Feds to fund San Francisco Violence Prevention program

By Angela Hokanson, Bay City News Service

April 12, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO (BCN) - Federal funding has been earmarked for the establishment of a second Community Response Network (CRN), a violence prevention program, in San Francisco's Bayview district, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris and U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi announced today.

The U.S. Department of Justice has dedicated nearly $500,000 for use by the San Francisco district attorney's office, community organizations, and public agencies to help fight violent crime in the Bayview neighborhood.

Community Response Networks seek to mitigate youth and gang violence through such measures as: crisis intervention in the aftermath of violent crimes; the delivery of therapeutic services to address post-traumatic stress disorder among youth in violent neighborhoods; night and weekend street outreach in parks and on street corners; and the provision of case management for high-risk youth and their families.

The Bayview CRN will provide crisis management to 40 youths and families in the neighborhood, and will provide intensive case management services to 20 high-risk youths and their families.

"We know one of the most important ways to be smart on crime is to prevent crime from happening in the first place," San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said. "This program takes a new approach to confronting crime in these neighborhoods; it gives youth in these communities the peer support and services they need in the aftermath of crime to help them de-escalate potentially violent situations.''

San Francisco's first CRN began in the Mission district in 2003, according to the district attorney's office. The Mission CRN has educated more than 700 youth per year about the availability of violence prevention services, and has counseled about 15 families who have lost loved ones to violent crimes.

The district attorney's office reported that the CRN program will most likely be expanded to additional San Francisco communities, including the Western Addition, Visitacion Valley, Outer Mission, Ingleside and Excelsior neighborhoods.

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