fire are usually on a time crunch. We can spend that time.” CVI teams routinely follow up for days or weeks after initial contact, across documented programs.

The documented victim services extend beyond immediate crisis response. A 2024 national survey found that 86% of likely voters say it is important for survivors of violent crime to have relocation costs covered when they face a continued physical safety threat. Eighty-five percent say it is important to provide no-cost medical care, such as mental health services, for a crime victim’s family member. Eighty-three percent say it is important to cover funeral costs when a child is murdered. Eighty-two percent say it is important to cover lost wages when victims cannot work. These numbers document public expectation for the scope of services CVI programs provide on the ground.

The Medical University of South Carolina launched a program aimed at “reducing overall crime in identified hot spots, reducing interpersonal violence, reducing gun violence and reducing gang participation,” per the Post and Courier (Ema Schumer, November 2022). https://www.postandcourier.com/news/musc-extends-violence-intervention-program-beyond-hospitals-walls/article_67c8569e-5af0-11ed-b8fc-c3b7929de315.html The program provides “food, clothes, shelter, therapy and education” to people at high risk. This illustrates the breadth of on-the-ground services that the comprehensive CVI model encompasses.

Decision 7: How Does the Program Relate to Police?

Law enforcement leaders who have worked alongside CVI describe the relationship in complementary terms.

Superintendent Snelling: “We can’t arrest our way out of this.” Chief Paul: “Over 47% of our shooting incidents happen inside of a house or on a property.” Commander Parham: CVI workers “build relationships… police just can’t.” Chief Beck: “Intervention groups are the answer.” Chief Backus: “I don’t know anybody else can pick up that space.”

The information-sharing tension documented by ProPublica remains the field’s hardest operational design question. CVI workers build trust by operating independently from law enforcement. Police investigators need information CVI workers may have. The protocols governing this boundary are not well documented in public sources.

Dallas Police Chief Eddie Garcia credits CVI partners for violence reduction, per WFAA. Lansing Police Chief Rob Backus: “I don’t know anybody else can pick up that space.” A Michigan survey found that 80% of county sheriffs and local police chiefs support having specialized emergency response teams that include mental health and social work professionals for some 911 calls, across documented programs.

Aqeela Sherrills, advisor to the White House Community Violence Intervention Collaborative, described the relationship: “You can’t have public safety without the public. Police can’t do this job by themselves. Community violence intervention complements law enforcement. They are both vital for public safety.”

Decision 8: Does the Program Include Hospital-Based Intervention?

HVIP operates at a different intervention point than street CVI: after the shooting, at the bedside. Grady Hospital reported 98% acceptance and 1% reinjury in year one (rising to approximately 3% by years two and three), per 11Alive and Atlanta News First. Minneapolis’s Next Step documented reinjury dropping from 41% to 3%, per CBS Minnesota. Indianapolis documented a two-thirds reduction, per a 2018 evaluation.

A city with street CVI but no HVIP has no mechanism to intervene at the bedside when prevention fails. A city with HVIP but no street CVI intervenes after violence but does nothing to prevent the next shooting.

Pittsburgh’s Reimagine Reentry program innovated with QR codes on business cards that nurses scan, providing “name, age, where they were shot and whether they’ve consented to receiving services,” per Public Source reporting. This allows teams to reach victims “within 24 hours” compared to the three days it previously took. Yale Medical School runs a pediatric program targeting children with firearm injuries. The Medical University of South Carolina launched a program aimed at “reducing overall crime in identified hot spots,” across documented programs.

Yale physician Kirsten Bechtel has noted that shooting victims are “much more likely to be involved in a homicide or an assault with a firearm in the next six months” — the clinical basis for the urgency of bedside intervention. The 2025 Life Outside of Violence evaluation in St. Louis, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found no significant difference in reinjury — a null result that demonstrates HVIP implementation quality and local context affect outcomes.

What the Evidence Says About Design Choices

The 2024 READI RCT provides the most rigorous evidence linking program design to outcomes. The evaluation tested a comprehensive package: “subsidized, supported work combined with group cognitive behavioral therapy” alongside outreach and case management, per the QJE publication. The finding that the outreach-referred subgroup (identified through street intelligence) showed a 79% reduction in arrests — stronger than the 65% for the full cohort that included criminal-justice referrals — suggests the identification method affects outcomes, per the same publication.

The Choose to Change evaluation (2,074 youth, approximately 50% reduction in violent-crime arrests at two years, per the University of Chicago Crime Lab) tested a different design: CBT delivered in schools to a younger population, without the comprehensive wraparound services that READI provides. Both produced violence reductions, suggesting that the CBT component may be a common mechanism across different delivery models.

No comparative study has tested different CVI program designs against each other. Whether outreach alone, wraparound services alone, or the combination drives results remains an open question in the field. The READI evaluation tested the combined package, not the individual components.

