Indianapolis News and Headlines

Actions

Ten Point: 'Front-line' groups need more funding in fight against violent crime

Posted at 3:20 PM, Jan 05, 2017
and last updated 2017-01-05 19:40:11-05

Indianapolis faith leaders from the Ten Point Coalition called into question the city's commitment to addressing violent crime – particularly in regards to how it spends its crime prevention dollars.

Calling the city's homicide rate a "public safety crisis," Rev. Charles Ellis issued a citywide call-to-action at a Thursday press conference.

"This is totally unacceptable," Ellis said. "We cannot and will not tolerate this kind of killing and denigration of life in our city. We believe that every neighborhood, every life is valuable in our city."

Ellis, joined by Rev. Charles Harrison and former Deputy Mayor Olgen Williams called for city leadership to "put back the $5 million in crime prevention" to help support programs in high-crime neighborhoods.

The trio was referring to the Community Crime Prevention Grant Program, established in 2007 under former Mayor Bart Peterson. At its highest level, the grant program rose to $4 million in funding from the city in 2010. That number dropped to $2 million in 2011 due to the recession and the effect of property tax caps.

Williams said he thought "big ugly politics got in the way" and that crime prevention dollars were taken out.

The program was initially administered by the mayor's office – where Harrison said he would like to see it returned – but has been overseen by the Central Indiana Community Foundation since 2013. CICF has distributed $1.86 million in crime prevention grants each year since 2013 to organizations like the Horizon House homeless re-entry program, the Martin Luther King Community Center and Workforce, Inc., for its prisoner-to-citizen program.

Ten Point has also been a recipient of that money in the past, receiving $50,000 from the CICF in 2014 and a special supplemental grant of $86,300 in 2015. The group also received $100,000 in funding from IMPD each year from 2012-2015.

Last year, Harrison says Ten Point received no money from either IMPD or CICF. He says the group funded its $150,000 budget solely through private donations.

Harrison said he thinks more crime prevention dollars need to go to "front-line groups" -- like Ten Point -- who "deal with individuals who are most likely to be the perpetrators and victims of this violence."

An IMPD spokesman said it wasn't immediately clear why Ten Point receive no funds from the department last year. CICF officials were not able to be reached for comment.

Mayor Joe Hogsett's office told RTV6 that 2017 will be the first year since 2011 that the money allocated to the crime prevention grant program will be increased. The approved budget included $2.25 million for the program – a nearly 13-percent increase from 2016.

Citywide, public safety and criminal justice services make up 61 percent of Indianapolis' budget at a total allocation of $665.4 million in 2017. IMPD's budget alone accounts for $232.4 million of that.

Williams, the former deputy mayor, said the discussion of cost overshadowed the larger point of the matter.

"How much is a life worth? We talk about dollars … we're talking about 140, 150 some lives," he said. "How much is a life worth to this city?"