Durbin, Duckworth Call On Biden Administration To Increase Funding For Programs Addressing Root Causes Of Gun Violence In FY25 Budget

Letter

Dear Director Young:

As you prepare the Administration's Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Budget Request, we urge you
to use this budget to accelerate efforts to prevent gun violence and help save lives in Chicago and
across the country.

For too long, shootings and homicides have plagued Chicago and communities
throughout the nation. In 2021, at the height of the pandemic, a rise in the number of shootings
in Chicago left more people dead than in any single year in a quarter century, according to
statistics released by the Chicago Police Department. Chicago had 697 total homicides in 2022,
more than Philadelphia (516), New York City (438), Houston (435), and Los Angeles (382).
Preventing future gun violence is of paramount importance.

As of September 17, Americans have experienced more than 500 mass shootings this
year alone. Babies born the year of the Columbine massacre are now 24-years-old, and gun
violence has become the leading cause of death for children ages 1-19. There is no young person
alive today who knows an America without the threat of deadly gun violence.

We applaud the White House for the creation of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention
and for the Administration's continued efforts to establish common-sense gun laws. Homicides
and shootings are on the decline in Chicago this year, in part because of intentional investments
in gun violence prevention efforts. Funding in the President's FY 2025 Budget Request should
signal support for Chicago and other cities to continue these efforts.
While the gun violence epidemic is a complex challenge that no single line item can
solve, funding the programs outlined below holds the promise of delivering meaningful benefits
to communities in Chicago and across the United States.

Housing and Economic Development
Violence in Chicago is often concentrated in communities with higher unemployment
and years of neglect and disinvestment. The federal government can help stabilize these
neighborhoods by ensuring access to safe, affordable housing and good paying jobs and by
encouraging economic and community development. Increasing funding for the HOME
Investment Partnerships Program--the largest federal block grant designed exclusively to create
affordable housing for low-income households--will help provide housing in areas where there
is access to quality education and jobs. The HOME program provides thousands of low-income
and moderate-income families in Chicago with affordable housing. Further investment in
programs like the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative, Community Development Block Grants, and
the Housing Capital Fund will help revitalize neighborhoods, attracting businesses and creating
jobs. Providing reliable access to job opportunities is crucial, which is why more federal funding
for programs such as the Areas of Persistent Poverty Program is needed to modernize and
expand public transportation.

Job Opportunities
When young people are chronically unemployed, it increases the likelihood that they will
become involved in crime. Data shows that the pandemic had a more pronounced impact on
both jobless, and jobless and out-of-school rates for young people in Chicago and Illinois than
for the U.S. overall. Black and Latino youth experienced an uneven recovery toward prepandemic levels, and in some cases, no recovery at all. We urge you to prioritize important
youth mentoring and job training programs at the U.S. Departments of Labor, Justice, and
Education that pursue innovative strategies for connecting young people to career pathways. We
also urge you to strengthen mentoring and violence prevention initiatives at the Department of
Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and to boost funding for
recidivism reduction programs.

Education
Quality education is the cornerstone of economic opportunity, and it is important to start
early for it to be cost-effective and have the greatest impact. The first five years of a child's life
are crucial for development, and we urge you to make strong federal investments in high-quality
early childhood education, such as the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG),
Head Start, Early Head Start, and Preschool Development Grants, which prepare historically
underserved children with a strong foundation to succeed in school and life. While I am pleased
to see that investments in child care have increased in recent years, additional funding is needed.
For example, in Illinois, 37 percent of children from birth to the age of 6 are eligible for a
CCDBG subsidy; however, of those eligible children, less than 10 percent are served due to
insufficient federal funding.

Research shows that low school attendance and engagement rates can negatively impact a student's academic performance and serve as an indicator for increased involvement in the criminal justice system. We also urge you to support resources for Illinois' highest-need K-12 students through expanded investments in Titles I and IV of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Title I provides federal resources to schools with high concentrations of low income students. Title IV provides resources to ensure students can access a well-rounded education, and those funds also allow schools to offer mental health support, drug and violence prevention, mentoring, crisis intervention, and afterschool programming, as well as high-quality training for school personnel on trauma-informed practices. Further, we urge you to provide increased funding for the Department of Education's School Emergency Response to Violence program (Project SERV), which provides funding to school districts and institutions of higher education to help recover from violent or traumatic events in the community. Additional resources for these programs can revitalize communities and help to reduce violence.

Public Health
Combatting Chicago's community violence is not just an economic or education issue--it
is also a serious public health matter. Gun violence is responsible for approximately 25 percent
of the life expectancy gap between Black and White Chicagoans, and nearly half of Chicago
residents witness violence by the age of 40. One of the best ways to break the cycle of violence
is by supporting strong families, building environments that promote health, and starting early to
prevent and mitigate the effects of experiencing trauma.

To address these social determinants of health, we urge you to provide in your budget
tools and training for communities to promote health through the Administration for Children &
Families, including robust funding for Community and Social Services Block Grants. Harmful
childhood environments can shape lifelong health and behavioral outcomes, which is why we
also urge you to invest in maternal and child health promotion programs at the Health Resources
and Services Administration, including requesting strong funding for the Maternal & Child
Health Block Grant and the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program. We
also urge you to increase support for prevention and treatment programs at the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Services Administration, including the National Child Traumatic Stress
Network, Project AWARE, Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, and the Interagency
Task Force on Trauma-Informed Care.

In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention brings unique expertise to
this issue, through its focus at its Injury Center on Adverse Childhood Experiences, Youth and
Community Violence, and Firearm Injury Prevention Research. By employing a public health
approach to this challenge, we can better identify trends and target resources at the most effective
interventions.

Community Policing
Finally, we cannot reduce violence in Chicago without an effective community policing
strategy in which law enforcement officers are properly trained and resourced and which creates
a relationship of trust and cooperation between law enforcement agencies and the communities
they serve. The federal government can help in Chicago by enhancing funding for programs that
improve community policing, such as the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and
Byrne-JAG programs. As outlined above, the federal government also should increase funding for community violence intervention programs and school-based mental health and trauma informed care that can help disrupt and break the cycle of violence in the city of Chicago.

In your first year in office, you worked with Congress to provide more than $100 million
in public safety funding for Chicago and other communities through the American Rescue Plan
Act and the appropriations process. We urge you to include similar funding in your new budget
so we can build on the progress we have made since 2021.

The President's annual Budget Request is an important reflection of the Administration's
priorities and the direction in which the President hopes to take the country. Gun violence has
cut short far too many American lives and scarred communities across the United States. It is
time that changes.

We urge you to use the President's FY 2025 Budget Request to continue to address this
urgent problem by increasing investment in federal programs that will help stop the violence, lift
people out of poverty, and save lives. Thank you for your consideration of this request.

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