Mayor Brandon Johnson is asking aldermen to ramp up spending on community violence intervention and launch a new office aimed at decreasing gun violence, part of an effort he says will help Chicago’s sharp decrease in violence continue.
Johnson’s budget proposal will include a $7 million bump for violence intervention workers to almost $41 million. The mayor also plans to establish a new permanent department focused on gun violence, in line with his administration’s root-cause approach to ending the violence that’s been a scourge in parts of the city for generations.
The funding bump, which Johnson’s office estimates would put 390 new outreach workers on city streets, also is a chance for the mayor to make the argument ahead of next year’s election that he’s building on the city’s momentum addressing the most serious forms of violent crime.
Homicides and other violent crimes in Chicago reached lows not seen in a decade at the end of 2025, and have remained largely flat this year. However, some parts of the city haven’t been part of that progress: Chicago police data last updated Oct. 18 shows neighborhoods in a swath of the mid-South Side have seen shootings rise and homicides spike by almost half compared to last year, even as violence has continued to plummet elsewhere.
Still, by reinforcing key parts of his approach to addressing violence, Johnson may hope to stake his claim to the 39% drop in murders this year compared to 2022 — and challenge aldermen to criticize his crime-fighting record where data gives him a win.
Altogether, the spending increase is a small part of the $17.6 billion budget Johnson is proposing. But in an interview with the Tribune this week, the mayor said the city’s ongoing success in lowering violence is exactly why the extra $7 million — one of only a handful in new expenditures he is seeking — was necessary.
“We’ve seen historic lows in violence, and there’s a considerable amount of evidence that our investment in CVI and outreach programs are helping to drive violence down,” he said. “(The money) has to apply to where the needs are greatest.”
Johnson did not say where the money would go, but namedropped several neighborhoods: “The work has to show up in (communities) like Englewood and Roseland and Austin, right? North Lawndale, Garfield Park is another good example.”
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The mayor also singled out the city’s Deering (9th) Police District, which stretches from Chinatown, Bridgeport and Canaryville across the Back of the Yards and McKinley Park to Gage Park. Tribune reported earlier this year that the area, along with the mid-South Side overall, was one of the few exceptions to the city’s declining gun violence rate.
Johnson declined to say Monday how his administration hopes to pay for the increase in spending, but he will propose a corporate head tax and a spike in taxes on leased digital and physical property as his primary revenue raising efforts, according to multiple sources and records obtained by the Tribune.
Deputy Mayor for Community Safety Emmanuel Andre acknowledged that the new Department of Community Wellness and Safety, meant to coordinate and track investments and activities related to violence reduction, was to some extent a reorganization of existing city resources but argued it would promote “a comprehensive approach to addressing issues of safety and community wellness.”
“It gets everything organized under one central area,” he said.
The department replaces the interim Office of Gun Violence Prevention, established by Johnson via an executive order in June. That order required the office to produce monthly public reports on violence reduction activities among a slew of other duties; so far, none have been issued. Andre said the first reports likely would land early in 2027, with a five-year “gun violence reduction strategy” scheduled for release in April 2027.
Johnson also plans to ask aldermen for a $24 million increase in funding for his youth summer jobs program, expand the use of mental health crisis response teams to seven days a week and add another public mental health center, all policy efforts the mayor has previously placed at the foundation of his vision for violence reduction, according to private records obtained by the Tribune.
Community violence intervention and street outreach — which typically leverages existing relationships among people who are most likely to somehow be involved in violent crime — have become increasingly visible parts of the public safety landscape in Chicago and beyond in recent years. People involved in violence intervention work around the city were cautiously optimistic about the proposed spending and new department.
Teny Gross, founder and CEO of the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago, said the extra money amounted to a recognition that street outreach and other interventions were effective.
“It is rewarding that the mayor sees that,” he said. “I think it bodes well for economic development as a city and housing and livability and attractiveness for the future. It is the right investment, and we’re pleased about that.
Unlike other more traditional approaches to public safety, support for these kinds of programs historically have relied on multiple, fluctuating funding sources. That makes for serious unpredictability, particularly over the past two years as federal funding cuts under the second Trump administration have set in. Gross said plans for the new department could bring more sustainability to existing violence reduction programs.
“The people that do this work, they risk their lives, they deserve stability,” he said. “(Violence reduction) deserves real clout in City Hall, regardless of who the mayor is.”
But Gross and others also saw risks to the approach that’s planned for the department. Dr. Selwyn Rogers, the head of the University of Chicago Trauma Center, said the main challenge would be keeping the focus on public safety.
“Lots of things can be in the bucket of violence prevention,” Rogers said. “If you dilute community violence intervention to include all the other primary ways that we can make our city safer, the risk is… (the money) doesn’t get to the highest-risk individuals.”
Rogers also said the total proposed spend for violence intervention programs still pales in comparison to the Chicago Police Department budget, which historically has hovered around $2 billion. And like Gross, he already was thinking ahead to the sustainability of the funding and the operations of the new department.
“If we want to have CVI as a sustainable part of public safety, budgets are moral documents and budgets should reflect that commitment,” he said. “It’s a step in the right direction but one point does not make a line.”
Johnson proposed freezing police hiring and eliminating some vacant positions in his budget proposal, moves his administration estimated would save $27.6 million, according to records.