Overheard at the 2025 CVI Rally and Legislative Action Day
There was a sea of orange down in Springfield, IL as hundreds of Community Violence Intervention (CVI) professionals and advocates from across the Chicagoland area made their voices heard at the 2025 CVI Rally and Legislative Action Day on Tuesday, May 13. The event called for the sustained funding of CVI in the Reimagine Public Safety Act (RPSA), which aims to reduce gun violence and promote safety across communities.
Metropolitan Peace Initiatives (MPI), Communities Partnering 4 Peace (CP4P), Chicago CRED, Illinois Peace Project, and dozens of other CVI organizations pushed for elected officials to “hold the line” for the continuous funding of the RPSA, as it supports peace through violence prevention, youth programming, workforce development, and trauma recovery. The ask comes at a critical time as the U.S. Department of Justice recently decided to cut nearly $1 billion in federal CVI grants.
Governor J.B. Pritzker says CVI is working and funding for the RPSA is in his budget proposal for fiscal year 2026.
Still, Chicago’s CVI organizations are pushing for their work to become a permanent fixture in public safety.
Below, check out some of the highlights from the 2025 CVI Rally and Legislative Action Day.
“We are changing our communities.”
“Many of the families who are affected from gun violence will say that they don’t know what they would do if CVI weren’t here to help them. We are the community. We are changing our communities, and we are public safety.” – Samuel Castro, Institute for Nonviolence Chicago Director of Strategic Initiatives & Partnerships
“We’re beginning to make a difference in Chicago.“
“They want to potentially cut close to 20 percent of the funding that supports 2,000 jobs. You do the math. That means 400 outreach workers. That means 400 F.L.I.P. workers. That means a possibility [of] not working, right when it’s about to get the hottest, when we know we need it the most. We cannot have that. We know, for once, we’re beginning to make a difference in Chicago.” – Rami Nashashibi, Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN) Executive Director
“We know what our communities need.“
“It is our time to make sure that we move and transition to ensure public safety for everybody. We are the champions of that. We know what our communities need. We need good housing. We need good schools. We need good jobs. We need good health care. We need each other. We cannot let anybody—whether it’s the president in D.C. or someone locally here—take that away from us.” – State Senator Robert Peters, Co-Sponsor of RPSA
“I’m here to fight with you.”
“Every single life that we lose to gun violence, in general, is another incredible life lost that had potential, that had a future. I’m here to fight with you in this fight to make sure that we hold the line on ensuring that we have funding to continue to prevent violence in our communities, because our communities deserve that investment.” – State Senator Celina Villanueva
“We’re out there boots on the ground. Twenty-four, seven.“
“We’re out there boots on the ground. Twenty-four, seven protecting our young people and our young children. [We’re also there] to make a safe community for everyone, to make sure that everybody can enjoy our great city.” – Rodney Phillips, MPI Associate Director of the Crisis Prevention and Response Unit (CPRU)
