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Council approves $850,000 appropriation for youth, violence-interruption and neighborhood programs
Summary
The council authorized the mayor-president to appropriate $850,000 from Act 4 (2024) to continue youth programming, community-violence-interruption and neighborhood development; multiple community providers spoke in support and the motion carried.
The City-Parish Council authorized the mayor-president to appropriate $850,000 from Act 4 (2024) to fund targeted services addressing youth incarceration, community violence intervention, public health and neighborhood development.
The measure, presented on behalf of the mayor's office, drew several public speakers who urged continued funding for programs that connect young people and families with mentorship and workforce services. Jennifer Carweil said she had "been working with, Safe Hopeful Healthy for the past several years" and asked the council to "keep these things going." Lucy Pereira of Line for Line said the group had been "funded through Safe, Hopeful, Healthy" and supported the project. O'Neil Curtis, a local small-business owner, thanked the council "for the support." Dr. Brown described multi-year work in schools and summer programming that "gets young men off the street in the summertime" and urged continued funding.
Jessica Matthews, identified as Director of Safe, hopeful, healthy, clarified the scope of the funds: "While it is funding many parts of the continuation of Safe, Hold, Feel, Healthy, it's also funding multiple community agencies in the city who do other work in the space of workforce development, community development, as well as youth development work and health disparities." Matthews emphasized that Senator Barrow's dollars would support a range of community agencies beyond a single provider.
After public comment, Councilwoman Banks moved to approve the appropriation; the motion was seconded by Councilman Dunn Junior and the council voted to carry the motion.
The appropriation is intended to support continuing CVI (community violence interruption) work, youth programming in schools and summer mentoring and workforce services. No specific allotment breakdown among individual agencies was included in the council record. The council did not provide a detailed vote tally in the transcript excerpt; the item was recorded as carried.
Next steps: the mayor-president's office will administer the award and disburse funds to participating agencies per program agreements.
