Billy Penn recently reported on the Cure Violence Basketball League, one of the programs offered by a local public health initiative.
The winter basketball league provided a free, welcoming and safe environment for adult men in Kensington and across the city to get some exercise, practice social skills and improve sportsmanship, New Kensington Community Development Corporation (NKCDC) vice president Amy Perez told us then.
“One of the refs said to me, ‘I’ve never been after a championship game where I can sit down and the two teams that just played each other are all eating together, and I’m not being escorted to my car,’” she said. “So it was not just us that noticed, but the ref was really noticing the difference between the dynamics with this league versus other leagues that he refs for.”
Leaders of the program say the program was a “massive success” — which made the news that the program was among those impacted by new Department of Justice funding cuts all the more bewildering and painful.
The cuts — totaling $1.5 million for NKCDC alone — are being made because the Trump administration says the programs “no longer support department priorities,” said Bill McKinney, the group’s executive director. Those cuts that will most directly affect NKCDC’s Cure Violence program – a violence intervention program in Kensington.
Real, immediate impacts
The Cure Violence initiative as a whole and the basketball league were making “real” changes that helped Kensington tremendously, McKinney said.
“There’s been a lot of attention on the reduction in violent crime in Philadelphia, which really started about two years ago,” he said. “That’s within probably the first year of our program and there’s been really significant changes. I think Philly as a whole has had about a 40% decrease. And Kensington has had about a 55 to 56% decrease in shootings, starting in 2023. So there’s been really significant changes.”
McKinney said the program was “just getting started,” and that these cuts will affect the major strides it has made in creating change.
“We’ve got this cycle that has now been created where we are increasing the reality of how many people are going to be involved in violent activities, and we’ve eliminated really one of the only programs that is effective at addressing that,” he said. “So we are staring at a real situation here and I don’t want that lost.”
The program also offers perspective from those with lived experience in violent situations and de-escalating conflict – providing program participants with trusted, relatable peers.
McKinney said the Cure Violence program is one of the few “evidence-based approaches” that has been shown to reduce gun violence. Without programs like this, communities could start to see problems reappear.
The Department of Justice’s cuts will affect hundreds of organizations across the country that offer things like gun-violence prevention programs, victim support services (such as trauma centers) and organizations supporting victims of domestic violence and abuse. This includes several Philly-based organizations.
“It was such a successful program, we were looking to expand it with this money,” he said. “And now, we’re just looking to see if we can maintain it in some way for some period of time.”
Violence as a public health issue
The Cure Violence program is a national organization that focuses on a “data-driven” approach to effectively reduce violence. Cure Violence in Kensington follows this national model.
McKinney explains the program has been incredibly effective in Kensington – offering various programs and strategies to “interrupt” violence before it happens and de-escalate situations.
McKinney said the notification that federal funding would cease for these grants was “sudden,” and there was some confusion about why these kinds of programs would be cut.
“[The administration said money cut from these programs] will be put toward directly supporting certain law enforcement operations combating violent crime, which is what we were doing,” he said. “It will be put toward protecting American children, which is what we were doing.”
He said the notification also said money would be rerouted to “support American victims of trafficking and sexual assault, and better coordinating law enforcement efforts at all levels of government.”
The Cure Violence program receives funding through one other grant – the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency School Safety and Security Committee’s Violence Intervention & Prevention (VIP) Grants. But McKinney said much of Cure Violence’s operating costs – including its staff – were on the DOJ grants.
More affected
Nationwide, the cuts affect over 300 grants that total over $800 million, and Cure Violence Kensington is not the only Philly organization that would lose this federal funding. (A list of affected programs can be found here.)
The Pennsylvania Innocence Project, which helps those wrongfully convicted of crimes be exonerated or better transition to freedom, would lose almost $600,000 in grant funding. The organization operates in several parts of Pennsylvania, but primarily out of law schools in the Philly area. For PIP, these cuts are a significant portion of their funding, and could create issues like longer wait times for services and a limited reach in helping clients.
The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Phillips Black Inc’s Philadelphia office (a nonprofit public interest law practice) will also lose grant funding for certain programs.
McKinney said that for any of the organizations losing money, it is not an ideal time.
“I think the one other thing that is just an important theme is this is happening in the midst of other cuts that have taken place that are not violence-related cuts, and others that are coming,” he said.
He emphasizes that many of the services supported by this grant are for those who may be struggling financially, and potential cuts to SNAP benefits and utility/rent assistance could harm program participants as well.
He said these moves will “increase how many people are involved in violent crimes.”
“The vast majority of people who are out here on the corners, they’re not out there becoming millionaires, they’re out there getting enough to get by, getting enough for electricity, getting enough for that medical emergency,” he said. “You’ve got this cycle that is now being created.”
The future
According to Reuters, grantees have 30 days to appeal the funding cuts, and a small number of grants have been restored.
For the Cure Violence program, the lack of funding, along with proposed funding cuts to SNAP and other supportive programs, could be devastating.
“These things all connect,” McKinney said. “Being in a basketball league connects to an intervention strategy, it’s all very interconnected. You take away one thing and you really have a sort of multiplier effect in another space.”
Bottom line, McKinney said, the community may really struggle without the program.
“Cure Violence is one of the few, evidence-based approaches that there is data that says this works, this reduces gun violence,” he said.