Funding Cuts Hit Violence Prevention Programs

Non-violence advocates say consequences could be dire

By Danielle M. Smith - Public News Service
The Tube City Almanac
May 30, 2025
Posted in: State & Region

Staff at Philadelphia’s New Kensington Community Development Corp. greet visitors during a gun-violence prevention event in 2024. The organization is one of many across Pennsylvania whose work is threatened by a loss of federal funding. (Photo courtesy New Kensington Community Development Corp.)

A mass shooting on Memorial Day in Philadelphia marred the solemn holiday and also was an aberration — gun-related homicides across Pennsylvania are down 38 percent this year.

But violence prevention advocates are warning that federal funding cuts threaten key programs designed to curb gun-related crimes.

In Philadelphia, the Cure Violence program run by New Kensington Community Development Corporation is one of 350 groups learning their Justice Department grants would end early.

Amy Perez, vice president of programs for the group, said the cuts affect their entire outreach effort, from a youth basketball league to housing services and nutrition programs.

“The original contract was $1.5 million, and about a third of that is a subcontract with Temple University’s Center for Urban Bioethics,” Perez said. “About a million of that was meant to fund the program here at NKCDC, and we had about $900,000 left on that contract.”

The Trump administration has said services for victims will not be affected. But Perez said her group is now out $260,000 in unreimbursed costs. She added a separate grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency is helping to keep program staff employed.

Tyreek Counts, Cure Violence program coordinator for the New Kensington Community Development Corporation, is gearing up for a Gun Violence Awareness Month event in June and seeking funding to support it. He pointed out the group takes a public health approach, helping people through jobs, trauma counseling, court advocacy and daily outreach.

He added the efforts are making a difference, with homicides in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood down 54 percent and shootings down 44 percent.

“We try to come help them and try to change their thinking patterns,” Counts said. “Basically, get them to understand a bigger picture. Get them to understand that there’s more than life than the streets, and that they can make it if they try. That's our mission every day.”

Adam Garber, executive director of the CeaseFirePA Education Fund, said his group has seen this play out in other states in previous decades where programs successful at reducing gun violence have resources pulled from them.

“When we think about what the Trump administration is doing, these cuts are wrong on the dollars and cents and on the moral obligation,” Garber said. “If they continue to go forward and expand, the second Trump administration’s probably going to tie the first for a record that no one wants, which is the largest increase in homicides in U.S. history.”

Danielle M. Smith is a producer for Public News Service, where this story first appeared. An award-winning radio journalist/personality with more than a decade of experience in broadcast media, she is a former audio journalist with American Urban Radio Networks and Sheridan Broadcasting Networks who also hosts a weekly community affairs show “Good News” on WGBN (1360 AM/98.9 FM).

Originally published May 30, 2025.

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