Assemblymember Mike A. Gipson (D-Carson), Councilmember Tim McOsker (Los Angeles’ 15th District), and Watts community leaders stood shoulder to shoulder at a press conference in Watts, next to a white casket to call out the Trump administration’s massive cuts to vital community services that have been proven to work .
“Today we stand here not being silent on the things that matter,” said Asm. Gipson. “Our community matters. The federal government under the Trump administration has turned away from its moral obligation, its moral responsibility to protect the people in the United States of America… specifically California., They have taken away $811 million from vital services designated to … save lives.
“So, you wonder why we have a casket? We don’t choose death. We choose to live.”
Gipson, McOsker, and anti-violence advocates came together to raise awareness of the U.S. Department of Justice’s decision to implement extraordinary cuts to the Community-Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative or CVIPI funding.
The leaders are calling on the federal government to reinstate the funding to ensure the continuation of these life-saving programs.
Counciman McOsker stressed the point that the city relies so heavily on interventionists and preventionists addressing gangs and gang violence in the community.
“They know the young men and women coming up,” said McOsker. “They know the young men and women who are at risk, who are at the decision point where they can go to peace or they can go to violence.”
Dr. Lupe Rivera is the executive director, CEO of Toberman Neighborhood Center. Rivera shared the experience of losing her best friend at the age of 14 to gun violence. Since that time, that pain still lives inside her every day, she said.
“That loss fuels every step I take as a leader,” said Rivera. “As a young girl, I was within minutes of joining a gang. Not because I wanted to be violent, but because I wanted to belong. An intervention saved me. I had elders, credible messengers who we now call interventionists who saw me, stopped me, and believed in me more than I believed in myself.” Rivera said.
Multiple community violence intervention service providers in California have had their federal grants terminated mid-grant cycle and without any warning. A few of the local organizations impacted are:
Urban Peace Institute in Los Angeles lost its $1.5 million grant to support the training and certification of street outreach workers
Centro Cha Inc in Los Angeles lost $1.5 million in funding
The Reverence Project in Los Angeles lost $2 million in funding
Providence Health System in Southern California lost nearly $2 million in funding
Alicia Blair, executive director of the Reverence Project, shared powerful statistics about the organization’s work in Watts.
“Once the Reverence Project and the fellows came to Watts, the nearly double-digit gang-related homicides in the developments that caused a state of emergency in the summer of 2023, dropped to zero in the first year of the fellows being deployed,” said Blair. “This work is not just philosophical. This work is not just a social experiment. There are documented wins, as was already stated.”
More speakers from organizations, including Southern California Crossroads, Watts Gang Violence Task Force, and GRYD, have already been forced to consider layoffs and reduce their work on gun violence, and discussed the dangerous consequences of the Trump Administration cuts. As a result of rash federal decision-making, programs will be cut and people will be laid off. When funds are cut, people die as a result. Asm. Gipson and community leaders illustrated what that looks like at Friday’s press conference in Watts Gymnasium Facility at Nickerson Gardens.