A Better LA Supports Community Outreach Workers To Reduce Violence

A Better LA is leading a movement to stop violence in inner-city communities by funding salaries for people from those communities – called outreach or intervention workers -- instead of relying on outsiders and law enforcement. Outreach workers are so effective because they grew up in the community and know all of the key players, including gang members. They are masters at improving communication that is so vital to stopping fights, preventing retaliation for past violence, creating truces and building respect and unity in their neighborhoods. Many are ex-gang members who have transformed their own lives.

As explained by Brian Center, A Better LA’s Executive Director: “it is impossible to stop a shooting without reaching and engaging the person who has his finger on the trigger. Intervention workers are the only ones who can do that.”

In 2007, A Better LA began a strong relationship with Unity One and its founder, Bo Taylor, winner of the California Wellness Foundation’s Peace Prize. Bo has helped educate A Better LA and coach Carroll about this work. A Better LA’s grants now help fund 29 Unity One outreach workers in South LA who are saving lives every day. A Better LA also is supporting intervention work in other forms, including by supporting an organization called CURE in West Athens, a small unincorporated area in South Los Angeles. CURE has single handedly transformed a park from a war zone into a place for families to gather, and has led an effort that has reduced annual homicides from four to zero.

Intervention workers are a crucial piece of A Better LA’s strategy to reduce violence and transform neighborhoods. Without them, we are left with the failed strategies of the past – isolating our highest risk youth, trying everything we can to incarcerate them, solidifying their hopelessness and increasing the chance that they will commit violence.