Get Out Stay Out To Receive $100,000 Support Grant From Everytown Community Safety Fund
10.4.2024
Historic Investment in Community Violence Intervention Initiatives Will Sustain Critical Violence Interruption Programs in New York City
NEW YORK — Today, the Everytown Community Safety Fund (CSF), part of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, has announced $100,000 in funding for Getting Out Staying Out (GOSO) to advance its work of ending gun violence in New York City and better position the organization to access federal funding. This grant is part of Everytown Community Safety Fund’s more than $2 million investment in 20 gun violence intervention organizations nationwide announced today. The Everytown Community Safety Fund (CSF), a program of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, is the largest national initiative solely dedicated to fueling the life-saving work of community-based violence intervention organizations in cities nationwide.
According to the U.S. Surgeon General, a public health approach to gun related injury and violence prevention requires immediate “investments in community‑based interventions and educational programs.” Harlem SAVE/GOSO is an East Harlem-based alternative-to-incarceration program, providing reentry services to young men, ages 16 to 24, who are currently detained at or were released from Rikers Island and other detention centers. GOSO’s goal is to break the cycle of violence and incarceration through coaching, job development, and anti-recidivism programming. GOSO’s reentry model promotes education and vocational training, provides job readiness training and employment assistance, and offers supportive counseling and social services from the day of a participant’s incarceration until they are fully reintegrated into the community. Fewer than 15% of GOSO participants at Rikers Island return to jail as compared to a national rate of over 65% for men of that age group.
“The Getting Out Staying Out (GOSO) program has become an integral part of our efforts to improve outcomes for young people in my district by providing a pathway for education, employment and emotional wellbeing, and I am especially proud to see the program recognized as part of the latest cohort of Everytown Community Safety Fund grantees,” said U.S. Representative Adriano Espaillat (NY-13), sponsor of the The Community Mental Wellness Worker Training Act. “This funding will go a long way in helping us break the cycle of violence here in New York City, specifically helping build out school-based workshops and helping fund community interrupters. I commend the Everytown Community Safety Fund for its unwavering commitment to supporting changemakers as we strive to build a future that is free from the scourge of gun violence.”
“We are proud to announce that GOSO has been awarded a 2024 grant from the Everytown Community Safety Fund,” said Michael-Sean Spence, managing director of Community Safety Initiatives at Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and creator of the Everytown Community Safety Fund. “GOSO’s efforts to break cycles of incarceration that help dismantle cycles of violence in East Harlem is essential to a comprehensive approach to reducing gun violence. With this grant, the Everytown Community Safety Fund will support GOSO’s school-based workshops, community and pop-up events, as well as stipends for junior violence interrupters to advance a targeted effort to reduce gun violence amongst youth across the 24 housing developments they operate in.”
“Community-based violence intervention programs are critical to breaking cycles of violence in East Harlem and citywide. GOSO’s Stand Against Gun Violence East Harlem program (SAVE) works every day to interrupt gun violence by engaging the highest risk individuals through conflict mediation and education in vulnerable pockets of our community, in schools, hospitals and juvenile facilities and by making connections to workforce development, life skills training, housing, educational, and mental health support,” said Omar Jackson, Chief Advocacy Officer of Getting Out Staying Out. “With this grant SAVE Harlem will sustain our school-based initiatives, community education campaigns, stipends for our junior violence interrupters, and enhance our staff development to meet the dynamic needs of our participants. We are grateful not only for this grant from the Everytown Community Safety Fund but also for the opportunity to deepen our engagement with our fellow grantees across the country.”
Since 2019, the Everytown Community Safety Fund (CSF) has granted over $13 million in support of 136 community-based violence intervention organizations implementing promising strategies, like street outreach, hospital-based violence interventions and youth development and counseling, in more than 69 American cities. This latest round of support grants, currently CSF’s largest grant offering, will provide grant recipients $100,000, in two disbursements over two years, as well as access to CSF’s quarterly calls, peer convenings, capacity-building trainers, national conferences, as well as support from Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund and its grassroots networks Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, and national partners.
The full list of community-based violence intervention organizations currently supported by the Everytown Community Safety Fund and more information about the fund can be found here.
Gun homicide has significantly declined in cities across the nation from a post-pandemic spike — due in part to the scaling and city coordination efforts with community based violence intervention organizations working on the frontlines of the gun violence epidemic in cities across the country. And though local communities have seen a reduction in gun violence, data shows that gun homicide rates in the U.S. are still 26 times higher than in other developed countries. In the United States, every day, more than 120 Americans are killed with guns and more than 200 are shot and wounded.
About the Everytown Community Safety Fund
Everytown Community Safety Fund, a program of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, is the largest national initiative solely dedicated to fueling the life-saving work of community-based violence intervention organizations in cities nationwide. Since 2019, the Everytown Community Safety Fund has granted over $13 million in support of 136 community-based violence intervention organizations implementing promising strategies, like street outreach, hospital-based violence interventions and youth development and counseling, in more than 69 American cities.
About the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund
Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund is part of Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention organization in the country with nearly 10 million supporters. The Everytown Support Fund seeks to improve our understanding of the causes of gun violence and help to reduce it by conducting groundbreaking original research, developing evidence-based policies, communicating this knowledge to the American public, and advancing gun safety and gun violence prevention in communities. Learn more at www.everytownsupportfund.org.