{"id":337843,"date":"2026-05-29T17:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T17:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/337843\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T17:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T17:49:08","slug":"oaklands-department-of-violence-prevention-just-got-a-boost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/337843\/","title":{"rendered":"Oakland\u2019s Department of Violence Prevention just got a boost"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Violence Prevention<\/a> works alongside law enforcement but separately, with a focus on preventing violent crime.<\/p>\n

At a church in east Oakland, Congresswoman Lateefah Simon was joined by Oakland\u2019s mayor and its chief of violence prevention \u2014 Dr. Holly Joshi \u2014 to celebrate the news. <\/p>\n

“While the violence is lower in Oakland,” said Simon, “we all know that one is too many. That every single time a member of our community passes away from any form of violence, generations are impacted.” <\/p>\n

The money will go towards a program called Operation Ceasefire<\/a>, where trained staff members work with Oakland residents who may be at higher risk of violence, and connect them to resources.<\/p>\n

That can include food, therapy, job training, or relocation assistance. Congresswoman Simon says programs like these have helped reduce gun violence in Oakland.<\/p>\n

“These families need and they want safer communities,” said Simon, “and they know that those strategies – they’re not one-trick ponies…” <\/p>\n

The 60-person department has trained staffers known as \u201clife coaches.” They act like mentors to residents at a higher risk of violence; talking with them daily and meeting about once a week.<\/p>\n

The team also consists of people who refer residents to life coaches. They\u2019re called \u201cviolence interrupters.” They\u2019re the first on the scene when a shooting does happen. Among the department’s interrupters is Aseelah Bey. <\/p>\n

“Once I get to the scene, I try to find the family that\u2019s going through the crisis and then I try to give them resources, help them with the funeral,” said Bey. “I keep in touch with them afterwards just to check on them. I have some clients that I\u2019ve kept in touch with for over three years now.”<\/p>\n

According to police data, Oakland\u2019s homicide rate reached a 25 year low<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s despite hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts<\/a> to violence prevention programs across the country by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Those cuts have impacted Bay Area violence prevention programming. Overall, Oakland has a gap of millions of dollars worth of federal cuts<\/a> to make up for \u2014 including, but not limited to, violence prevention funding. <\/p>\n

The new funding secured by Congresswoman Simon is slated to reach the city within a few weeks. The Department of Violence Prevention says it’s going to use the money to hire more staff. <\/p>\n

According to Chief Holly Joshi, the department seeks to reach over 350 individuals at a given time. Right now, their capacity is about half of that number. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department of Violence Prevention works alongside law enforcement but separately, with a focus on preventing violent crime.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-337843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}