Seattle City Wire

The Seattle City Council voted unanimously to pass legislation that provides a $10.4 million spending plan for Community Safety Capacity Building at the March 15 city council meeting.

The bill is part of efforts to help community organizations focused on safety, as well as reduction of violence and crime in Seattle’s neighborhoods to achieve those goals. Community members have told the council that issues of homelessness and behavioral health shouldn’t bring police to their neighborhoods, and this funding is part of the city’s efforts to give the community what it wants.

Councilor Lisa Herbold is the chair of the Public Safety & Human Services Committee, which approved this measure unanimously.

Lisa Herbold, City Coucil | Seattle.gov

“Now that we have reached the one-year anniversary since the death of Breonna Taylor at the hands of police, it’s clear that these calls must be heeded, and this work is as urgent now as it was last year. The city council answered the call by appropriating $16 million for community-led organizations that are creating community safety on the ground every day in Seattle,” Herbold said at the meeting.

These groups are working toward harm reduction and assisting those who are most impacted by violent and nonviolent crime. The organizations chosen to receive funding through a request for proposals process will work with the Human Services Department to create goals and measurements of how those initiatives perform in improving community safety.  

“This $10.4 million investment will help build safety from the ground up across Seattle, by allowing organizations closest to the problem to build and expand new solutions. This work builds upon the $4 million awarded last year to the Seattle Community Safety Initiative, led by Community Passageways, which built community safety hubs and wraparound services in three Seattle neighborhoods,” Herbold said during the meeting. 

The approval of this legislation allowed the city to open a request for proposals process -- with applications due by Friday, April 9, with the aim of bolstering community organizations that work toward community-led public safety. The request for proposals process gives priority to Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Pacific Islander, immigrant and refugee-led community programs, according to the Seattle City Council.

"The fourteen members of the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice, including interim SPD (Seattle Police Department) Chief Adrian Diaz, recommend exactly this kind of investment in anti-violence strategies to combat increased violence and property offenses in cities across the country, including in Seattle,” Herbold told meeting attendees.