Black Clergy, Elected Officials and Activists come together on City Budget to address Violence

Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity hosted a press conference on June 28th at the foot of the O.V. Catto statue outside City Hall. They outlined publicly some of the ideas they have shared with city leaders on how to spend some portions of the $185 million earmarked in the new city budget to address violence in Philadelphia.
Standing with members of the Black Clergy for this event were State Senator Vincent Hughes, State Senator Sharif Street, Esq., State Senator Art Haywood, District Attorney Larry Krasner, City Councilwoman Helen Gym, City Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier, Archbishop Mary Floyd Palmer, Presiding Bishop of the Philadelphia Council of Clergy, Kallel Edwards, from Ceasefire PA, Dr. Dorothy Johnson Speight, Founder of Mothers In Charge and a host of other community organizations.
Black Clergy has been at the forefront in advocating for one hundred million dollars in Federal Stimulus money. We as God’s leaders are addressing that which is, and not that which is not. Let me state for the record that Black Clergy is grateful to the Administration and City Council for a budget that does target 155 million dollars for violence prevention efforts for the fiscal year 2022. Certainly, that shows some commitment to fund efforts to treat the second pandemic in Philadelphia, known as gun violence. A pandemic, I might add, that took the lives of four hundred and ninety-nine people in 2020. Mostly they were our young, black and brown males. The same pandemic I’m referring to seems to be even more deadly this year. So the time to make a difference is now. The time to save lives is now.
The 2022 budget seems to provide some hope for cures. Thirty million dollars has been allocated for several initiatives including, additional 911 triage mental health co-respondents. If that had been in place previously, we would not have had the murder of Walter Wallace, Jr. in West Philadelphia. However, we now need to ensure that this “co-responding” actually happens and is not just words on paper.
Pastor Collier added, “Black Clergy is happy that some of the 30 million will go to fund Parks and Recreation, which is currently vastly under-funded. We have far too many of those who work for the Department of Recreation in unsafe and unsanitary conditions. That needs to be addressed immediately. Not only must there be increased staffing to provide proper supervision and assistance, but the deteriorating physical buildings also need to have the necessary repairs made immediately. There should be no recreation Centers with crumbling buildings, as is the case with some of them now. Our children and young adults need and deserve adequate and safe recreational facilities to help address the gun violence pandemic. Thus the extension of the hours at some of our recreation centers, to include late evening and early morning hours, is recommended. There need to be other alternatives for teens and young adults, other than being on the streets.“
Pastor Collier says the idea of having recreation centers stay open for longer hours is not a new concept, and he believes local leaders can learn from the past, from those who know about this initiative.
Pastor Gregory Holston, Chairman of the Black Clergy Criminal Justice Committee commented, “Black Clergy across this city will continue to speak out on the issue of criminal justice, particularly on gun violence in our community. When the Black Clergy first started talking about we wanted the city to come up with $100 million dollars in the new fiscal budget to address violence, people laughed at us and said, “That will never happen.” They said that was far too much to ask for, for gun violence prevention. But by faith, and by trusting God and believing God, we kept negotiating and advocating for what is needed. I want to thank City Council President Darrell Clark and Councilman Kenyatta Johnson, Councilwoman Gauthier, Councilwoman Gym, and all those who signed a letter to push this issue forward. We thank you for your prophetic voice and for pushing the issue forward on Council to really move this matter forward. And we thank the Mayor.”
PA State Senator Vincent Hughes said, “I think the most important thing to do here from the state perspective is to thank City Council and our leaders here in the city. You led the way as elected officials. And of course, we’re always inspired and driven by our clergy community. Black Clergy in this case, but all of our clergy community. Black Clergy really to spoke to this gun violence issue. Not just from a transactional perspective. They’ve been speaking to this issue of gun violence also from a moral perspective of why this funding is needed and what our moral responsibility is.”
According to Senator Hughes, at the state level, an additional $30 million dollars will be spent statewide to help fuel community-based organizations who address violence, but he says that’s not enough and that the state can do more and should do more.
PA State Senator Sharif Street shared, “The state of PA still has $7 billion dollars they need to spend. The state needs to take some of that $7 billion and put it on the plate to address the health epidemic that is violence in our community. There are so many programs, so many initiatives that we need to support, that are underfunded. Food insecurity. Hungry people do things to feed themselves. We need to put some money on the offering plate to address food insecurity. We understand what the social determinants of violence are. At the state level, we have too much money set aside when we need to put that money in the plate to get things done that people need us to do, to address this violence.”
Bottom line, across the board, we need lawmakers who will invest back in our people in our communities and in our cities that are ailing. Addressing the violence is the place to start. Watching the money trail is also critical. Watch where the money goes and make sure it goes to fighting violence, not too street repairs, or fancy dinners to lure new conferences to book at our Convention Center. The violence funds earmarked in the new city budget for Philadelphia must be spent on just that. Period!