Karin Tyler, interim executive director of the City of Milwaukee Office of Community Wellness and Safety, is concerned about future funding for the office. (Photo by Edgar Mendez)
By Edgar Mendez
This story was originally published by Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, where you can find other stories reporting on fifteen city neighborhoods in Milwaukee. Visit milwaukeenns.org.
A Promise Keeper conducts street outreach in Sherman Park. Promise Keepers is a violence prevention initiative led by the Office of Community Wellness and Safety. (Photo provided by the City of Milwaukee)
The City of Milwaukee’s Office of Community Wellness and Safety, previously known as the Office of Violence Prevention, could be nearing a crossroads.
Funding for the office, which is tasked with helping to reduce violence in a city long plagued by it, could run dry by 2026, said Karin Tyler, its interim executive director.
“Some of our funding will be ending this year, and some will go into 2026, but not many,” Tyler said. “It’s pretty critical for our office to find other resources.”
This comes at a time when both homicides and nonfatal shootings are down in Milwaukee, evidence that multiple efforts by groups working to stem violence, including the Office of Community Wellness and Safety, appear to be working.
Federal funding cuts
The Trump administration’s efforts to rein in federal spending has targeted a number of key programs, including those that focus on violence prevention.
Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump eliminated the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, a federal program that provided resources to local, state and other national programs.
Federal cuts also impacted programs that provide victim services, including those that address domestic violence, and stalled affordable housing projects.
Housing and domestic violence programs help to reduce violence in the city, Tyler said.
Much of the Office of Community Wellness and Safety’s current funding comes from remaining local and state money from the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA.
“We’ve been pretty good and not burdening the city tax levy,” Tyler said.
Overall, the Office of Community Wellness and Safety, which has a full-time staff of eight, received over $5.1 million in grant allocations in 2024, most of it supporting community violence intervention and street outreach.
In addition to ARPA and other state funding, the office received a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA, grant. But Tyler said there are concerns about the future availability of SAMHSA grants. In addition, a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor also has been delayed.
“It’s a very concerning time for our department and for the city as a whole,” she said.
Jeff Fleming, spokesperson for Mayor Cavalier Johnson, said the mayor is concerned about the possible defunding of federal programs that have formed partnerships here, including with the Office of Community Wellness and Safety.
“We are advancing a number of important programs with support from Washington. Regrettably, we are already seeing cuts to existing programs that the federal government had previously pledged to financially support,” Fleming wrote in a statement to NNS.
He said mitigating the potential cuts is an ongoing topic of discussion at City Hall.
What the Office of Community Wellness and Safety does
Tyler said her office seeks to stop violence before it starts. Much of that work is achieved through community engagement.
“We work with different community-based organizations and grassroots groups and provide training on best practices and talk about the different dynamics we’re seeing across different parts of the city,” she said.
In addition to training, the Office of Community Wellness and Safety also provides street outreach and intervention services through its Critical Response Teams, which address gang-based violence.
“We have former gang members with lived experience that can engage with these kids in a special way and help them,” she said.
The office also operates the Promise Keepers initiative, which engages residents and business owners in neighborhoods identified as having the highest rates of violence.
Andre Robinson, director of violence prevention programming for the Milwaukee Christian Center, said the Office of Community Wellness and Safety has provided support both from its Critical Response Teams and Promise Makers.
“What we do with them is all about hitting the streets to prevent violence,” Robinson said.
He said his staff also has received violence interruption and mental health training through the office.
The Office of Community Wellness and Safety also provides funding for a number of local programs, including 414Life, a violence prevention program based at Froedtert Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin.
It also funds violence prevention work at numerous community and culturally based organizations.
“We have a significant reach in the city,” Tyler said. “We support some groups financially and others with direct service.”
Another violence prevention approach of the office is to promote wellness through a network of healing hubs to provide violence prevention resources and sponsor healing opportunities such as therapy, yoga and meditation.
In his State of the City address last month, Johnson addressed those efforts.
The office is “providing trauma-informed care and mental health care to people impacted by violence,” he said. “The goal is to reduce retaliation and promote healing through talk therapy, yoga, restorative justice circles, and more.”
Problems at Office of Community Wellness and Safety Violence is down in the city in recent years, after record high levels of murders and shootings during the pandemic.
And while the office can take credit for helping drive down crime in Milwaukee, it has not been without its controversies over the years.
One has been its inability to find stable leadership since Reggie Moore left the previous iteration of the Office of Community Wellness and Safety, the Office of Violence Prevention, in 2021.
Since then, the office has had three different leaders, including Arnitta Holliman, who was ousted in 2022, and Ashanti Hamilton, who resigned in January.
During Holliman’s tenure, the office was audited by the city, which determined it had not been processing payments in a timely manner. Before her tenure, when the office was still known as the Office of Violence Prevention, then-alderman Michael Murphy questioned its effectiveness. He called for proof that its programs were working.
More recently, Ald. Sharlen Moore expressed frustration with the office, including the lack of communication about Hamilton’s departure, plans to fill his position and correspondences between the office and Common Council in general.
“We need a better understanding about the department, what it’s charged with doing, the job duties of the new director and how it’s functioning,” Moore said.
Tyler acknowledged problems in the past with reporting data and other information to the Common Council and public, and said the office hired an epidemiologist to track outcomes of its efforts.
“Now we can look at data from year to year and are able to evaluate the impact of our work,” Tyler said.
One example is data related to the work of the Critical Response teams. Last year, she said, the teams responded to 311 incidents, 76% of which required follow-ups. Those incidents required more than 1,000 hours of response time, she said.
Search for new director
In terms of the search for a permanent executive director, Moore asked that the community be involved in the process.
“This is a heavily community-centered department,” Moore said. “Getting input from the community is very important to its success.
According to Tyler, the mayor’s office is planning to conduct a global search for a new director.
“We really want to get the best person because it is a challenging job,” she said. “Our office has to come into the darkest places in the city and try to bring light and bring resources.”
What funds the new director will have to work with will likely be another challenge, a major concern for Robinson and others.
“We don’t have enough people when it comes to government entities that actually care about what’s happening in our communities,” Robinson said. “If we take away that leadership, we’ll lose resources and some of the work we’re doing won’t be possible.”