Title
Adopting the Community-First Public Safety City Council Fund Grant Awards.
Body
WHEREAS, in 2019, the Saint Paul City Council’s Community First Public Safety Workgroup engaged several community stakeholders in exploring potential opportunities to address identified neighborhood safety needs; and
WHEREAS, during the 2020 City Budget discussion, Council Members acknowledged the need to deepen community partnerships to complement and expand the Council’s Community First Public Safety initiatives; and
WHEREAS, The Community-First Public Safety Council Fund (CFPS-CF)was created following community conversations and the recently-passed City Council Resolution RES 20-1601 that included recommendations for next steps on community safety, namely including the creation of a grants program to fund healing and community-based intervention work; and
WHEREAS, funding for the program came from repurposing the City Council’s annual Community Organizational Partnership Program (COPP) funds that previously supported community engagement more broadly; and
WHEREAS, on January 28th, 2021 the Saint Paul City Council announced the availability of the CFPS-CF grants, which will provide direct support for organizations working on community-first public safety, funds will support community-based organizations serving historically under-resourced areas of the city and/or areas disproportionately impacted by gun violence; and
WHEREAS, the grants build on an existing $1.4 million city investment in community-first public safety made in the 2020 budget for Community Ambassadors, Cure Violence, the Healing Streets Project, targeted youth employment, and after-school parks & recreation programming, created under the leadership of Mayor Melvin Carter and approved by the City Council, and
WHEREAS, 22 applications were received by the deadline of 11:59PM on February 10th, a review process was conducted by city staff and existing city-funded community-first public safety program partners; and
WHEREAS, through a competitive review process, the committee is recommending five proposals to the City Council for funding and approval; and now therefore
BE IT RESOLVED the Saint Paul City Council accepts the recommendations of the review committee to approve five contracts for the amount of $20,000 each, the five organizations receiving awarded those contracts are Love First, ReleaseMN8, Karen Organization of Minnesota, The JK Movement and Restoration Incorporated Ministries.