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Fayetteville’s new Office of Community Safety gives first quarterly update, council accepts report
Summary
Director John Jones told the City Council the Office of Community Safety logged 59 community engagements, awarded $84,500 in microgrants, responded to 214 homelessness/mental-health calls and made 52 behavioral-health referrals in its first quarter. Council moved to receive the report.
John Jones, director of Fayetteville’s newly formed Office of Community Safety, presented the office’s first quarterly update to the City Council on Nov. 10, outlining activities and early results from its initial three months of operation.
In his presentation Jones said OCS focused on four pillars: community-based violence prevention, homelessness response, youth initiatives and behavioral-health response. He told the council OCS conducted 59 community engagements between July 1 and Sept. 30, supported three youth-night-out events, issued 20 community-safety microgrants totaling $84,500, and coordinated rapid-response activity that included 214 calls related to homelessness or behavioral health.
Why it matters: The office, created to coordinate nontraditional, prevention-focused responses to public-safety concerns, is intended to link residents to services and reduce costly law-enforcement or emergency responses. Its work includes on-site outreach, case conferencing and partnership development with existing providers.
Jones said OCS made 84 on-site outreach visits, provided 52 behavioral-health referrals to partner agencies and supported community-led events through partnerships including the Prove Project. He also said the office has contracted with the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform’s National Office of Violence Prevention to develop a multiyear strategic plan and is working with local universities and partners on data analysis to inform a behavioral-health response model.
Council members pressed Jones on operational details. He said OCS is coordinating with Cumberland County staff and the city’s police department on response protocols, is drafting standard operating procedures for 911-originated calls that would involve OCS, and plans to hire a program manager to lead the behavioral-health response model and analytics work. Jones invited residents to a community-facing quarterly update scheduled for Nov. 20 at Senior Center East, 6–8 p.m., and provided the office web page (www.fayettevillenc.gov/ocs) as a contact point.
"We want to be where community are," Jones said, describing a mix of outreach, rapid response and follow-up case management intended to ensure services are sustained rather than episodic.
Councilmember Hondros moved to receive the first quarterly update from OCS; Councilmember Benavente seconded. The motion was put into the public record and discussed; no roll-call tally was recorded in the transcript. The council also asked staff to include clearer, benchmarked data in future quarterly reports to demonstrate outcomes and cost-effectiveness.
The city manager and OCS said they will continue refining data collection and coordinating with county partners, the police department and community organizations as the office scales.