The Lansing evaluation provides a different kind of evidence. Michigan State University’s March 2025 evaluation found a 52% decline in fatal shootings, per The Trace — but the evaluation’s own authors flagged that the decline was greater in non-program areas than in program areas, per the Michigan Advance. This raises questions about whether city-level outcome data reflects program-specific impact or broader trends affecting entire jurisdictions.

The most prominent null result in the field comes from the Life Outside of Violence HVIP program in St. Louis, evaluated in a 2025 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, which found no significant difference in reinjury. This result demonstrates that program design and implementation quality — not just the CVI label — determine outcomes.

Implementation Timeline and Staffing

Documented programs provide a picture of what implementation requires.

The University of Chicago Leadership Academy takes six months per cohort, per the Chicago Defender. During that period, trainees do not generate billable encounters or grant deliverables — the training cost must be funded separately from program operations. The academy has graduated leaders from 21 cities including Atlanta, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, and others, per the Defender.

Orlando’s Advance Peace model demonstrates intensive staffing requirements: workers assigned to a small number of highest-risk individuals checking in “three times a day,” per WESH, cannot simultaneously serve a larger caseload. The model optimizes for depth per person rather than breadth. This is a design choice, not a limitation: the UC-Berkeley evaluation documented a 20% firearm homicide reduction in year one and 88% by year three, per the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.

Chicago’s ecosystem operates at a different scale. The city’s approach includes “streets outreach, behavioral health, workforce development, legal aid, and organizational development” and “training and support of multiple kinds, from life coaches to career counselors over the course of about a year,” per WTTW reporting on the SC2 initiative. More than 60 community partner agencies participate, per the SC2 initiative.

Pittsburgh allocated $50 million to support 13 local nonprofit CVI programs. Focus on Renewal received $1.3 million specifically to hire a “job coach and supervisor” and secured commitments from “at least 20 local businesses” to hire participants.

Baltimore’s Safe Streets has operated since 2007, making it the longest continuously running CVI program in the country, per city government data. The program runs multiple sites, with three sites achieving 365 or more consecutive days without a homicide in 2024-2025, per Baltimore city government press releases. That 18-year institutional history provides a data point on what sustained operation produces: the Johns Hopkins longitudinal study (2007-2022) found 22% fewer homicides and $7.20-$19.20 per dollar invested, per Johns Hopkins.

What Shapes Whether the Program Survives

Two cross-cutting factors documented across the field.

Funding diversification. The April 2025 DOJ contraction — more than 360 grants terminated, per Reuters — demonstrated what happens to single-stream programs. The programs that survived had built multiple revenue sources: Medicaid reimbursement (nine states, per HAVI), state appropriations (Ohio $51M, Montana $8M), local budget lines (Louisville, Philadelphia, Baltimore per city government reporting), and philanthropic backing (Chicago’s $400 million public-private partnership, per the Chicago Tribune). The FY2026 budget proposes eliminating CVI grant funding entirely, per Giffords.

Research partnership. Chicago’s relationship with the University of Chicago Crime Lab produced the 2024 READI RCT. Johns Hopkins produced longitudinal data from 2007 through 2022. UC-Berkeley produced Orlando’s 2024 independent evaluation. Michigan State produced Lansing’s March 2025 evaluation. The cities with the strongest evidence built research partnerships from the start.

As Governor Pritzker told the Chicago Tribune about the SC2 initiative: “Scaling community violence intervention for a safer Chicago [reflects] an unprecedented effort to gather government stakeholders and community organizations, private stakeholders to meet the needs of those most at risk of gun violence… This has been years in the making, and no other city or state in the nation has a partnership as robust as this one.”

The political durability dimension is documented through coalition breadth. Chicago’s $400 million public-private partnership, co-chaired by Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian (who stated: “Our goal is to be the safest big city in America,” per the Chicago Tribune), includes the Pritzker Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, and multiple corporate and community partners. Programs championed by a single official and funded by a single source have proven more fragile than those embedded across institutional, business, and community stakeholders, as the April 2025 federal contraction demonstrated.

The ARPA funding cliff adds urgency: approximately $2 billion in ARPA funds went to CVI across dozens of communities, and those funds must be fully spent by December 31, 2026, per Governing reporting. Combined with the DOJ grant terminations and the FY2026 elimination proposal, the compound federal withdrawal represents a stress test of state and local sustainability infrastructure.

The bipartisan dimension of CVI funding provides a partial counterweight. Ohio’s $51 million came under Republican Governor DeWine. Montana’s $8 million came from conservative governance. Texas appropriated $2 million in its first-ever state CVI funding, per Giffords. Florida and South Carolina enacted new violence prevention funding in 2024. Colorado voters approved a 6.5% tax on firearms and ammunition, expected to generate approximately $39 million annually, per the Colorado Department of Revenue. A 2024 national survey found 76% bipartisan support for federal CVI funding, including majorities of both Democrats and Republicans.

