Santa Clara County wants to be proactive instead of reactive when it comes to addressing community violence. To accomplish this, county leaders plan to spend millions of dollars on a new initiative.
The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously ON Feb. 4 to create the Office of Community Violence Prevention. They’re putting aside five million dollars over the next three years. The funds will be dedicated toward implementing policies to reduce violence. The office will also strategize ways to address the root causes of violence and evaluate prevention efforts.Homicides and assaults are the third highest cause of death among residents ages 18-to-24.
Supervisor Susan Ellenberg, who co-introduced the legislation to create the office last year, told San Jose Spotlight. "We don't have a single point of coordination to confirm that all of our plans are strategically aligned, that we don't have any redundancy in funding and that we're truly maximizing all of our efforts."
Some possible initiatives the office could implement include establishing resource hubs and focusing on intervention efforts in communities highly impacted by violence. Other policies the office might explore are banning guns from high-risk individuals, increasing green spaces and reducing the number of tobacco stores where youth frequent.
