CVI Leaders Respond to Recent DOJ Cuts to Community Violence Intervention Grants: ‘People’s Lives Are at Stake’

(L-R) The Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science Faculty Director Andrew Papachristos, Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities Executive Director Esther Franco-Payne, Metropolitan Peace Initiatives Chief Program Officer Domonique McCord, and Chicago CRED Director of Scaling CVI for a Safer Chicago Jorge Matos sit for a panel at the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center of Northwestern University on Thursday, April 24, 2025.

Community Violence Intervention (CVI) experts and researchers in Chicago responded to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) recent decision to cut grants to hundreds of programs that provide services to crime victims, calling the cancellation “challenging.” The discussion took place at a panel hosted by Northwestern University’s Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science (CORNERS) on Thursday, April 24, 2025 at the school’s downtown campus.

The panel, titled “Leveraging Research Partnerships to Reduce Violence and Shape the Future of Public Safety in Chicago,” featured Metropolitan Peace Initiatives (MPI) Chief Program Officer Domonique McCord, Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities Executive Director Esther Franco-Payne, and Chicago CRED Director of Scaling CVI for a Safer Chicago Jorge Matos. CORNERS Faculty Director Andrew Papachristos directed the conversation as moderator, exploring how CVI efforts across Chicago are helping to reshape public safety and reduce gun violence.

The event came just 48 hours after the DOJ terminated more than 360 grants valued at $811 million in total, according to Reuters. These grants helped to fund programs that support CVI initiatives, domestic violence victims, police training, and more. On Tuesday, hundreds of nonprofit organizations across the country, including Chicago, received a memo from the DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs stating that the grants were canceled because funding no longer “aligned with DOJ priorities.”

Papachristos addressed the elephant in the room, asking panelists what’s at stake if CVI funding dries up and organizations are forced to make cuts.

“Safety is at stake. People’s lives are at stake. Communities thriving is at stake. I think that is a way to give people an easy visual, but it is also very difficult to grasp,” Franco-Payne said, noting that approximately $93 million has been lost in the CVI ecosystem since the news came down.

“[…] The ways in which we use our resources and the strategies we support are only, in this moment, a stopgap. We need sustainability,” Franco-Payne said.

McCord agreed, adding, “I think about the data on both sides. There are people attached to [that data]. People in the community, people in our organizations. So we need to be mindful of what it takes to not lose the momentum.”

Within the field of CVI, this funding helps to provide wraparound services to those at highest risk of gun violence. These services include street outreach, behavioral health, workforce development, case management, and more.

Here in Chicago, CORNERS found that Communities Partnering 4 Peace—convened by MPI—prevented at least 383 homicides and shootings across the city between 2017 and 2021. Additionally, Peacekeeper hotspots experienced a 41 percent overall reduction in victimizations from 2023 to 2024.

“Ten years ago, [these] services didn’t exist in this holistic, wraparound way. I think the uniqueness about the holistic nature of the services is that it’s data-driven,” McCord said. “To be able to decide dosage—when and where—has helped us tremendously, and it helps us to allocate resources more appropriately.”

Matos voiced his concerns that cuts in funding could reverse years of progress and leave those who benefit from CVI initiatives in an incredibly vulnerable state.

“We do not want to see the folks who have worked so hard and built themselves up to relapse,” Matos said. “[…] Our organizations have tripled in size, so the buy-in is there. At this moment, if we have to do mass layoffs and all that, I feel like we’re going backwards again. I think it’s going to be ten times worse than what [we saw] 20 years ago.”

In closing out the panel, Papachristos echoed the panel’s sentiment, stating, “In this particular moment, [we’re] vulnerable when you’re getting started to do the work—to be able to standardize training, share knowledge, build data systems, build responses that are trauma-informed, take care of your work, [and your] staff.”

“For that to be gone means the whole cycle could start over again.”