Trump cuts millions of grants to prevention of crime in California

From Kayla MihalovichCalmness

This story was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

Dozens of violence prevention programs in California and victim service services, including those to protect survivors from domestic violence and termination of sexual abuse in prisons and prisons, are facing devastating cuts after the Trump administration has sharply withdrawn the funding from them.

“These programs are literally saving life – not only for the victims, but also for all our communities,” says Tinish Holins, CEO of the non -profit organization Californians for safety and justice. “When they go, we lose a safety net.”

US Department of Justice last week Reduced grants that were originally estimated at $ 811 millionS In California alone, the department reduced just over $ 80 million, the bigger of which was for groups based in Los Angeles, Oklland and San Francisco, According to a document from the US Department of Justice, received and published by ReutersS

Organizations may have already spent some of the funding of grants, which usually lasts for three years and it is not clear how much the administration goes back. They have 30 days to appeal the decision. The US Department of Justice did not respond to repeated attempts to confirm the list of grant recipients in California.

In a statement to Calmatters, spokesman for the Ministry of Justice Gates McGavik said: “Under the Prosecutor General (PAM), Bondi’s leadership, the Ministry of Justice is committed to ensuring that his resources are spent on the arrest of the crimes. Socio-environmental contexts.

California officials rejected the characteristic of the Trump administration of grants and identified programs as critical.

“The Trump administration is recklessly ignoring the safety of the people he vowed to serve,” said General Prosecutor Rob Bont in a statement to Calmatters. “These resources are not optional luxury, they are essential and crucial to ensuring the security and stability of our communities across the country. My office will do everything in our force to stop the potentially deadly consequences of freezing federal funding.”

Representatives of three organizations who lost money told Calmatters that they were committed to continuing their programs and stressed that they were providing vital services to vulnerable people.

In Oakland, the Non -Profit Organization Youth Alive! He lost his $ 2 million grant to support the first hospital intervention program based in a hospital. The organization’s employees appear in the bed of the hospital of young people who have been injured with violence to help them navigate their recovery and prevent response.

Through constant support such as mental health and housing services, the organization maintains that it can interrupt cycles of violence. Last year, she served 113 clients, only one of whom was again injured.

“This is an essential part of the ecosystem because you have to be in specific places to help violence and help people cure,” says Dr. Joseph Griffin, CEO of Youth Alive! “It’s about increasing community health.”

When he learned that the organization had lost its funding, he said he was distrustful.

“This is not an impact we can absorb lightly,” he said. “Replacing $ 2 million is never easy.”

Elsewhere in Auckland, Organive Impact Justice has lost $ 8.5 million grant.

“It was Kuvald,” said Alex Busanski, his founder and president.

The organization received a $ 4 million grant to expand Reentry’s home opportunities for people returning home from prison. He also received three grants totaling $ 4.5 million to support his work to eliminate sexual abuse and sexual harm from closed facilities, such as closing and closing.

“Accepting this puts the most vulnerable people in a much more risky and potentially harmful situation,” Busanski said.

The Asian women’s shelter, one of the three domestic violence shelters in San Francisco, lost its $ 500,000 grant to support Arab survivors of domestic violence and human trafficking, connecting them to legal and social services.

The competitive grant was awarded only to five organizations last year, according to the communication specialist and involvement of the Asian shelter, Saara Ahmed.

“The irony is that the reasons from the Ministry of Justice are that they transfer funding to the law enforcement agencies for the fight against violent crimes and trafficking. But violent crime and trafficking affect the survivors, so there is a lot of contradiction,” Ahmed said. “It’s a question to ask: Whose safety and security they give priority?”

On April 25, over 600 local, state and national organizations, including the Asian Women’s Shelter, signed a letter to the Bondi General, expressing a “deep concern” about federal decisions for the financing of the Ministry of Justice, including the canceled grant.

“This long -standing bilateral commitment to support services and efforts to prevent victims of (domestic violence, dating with violence, sexual assault, lurking and trafficking) remains strong; but the last actions of the department have left those critical rescue programs that are not sure about their ability to continue to serve the victims.”

The San Francisco District Prosecutor’s Office also lost a grant of weaning. “It is heartbreaking for the means to shorten such critical work,” said San Francisco District Prosecutor Brooke Jenkins, whose grant supports young people from risk and young adults from undervalued communities.

“Public safety at its core is less casualties of crime as a whole. And as a government, we can’t just be reactionary,” she said. “We have to do the front end, the proactive work so that people do not need to get involved in crime first.”

Kayla Mihalovic is California local news.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.