Crime
Violence-prevention program Advance Peace is coming to Fresno. Here’s how it got funded
Advance Peace is finally coming to Fresno — and with the funding it needs.
The California Board of State and Community Corrections approved grant funding for the program through the Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission. The California Violence Intervention and Prevention grant will be $900,000 in total over three years, or about $300,000 each year.
Advance Peace is a program used in Richmond, Stockton and Sacramento that pairs residents who are most at-risk of committing gun violence with life coaches who help connect them to social services and job opportunities. In other California cities, the city governments have funded the program. Fresno’s version will be the first partnership with a local EOC.
“These funds will allow us to offer mentorship, resources, and training to reduce gun violence in Fresno. As someone who was personally affected by gun violence, I am tired of grieving with our community,” Emilia Reyes, CEO of Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission, said in a news release. “With this investment, paired with community and City support, we can work to end the vicious cycle of poverty and violence.”
The Fresno City Council in June did vote to commit some money to the program after Mayor Lee Brand vetoed the program’s funding the first time it was approved. For some time, the city council was divided on the program as conservative talk radio characterized it as giving gang members money not to shoot.
“Our past city attempts to reduce gun violence solely through more city policing has proven unsuccessful,” Fresno City Council President Miguel Arias said in a news release. “I am hopeful, this collaborative partnership that includes residents, public and private organizations, the state, and our city will reduce gun violence in our city and save lives.”
Marcel Woodruff — a lead organizer with Faith in the Valley-Fresno who helped lead the efforts to bring Advance Peace to Fresno — said he believes the gun murder of the promising 19-year-old Jacaree Fisher motivated city leaders to look at Advance Peace in a different light.
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Fresno Police Department officials have sounded the alarm over an increase in shootings. Woodruff said he believes if the city adopted Advance Peace sooner, that could have been prevented.
“The rhythm in these people’s lives is delicate,” he said, “and there’s been a big disruption in their rhythm of life. They’re bored, they couldn’t move in the ways they normally move, they’re stressed. So gun violence emerged out of that stress and pain.
“If we had Advance Peace last year, things wouldn’t be so bad right now,” Woodruff said. “We would’ve had that structure in place and the resources to get in front of it.”
High price of violence
A National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform report found a homicide in Fresno costs $2.4 million. An American Journal of Public Health study found that Richmond’s efforts to prevent gun violence, including Advance Peace, reduced gun homicides by 55 percent from 1996-2016.
This week, Khaalid Muttaqi, chief operating officer of Advance Peace, was in Fresno helping Woodruff and Aaron Foster interview people for “neighborhood change agent” positions, which will essentially be life coaches for the fellows who participate in the program. Muttaqi hopes the funding will cover six change agent positions along with a program manager and field coordinator.
Training for the change agents will begin in mid-September or October, Woodruff said, and hopefully the program will be fully operational in early 2021.
Muttaqi, who helped with the program in Sacramento, said ideally the program would have at least one change agent in each neighborhood.
Operating the program through the EOC will give the Fresno team a boost, he said.
“Fresno has all the right pieces in place at the right time to move forward with a certain level of confidence,” he said.
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