HAVI Applauds Historic Funding for Violence Intervention

House Passes Build Back Better Act with $5 Billion in Funding for Community-Led Gun Violence Prevention

Nov. 19—Today, the House of Representatives voted to pass the Build Back Better Act, which includes $5 billion for community violence intervention (CVI). The HAVI celebrates the passage of this historic legislation and applauds the House for approving this critically needed funding to address the gun violence crisis that is ravaging communities nationwide. Fatimah Loren Dreier, Executive Director of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention (the HAVI), a group working to build a national network of hospital-based violence intervention programs, issued the following statement.

“For years, advocates have been fighting for adequate, consistent funding for CVI programs, and today’s passage of $5 billion in federal funding is truly historic. To say this funding will be transformative for community-based violence intervention—and the heroes doing the difficult work every day to prevent gun violence in our communities—would be an understatement. These evidence-based strategies have been shown to significantly reduce gun violence while also producing cost savings for cities, yet they have always been woefully underfunded. This new federal funding will not only provide stability to these lifesaving programs, but it will allow cities to bring them to scale to meet the needs of communities that have been traumatized by skyrocketing rates of gun violence since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

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