Sponsors (121)
Official title: To authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to build safer, thriving communities, and save lives, by investing in effective community-based violence reduction initiatives, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 24, 2025 by Steven Horsford · Last progress June 24, 2025
The bill channels substantial federal funding into community‑based, trauma‑informed violence‑intervention and workforce programs that are likely to reduce violence and expand opportunities in high‑need areas, but it requires large new federal spending and creates administrative, eligibility, and discretionary risks that may exclude some vulnerable people and strain smaller providers.
Residents in high‑violence, low‑income, and minority neighborhoods will receive sustained funding for trauma‑responsive, community‑based violence‑intervention programs, which can reduce shootings/homicides and improve survivors' mental health.
Opportunity youth (ages 16–24 who are out of school/unemployed) and other young people gain expanded job training, apprenticeships, and year‑round workforce pathways tied to violence‑intervention efforts, improving employment prospects.
Local governments and community organizations in high‑homicide areas become eligible for targeted federal grants and most grant dollars are directed to frontline providers, increasing local capacity to deliver and scale proven interventions.
Taxpayers face large new federal spending commitments (hundreds of millions per year plus $1.5 billion over FY2026–FY2033), raising concerns about federal cost and opportunity cost.
Smaller community organizations and nonprofits may be disadvantaged by stringent evidence, reporting, and competitive grant requirements, limiting who can access and administer funds.
Narrow eligibility definitions will exclude some at‑risk people (e.g., intimate‑partner or family violence victims, youth who are working part‑time or in part‑time education, or those who don't meet specific 'basic skills' tests) from services.
Based on analysis of 8 sections of legislative text.
Creates HHS and DOL competitive grant programs to fund community-based violence-interruption programs and year‑round job training for opportunity youth in high-violence communities.
Provides new federal grant programs to fund community-based, trauma-responsive violence intervention programs and year-round job training for youth in areas with high rates of gun and community violence. Grants prioritize community nonprofits, hospitals, and local governments that use evidence-informed violence interruption, hospital-based intervention, and economic opportunity strategies without expanding incarceration. Authorizes competitive grant funding for two main streams: community partnerships for violence prevention administered by HHS, and IMPACT workforce grants administered by the Department of Labor to connect opportunity youth (ages 16–24) in high-violence communities to education, training, apprenticeships, and jobs. The bill sets eligibility rules, distribution requirements to direct service providers, reporting measures, and funds $1.5 billion for workforce grants through FY2033.