Ceasefire supporters pressure state lawmakers to keep funding

Ceasefire Chicago’s supporters and community outreach staff rallied at the James R. Thompson Center today, calling for peace and making a plea to state legislators to approve a 2008-2009 state budget that will keep Ceasefire active and growing.

Though $6.25 million for Ceasefire Chicago is included in the existing budget presented to Governor Rod Blagojevich by the House and Senate, threatened budget cuts of an excess $2 billion according to the governor may leave Ceasefire out in the cold without adequate funding for the second year in a row.

“We here today trying to get our budget passed. Last year we had more than 150 [outreach] workers now we got, like, 20,” said Ricardo Williams, a 35-year-old Ceasefire violence interrupter who works in Englewood. “If the budget is passed we’re trying to get more people back out there to try to save some lives.”

Since Ceasefire was cut from last year’s budget, Chicago’s homicide rate has risen 13 percent, and every speaker echoed as much when stressing the importance of keeping Ceasefire in the state’s new budget after this week’s special session.

With a crowd of people from several Chicago communities and groups including The Woodlawn Organization, Brighton Park, Logan Square and Lawndale Christian Church, Tio Hardiman, director of gang mediation services for Ceasefire, held up a poster showing the impact of shootings since August 2007 when Ceasefire’s funds were initially withheld. According to Hardiman, in January through August 2007 shootings were down by 159 victims but after Ceasefire was cut shootings increased by 170.

“I’m not saying we’re the answer to all the violence, but we do our part,” Hardiman said.

Last May, researchers at Northwestern University including Professor Wesley Skogan released a U.S. Department of Justice-commissioned report studying the effectiveness of Ceasefire. Skogan’s three-year study focused on seven areas of Chicago where Ceasefire operated and revealed that six of those areas were safer than they were before the program.

According to the study, Ceasefire had a “definitive impact” on hot spot neighborhoods, lowering the shooting rate by 16-to-35 percent.

Despite such findings Ceasefire continues to be what Christian Valley Baptist Church Pastor Steve Greer described as a “political volleyball.”

“I don’t know how you can consider Ceasefire to be worthy of the pork [barrel] when it was saving lives, and it was giving jobs to the ex-felons and helping people in the community by reaching out to the young people,” he said. “I don’t see how you can consider that to be pork, but the funding was still cut.”

Greer says Ceasefire's job placement efforts were key to helping keep young people from making poor choices. People like Anthony Harvey, 20, a parolee said getting him and his friends jobs would help keep them from shooting. "We need our jobs. If we have jobs, I’ll stop killing."

And Ceasefire supporters wanted to show the human expense of trimming the fat in the state budget at the expense of human services programs. Melvin Wynn of North Lawndale, a victim of violence shared a brief story from his wheelchair about the irrelevance of cost. “See, 20 years ago I got shot in the head. What you don’t realize is that bullet only cost 25 cents to make.”

But Marielle Sainvilus, spokeswoman for the Illinois Department of Human Services said that even if Ceasefire is cut again this year other human services programs can still keep stories like Wynn’s from reoccurring. Last year the Blagojevich’s administration launched The Safety Net Works, a multi-agency initiative designed to help stop violence and killing in communities across the state. In order for a program to receive funding from Safety Net Works it must form a coalition with a church, a school institution and a community organization. Ceasefire did not apply last year after funding was cut.

But Hardiman says Safety Net Works was a ploy to push Ceasefire out of the way. "Would you rather go with an evidence-based program that’s been proven or go with an organization that just started up? That’s the biggest question for the state. We’re anti-violence. We’re not into politics, and that’s probably why we go through so many challenges to get funding."