The students sit in a semicircle at Kennedy-King College in Englewood. They listen, take notes, sometimes laugh, sometimes nod in agreement as the teacher goes over ways to talk people out of violence.
Their first real test will come in the weeks ahead, when violence typically spikes with the arrival of summer, and they hit the streets in Englewood and other neighborhoods that have borne the brunt of shootings in Chicago for decades.
They will head out without guns or bulletproof vests. Some of them are former gang members or drug users. Others just live in those neighborhoods and want to learn how to reach the young people living around them. They will have to walk a tough line, reaching an understanding with police while maintaining credibility on the street.
“It’s harder to find that kind of individual than almost any other professional,” said Ric Estrada, president and CEO of Metropolitan Family Services, which runs the Metropolitan Peace Academy at Kennedy-King. “Our efforts make sure we are training these folks.”
The academy is a key initiative of Communities Partnering for Peace, a collaboration of nine neighborhood organizations on the South and West sides that came together two years ago when violence in the city rose to a level not seen in two decades.
Outreach workers have long been used to work against violence in the city. They come from several social service organizations and often have criminal records, experience they use to reach young gang members. Now, for the first time, these groups have come together to standardize training, offering a 16-week course taught by instructors who rely on research and their own time on the street to come up with “best practices.”
But funding is at a critical point. Private donors say the new mayor must make a greater commitment of city funding for this budding network to grow and effectively work with police.
‘Laugh, even if nothing is funny’
Mark Sanders, a social worker and lecturer at the University of Chicago, is speaking to a Peace Academy class about trauma. He asks if they remember where they were during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Some murmur school or work. Harold Martinez says he was in prison.
He was around 12 years old when he joined the Spanish Cobras street gang. He had two older brothers, and joining felt like the norm. He and his family had been evicted several times in Humboldt Park, and the gang offered him protection, money and a sense of community.
Martinez said he was shot and retaliated against the shooter. He was arrested and convicted of attempted murder. “I kept who shot me a secret. They didn’t, so I went to prison,” he explains.
He describes how he became disenchanted. He saw gang members turn on those within the gang, and high-ranking members doing things they forbade others from doing.
Now he does street outreach work, hoping to present facts to young men and boys in gangs — get them see that gangs are not the best path toward making money or belonging.
In his class, Sanders continually links violence and drug use to cycles of trauma that stem from poverty: childhood neglect, exposure to domestic violence, walking through gang conflicts when neighborhood schools close.
Such trauma is ingrained in DeCarlos Toro. He grew up in Humboldt Park too and joined a gang when he was 13 or 14, for many of the same reasons as Martinez.
When he was around 25, his 18-year-old brother, also lured into gangs, was shot and killed. His brother had been a boxer well known in the community. He was a fixture at the Garfield Park “Gold Dome” field house.”He wanted to be like me,” Toro said, choking up in a hallway after class. “That sticks with me every day of my life.”
He hopes to reach at least a few kids.
Near the end of class, Sanders has a warning for the men and women in the desks around him: The crime scenes, the hospitals, the funerals will weigh on them.
“I know your work is stressful, so here’s what I encourage you to do every evening when you get off work at 4, 5, 6, 7,” he says. “Go to your car, get in, lock the door, look around in both directions to make sure no one is looking and literally laugh, even if nothing is funny.”
Rebuilding safe spaces
While people like Martinez and Toro work the streets, community groups across the city are planning events this summer in the hope of making neighborhoods safer by drawing neighbors closer together.
The Institute for Nonviolence Chicago has planned a picnic and five-on-five basketball tournament on the West Side. Other groups are holding “Light in the Night” events at parks several nights a week, featuring music, sports and other activities to draw people out of their homes.
Such community-building has long existed in Chicago neighborhoods, but now there’s funding through Communities Partnering for Peace to support the work. The groups have hosted barbecues, roller skate parties and baseball leagues.
“They are meant to help communities take back their space and rebuild safe spaces in parks that have been hot spots for violence,” said Tara Dabney, director of development and communications for the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago.
Shootings and homicides have been declining since the spike in 2016. But according to Tribune and police data, the city has seen slightly more gun violence this year than in 2015, just before the sharp increase.
The hardest-hit neighborhoods this year have been Englewood, Garfield Park, Austin, Humboldt Park and Roseland, according to Tribune data. That’s where police have traditionally deployed special patrols, and that’s also where the outreach workers are concentrated.
The Chicago Police Department rolled out its summer plan on May 1 to manage crowds, gun violence and street crimes as more people head outdoors. Specialized teams will be deployed to concerts and outdoor events, as well as high-crime areas. Other teams will focus on gun recovery and weapons arrests.
All the while, outreach workers and victim advocates will be going to scenes of shootings, to homes and to the jail to reach those touched by this violence.
Sanders asked his class at Kennedy-King how they would do that.
“Share your stories,” Nicole Vaughn suggested. She runs an Englewood community group and bought a house there in 2009. She wants to stay in the neighborhood and bring resources there.
“When you are out there doing that work, the greatest gift you have is your own pain,” Sanders replied.
“Crack a joke,” another student offered.
“Yes,” Sanders agreed. “It’s the great equalizer.”
‘A citywide strategy’
As the coalition enters its third year, funding has reached a critical point.
Communities Partnering for Peace — known as CP4P — was formed around the same time as two other major initiatives, Chicago CRED (Creating Real Economic Destiny) and READI (Rapid Employment and Development Initiative) Chicago. Together they created a new landscape of violence reduction in Chicago largely funded by private donors and social service organizations.
Joint efforts like the Peace Academy sprung from a meeting of community groups and nonprofits in December 2016, just as the city was ending a year with levels of violence not seen since the 1990s. At least 760 people had been killed and more than 4,300 shot.
Alarmed by the spike in violence, as well as the fracturing of trust between the community and police in the wake of the Laquan McDonald shooting, private donors began discussing what they could do across the city.
The result was a coalition of nearly 50 donors and private foundations — including the MacArthur Foundation and the Joyce Foundation — called the Partnership for Safe and Peaceful Communities. A total of $75 million has been raised since mid-2017 for the first two years of programs. Funding is now being pulled together for a third year.
“One of the things … the foundation leaders interested in violence reduction think about is the importance of having a citywide strategy,” said Ellen Alberding, president of the Joyce Foundation.
While each organization works independently, they are in continuous touch with each other. At least four of the CP4P groups are working with READI to provide jobs. Meanwhile, CRED’s work of offering jobs and street mediation continues.
The private donors are now looking for a steady source of public money to continue the programs.
The partnership is looking at what works and what doesn’t before approaching the new mayor, Lori Lightfoot. Her predecessor, Rahm Emanuel, allotted just more than $348,000 for three staff positions in the Office of Violence Prevention in the 2019 budget.
A spokeswoman would only say that “over the long-term, Mayor Lightfoot does plan on growing the Office of Violence Prevention.”
With state legislators poised to legalize marijuana, some community and social service organizations are asking legislators to set aside a sizable chunk of money to fund their work. Community members took about 16 buses to Springfield last week to rally for state funding.
“We knew from the very beginning that we could not continue to raise this amount of money year after year, not all focused on violence prevention,” Alberding said. “Our hope is that if what we’re doing is having an impact, there will be will a persuasive argument for public funding at the city, state and federal level.”
Chicago Tribune’s Annie Sweeney contributed.
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