The Trump White House war on peacemakers is a betrayal of public safety

DOJ has disqualified non-profit community groups from applying for the Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative.

By Jeff Nesbit

The Trump administration took a proven, life-saving program and broke it.

In a new grant solicitation, the Department of Justice has officially disqualified non-profit community groups from applying for the Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CVIPI)—a program that was, by design, built around their work.

This decision is not a bureaucratic tweak. It is, as one federal judge called the administration’s related cuts, “shameful.” It is a mind-numbingly short-sighted and mean-spirited act. It is a political maneuver, consistent with this administration’s “reward allies, punish enemies” playbook, that will make American families and communities less safe.

The cruel irony is that this program is being strangled precisely because it was working. CVIPI was a “pioneering program” born from the Biden administration’s recognition that community-centered groups are “among the most successful tools” in combating America’s “deep-rooted gun violence problem.”

It was created because these groups “had played a crucial role in helping reduce homicides in major US cities,” as The Guardian put it.

This administration is actively dismantling this successful strategy even as cities like Newark, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Oakland are seeing “declining homicides”—precisely because these very groups have “become a more central piece of their city’s public safety strategies.”

This isn’t an abstract budget cut; it’s a “lifeline” being severed, with devastating real-world consequences.

In Atlanta, Hope Hustlers, a violence prevention organization, lost a $3 million grant. This has already forced 10 full-time street outreach workers into part-time roles. Its executive director, Leonard Dungee, warns that the new “messengers are gonna be police,” who “aren’t going to be seen as credible in the community” to do this sensitive work, as the Guardian reported.

In Newark, the Community Street Team (NCST)—which deploys staff to de-escalate “large fights and screaming matches ... before bullets fly”—was “stripped of a $1 million CVIPI grant” and had to lay off “about a dozen staff members,” also according to the Guardian.

This decision doesn’t just affect livelihoods; it means Newark’s residents “lose the presence of people who walk through their neighborhoods daily to check the vibe in the area,” Rey Chavis, executive director of Newark Community Street Team, told the Guardian.

The new language in the grant, he said, is “extremely offensive” and “disrespectful.”

“To disqualify us and presume that law enforcement are the only ones qualified to do this work is disrespectful,” Chavez said.

This is a deliberate pattern, an about face from a strategy that worked. The program’s stated goal has been officially changed from “comprehensive, community-based prevention” to one that “supports law enforcement efforts.”

This shift—which puts far more weight on investing in police departments—is not an accident. It follows the administration’s dismantling of the White House office of gun violence prevention, the removal of the surgeon general’s advisory stating gun violence is a public health issue, and the April purge of over $800 million in Justice Department grants—$150 million of which was taken from programs staffed by people from the very neighborhoods they serve.

Let’s be clear. This administration, faced with a proven strategy for saving lives, has chosen to kill it. It has defunded the peacemakers, fired the violence interrupters, and replaced a public health solution with a political agenda.

This is a deliberate choice to sacrifice public safety for political retribution, and it is American families and communities who will be hurt.

Jeff Nesbit was the public affairs chief for five Cabinet departments or agencies under four presidents.

---