Proven interventions

The Post-Gazette Editorial Board mischaracterized the Stop the Violence Trust Fund as a “slush fund” (“Unaccountable Stop the Violence slush fund requires complete overhaul, not just reform,” June 29).

City Council created the fund to ensure stable, ongoing support for the people and programs doing the difficult, often invisible work of interrupting violence before it happens. These are proven interventions that Pittsburghers have built and trusted. And in 2024, they helped deliver the lowest number of homicides since 2019, with homicides down 19% and non-fatal shootings down 28%.

This isn’t a broken system, it’s an evolving one. The legislation I co-sponsored with Councilman Khari Mosley strengthens oversight, outlines clearer rules for expenditures, and adds a formalized steering committee to ensure transparency and community accountability.

What we won’t do is dismantle the very tool that’s helping to make our city safer just to shift funding toward other needs. This is especially critical when the federal government has slashed over $800 million in Department of Justice grants meant to support local gun violence prevention and crime reduction efforts.

You can’t talk about public safety without talking about poverty. Reducing violence requires addressing the conditions that give rise to it: joblessness, disinvestment, trauma, and generational neglect.

Public safety and gun violence reduction are directly linked to economic empowerment and long-term community development. Public safety is a primary responsibility of municipal government, and Stop the Violence resources are direct investments in both economic and population growth.

Some of our city’s leadership want to see this fund repurposed to patch short-term operational gaps. But this fund was never designed to buy more police cars. It was designed to invest in healing, opportunity and prevention.

That includes everything from trauma support to youth programming, family relocation for safety, and workforce development. These are not side issues, they are core strategies in building a safer, stronger Pittsburgh.

R. Daniel Lavelle
R. Daniel Lavelle is the President of Pittsburgh City Council