City to spend $500K on violence prevention

Columbus will hire two new workers responsible for reaching young people before they commit crimes or become embroiled in gang life.

The Columbus City Council announced Wednesday that it will use $500,000 in the city budget through the end of 2019 to prevent violent crime, including the hiring of two full-time “violence intervention specialists” to supplement eight contract workers who mentor young people and try to defuse escalating tension before it turns violent.

“These strategies are aimed to prevent violent crime without the use of handcuffs and truly to build on what works in our community already,” Council President Shannon G. Hardin said. “The strategies and principles outlined today are designed to catch violent crime upstream, to prevent dangerous situations from ever arising.”

In February, Hardin and Mayor Andrew J. Ginther rolled out a plan to spend $2 million on new safety plans and to hire 100 additional police officers in 2018.

Here is how the $500,000 will be spent: $222,000 will be used for the neighborhood intervention specialists through the end of 2019; $30,000 will be used to add a sixth event to this summer’s Cap City Nights neighborhood festivals; and $248,000 will go toward initiatives that send caseworkers into neighborhoods where violent crime occurs.

The newest Cap City Nights event will be in the Wedgewood neighborhood, where police responded to seven deaths at the Wedgewood Village Apartments during a record-setting year for homicides in 2017.

Those events are meant to foster neighborhood pride and establish trust between residents and the city, said Eric Brandon, assistant director in the Department of Recreation and Parks.

Wedgewood Village had been a haven for drugs and violence. Last year a large drug bust removed some dealers that had been working in the complex.

Brandon said the new intervention specialists will work across the city, but adding them to the roster of those the city contracts with from outside organizations will help it address some of the problems in Wedgewood. He described their work as “street-level violence interruption and conflict mediation.”

The complex is home to a large contingent of Somali families, including more than 1,000 children.

“A lot of those adults don’t speak English very well so now you not only have a gap in culture from the new American community but you also have a gap, within that community, of language,” Brandon said. “Their parents can’t connect with the language to help get them on path.”

Those specialists are part of the city’s Application for Purpose Pride and Success program, and the city plans to announce additional expansions of the program throughout the year, including helping people who have gone through the program to find jobs.

“Long-term success hinges on the ability to connect youth with great opportunities and economic self-sufficiency,” Councilwoman Elizabeth Brown said.