South Bend anti-violence grant plan disappoints faith group
Jeff Parrott
A group of local faith leaders say they're disappointed the city of South Bend has decided against bringing a highly touted anti-violence program to the city, instead opting to pay for smaller efforts by local groups.
The Mayor James Mueller administration Wednesday announced it had started accepting requests for "South Bend Alive" violence prevention grants, which can range from $5,000 to $25,000, but Peacemaker Fellowships aren't part of the plan.
Peacemaker Fellowships is an anti-violence program that DeVone Boggan founded in Richmond, Calif. It identifies the relatively small number of people responsible for the most gun violence in a city, and offers them resources and a cash stipend aimed at helping them escape street life and its retaliatory violence. Boggan has said it would cost about $1.5 million over five years, or about $300,000 annually, to bring the program to South Bend.
Then-Mayor Pete Buttigieg, in the heat of a presidential campaign in which opponents were attacking his record on diversity and racial justice, on Oct. 6, 2019 told an angry crowd of Faith in Indiana members packing a South Bend church that he would support their efforts to bring a Peacemakers Fellowship program to the city this year.
Boggan attended the "Peacemaker Summit" at Pentecostal Cathedral on Western Avenue, giving a presentation to the crowd of about 600.
Eight days later, many of those crowd members filled the Common Council chambers, waiting about three hours for the council to vote on the 2020 budget. Buttigieg won council approval of an administration budget that earmarked $300,000 for grants to groups proposing violence prevention efforts, but he noted that it would be up to the next mayor to decide how the money would be spent.
On Wednesday Mueller said he had trusted his community initiatives director, Moe Scott, to structure the grant program, and Scott prefers to give a smaller amount of money to a larger number of groups already working in the city to prevent violence.
As he ran for mayor against Republican Sean Haas, Mueller's anti-crime platform included "pursuing" Peacemaker Fellowships, while he noted then that he wasn't pledging to fund the initiative if elected. Within a week of beating Haas in the Nov. 5 election, Mueller said he met with Faith in Indiana and made clear his position.
"The only thing that deviated from the plan is we did not expect a once-in-a-century pandemic so we are moving a little later than we would have liked," Mueller said.
Scott said he is familiar with Boggan's work and the two work together in a national anti-violence network.
"A lot of the stuff Peacemakers is about and what they do is already being done," Scott said, citing the city's Group Violence Intervention and SAVE programs as examples. "How do we empower our community to bring about some of their concepts and ideas and help empower some of the folks who are doing the work already? I don't believe personally that it's just one program or initiative that can do it. It's going to take everyone, the whole community."
Scott's office will accept grant applications through Nov. 16, and then a seven-member committee he has selected will decide which requests to fund. Scott declined to name the committee members, saying he didn't want them to face "undue pressure" from people and groups seeking the money.
Mueller said since the committee will be deciding how to spend public money, the members' identity is clearly a matter of public record, but he said Scott has not brought him a list of names to approve yet. When that happens, Mueller said, he will publicly release their names.
In late June 2019, a group of Faith in Indiana leaders traveled to Detroit with common council members Tim Scott, Karen White and Sharon McBride to study a Peacemakers Fellowship program that Boggan brought there. The Rev. Gilbert Washington, pastor at St. Paul Bethel Missionary Baptist Church in South Bend, said Wednesday that the group thinks spending more money on the Peacemakers Fellowship would be more effective than the South Bend Alive grants' more diffused approach.
"We need an intense, bright light shone to those individuals and on those individuals, and an effort to arrest crime even before it begins," Washington said. "We are disappointed. We need a more comprehensive and creative response to the violence that's going on. Not piecemeal."
Washington added the group is disappointed in Buttigieg for pledging to help it find private funding for the effort but never following up.
"Mayor Pete said he would assist and support us in terms of the private sector in bringing forth money from individuals and industries that he knew because he thought that was in the best interest of our city," Washington said. "I agree with him. He just failed to follow up. He failed to come back to us and talk with others with regard to money for the program."
Sean Savett, spokesman for Win the Era, Buttigieg's political action committee, said Buttigieg was unavailable for an interview but the former mayor had not seen wide enough community support for the Peacemakers model in South Bend.
"When it comes to the proposed Peacemakers program, we have not seen a consensus between council members and community leaders on the merits of directing funding to this approach instead of increasing funding for the GVI program that already existed," Savett said.
White, the council president, said she was "very impressed" by what she saw in Detroit.
"It appears the administration is going in a different direction," White said, declining to express an opinion. "I would hope they would still have a conversation with Faith in Indiana. Bottom line is this community has got to come up with plans and strategies for this violence that we're experiencing in our community."
Washington said Faith in Indiana plans to apply for a grant to assess and document the needs of a Peacemaker Fellowship in the city. He spoke with The Tribune Wednesday after presiding over the funeral of Ronald J. Goodsell Jr., 20, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot after leading police on a short chase Sept. 4.
"We want to bring the fellowships to our city and one way you can do that is you start somewhere," Washington said. "We would like to show the effectiveness and put in the hands of those making decisions, specifics they can build on."
The city of South Bend will host two information sessions for prospective violence prevention grant applicants:
Wednesday Sept. 23, 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Charles Black Community Center, 3419 W. Washington St.
Wednesday Sept. 30, 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, 1522 W. Linden Ave.