Gavin Newsom’s May budget should address another pandemic: Gun violence

When night falls in Sacramento during the warmer months, you can count on two sounds: the irritable buzzing of pesky mosquitoes, and the sporadic pop of gunfire, destroying the peace and tranquility of what is otherwise a beautiful and promising city. Gun violence isn’t everywhere in Sacramento, however, in South Sacramento, Oak Park and Del Paso Heights, where I direct an anti-violence program known as Advance Peace, bullets seem to bite as often as insects do, sucking the life out of communities that are producing some of the city’s most talented athletes, artists, scholars and entertainers.

The Forgotten Pandemic of community violence has been claiming California’s finest for years now, and with COVID-19 upon us, more Black and brown people are falling victim now than in years prior. California suffered a 46% increase in gun homicides from April to December 2020, compared to the same time period in 2019.

In the last three months of 2020, California suffered a 69% increase compared to 2019. In January 2021, California suffered its single deadliest month since 2007. Prior to this surge in gun violence, the Forgotten Pandemic was already by far the leading cause of death for young Black men and boys.

Prior to the pandemic, however, many California communities were moving in the right direction. In 2018 and 2019 here in Sacramento, organizations like Advance Peace and the Black Child Legacy Campaign began working together under the umbrella of Healing the Hood, a collaborative of community organizations that deployed credible mentors, street outreach workers and a relentless crisis response team in the most impacted communities.

With additional funding from California’s Violence Intervention and Prevention Program (CalVIP), Sacramento saw significant drops in gun-related homicides and shootings, ultimately going on a 28-month run of absolutely no juvenile homicides. Other cities funded by CalVIP also saw significant declines in gun related homicides. In fact, when compared to cities that did not receive funding, CalVIP-funded cities experienced homicide declines three times greater.

None of this would’ve been possible without CalVIP. However, last year the CalVIP budget was slashed from $30 million down to just $9 million.

We need brave leaders who are willing to invest in proven solutions now more than ever. There are 39 million people in California, where frontline workers are receiving only a fraction of what they need to fight a multi-billion-dollar fight with thousands and thousands of lives on the line.

When you consider the fact that a single homicide in the city of Sacramento can cost anywhere from $1.5 to $2 million, reductions in violence mean a huge return on investment from both a human and an economic perspective. With COVID-19, we’ve invested huge amounts into our public health response to the virus. We need to do the same thing when it comes to the Forgotten Pandemic: the virus of violence.

I’m part of a statewide coalition calling for $114 million in funding for CalVIP this year. That’s a mere $3 dollars per Californian. Other states, including Massachusetts, which has far lower rates of gun homicide, are already investing much more.

California is due to receive $26 billion dollars from the American Recovery Plan this month. In our efforts to re-imagine public safety, it’s imperative that our leaders step up and provide frontline workers the resources needed to do our lifesaving work.

We simply can’t afford to sit idle while the forces of evil have already come together to wreak havoc on our communities. What’s to come could be far worse than what we’re already seeing if we aren’t proactive.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and members of the California Legislature: we elected you to lead. Let California lead the way, and let’s make both our COVID and gun violence pandemics a thing of the past.