The cities with documented evidence decided at launch which metrics to track, how to track them, and who would verify the results. The metrics that have survived budget hearings, per multiple city reports: shooting reductions in targeted areas (Detroit’s 72%, Baltimore’s 23.6% decline), participant-level outcomes from RCTs (READI’s 65%), reinjury rates for HVIP (Grady’s 1-3%, Minneapolis’s 3%), cost-benefit ratios (Baltimore’s $7.20-$19.20, READI’s 4:1-18:1), and contact volume (Minneapolis’s 8,900 contacts and 1,500 mediations in six months).

Bottom Line

Eight design decisions shape every CVI program: model type, organizational home, identification method, team composition, geographic scope, on-the-ground functions, police relationship, and hospital-based arm. No single design is documented as universally correct — the right configuration depends on the jurisdiction’s violence pattern, workforce availability, institutional relationships, and political environment. The documented design choices that correlate with program survival: diversified funding across federal, state, local, and philanthropic sources; research partnerships built from launch; and metrics chosen before the program opens. Chicago and Baltimore provide the deepest documentation of multi-model ecosystems. Orlando and Lansing provide the clearest evidence of a single-model design producing documented results across two independent evaluations.

Source Appendix

Minneapolis — 8,900 contacts, 1,500 mediations, Sasha Cotton. KSTP, May 2022.
Chicago READI design — “subsidized, supported work combined with group CBT.” University of Chicago Crime Lab. https://crimelab.uchicago.edu/
Orlando — three check-ins per day. WESH, 2023.
David Kennedy / focused deterrence / NNSC. https://nnscommunities.org/
Pine Bluff — 543 days, streak ended June 2025. THV11, May 2025.
Albuquerque West Mesa — “on campus peer-to-peer support.” Albuquerque Journal, March 2024.
Grady Hospital — 98% acceptance, 1% first year, ~3% years 2-3. 11Alive, January 2024. Atlanta News First, August 2025.
Cleveland — 29%→19%. Ideastream, February 2025.
Baltimore — 2007 launch, health department, Mayor Scott. City government data. WMAR reporting.
Minneapolis OVP — Sasha Cotton. KSTP, May 2022.
NC Governor Cooper — statewide OVP. State of North Carolina, Executive Order establishing Office of Violence Prevention.
Albuquerque CSD — cabinet level. City of Albuquerque.
Chicago nonprofits, Pittsburgh $50M. Chicago Tribune. PublicSource, Venuri Siriwardane, September 12, 2023. https://www.publicsource.org/allegheny-county-anti-violence-initiative-reimagine-reentry-human-services/
Harris County — contractor failure, 228% increase. Harris County data.
ProPublica — identification tensions, 2 a.m. meetings, bus accompaniment. Alec MacGillis, May 2023.
Pittsburgh QR code. Public Source.
READI — 79% outreach-referred, 65% full cohort. Heller et al., QJE, 2024.
CVI program descriptions — workforce descriptions. 2024.
Leadership Academy — Dr. Chico Tillmon, 21 cities. Chicago Defender, September 2023.
CRED — 400 diplomas, Bob Karr op-ed. Chicago Tribune, August 2025 and July 2023.
UChicago — 20 violence recovery specialists, Dr. Tillmon. UChicago Medicine.
Chicago — 15 neighborhoods. Chicago Tribune, Olivia Stevens, “Foundations, business interests raise $66 million to fight crime in Chicago,” February 1, 2024. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/02/01/foundations-business-interests-raise-66-million-to-fight-crime-in-chicago/
Detroit — 72% targeted, 37% citywide. City of Detroit.
Baltimore Penn North — 478 days. Baltimore Banner, March 2024.
Charlotte — 1,500+ hours. UNC Charlotte Urban Institute, 2023.
Albuquerque city government — “honorable exits.” City of Albuquerque ACS/VIP. https://www.cabq.gov/acs/vip
Law enforcement endorsements — Snelling, Paul, Parham, Beck, Backus. See Q01 SA entries 8-11. Q03 entries 1-2.
DOJ terminations, FY2026. Reuters, April 2025. Giffords, September 2025.
Medicaid — 9 states. HAVI. https://www.thehavi.org/
State investments — Ohio, Montana. State government reporting.
Chicago $400M partnership. Chicago Tribune, Olivia Stevens, “Foundations, business interests raise $66 million to fight crime in Chicago,” February 1, 2024. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/02/01/foundations-business-interests-raise-66-million-to-fight-crime-in-chicago/
Research partnerships — UChicago, JHU, UC-Berkeley, MSU. See Q05 SA.
Minneapolis — 41%→3%. CBS Minnesota.
Indianapolis — two-thirds reduction. Bell et al., 2018.