KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — A new round of $1.25 million in federal grant funding will support a multiagency effort to prevent gun violence in Kalamazoo.

The federal grant was administered through the Michigan Department of Law Enforcement Standards to the city of Kalamazoo. The Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety will use a share of it, but will some of it is being funneled to Gryphon House and the Michigan Transformation Collective to support a holistic approach to intervention.

“Once we respond, it’s too late. The damage is done,” KDPS Chief David Boysen explained. “The balance between outreach and enforcement is critical. You have to have outreach and you have to have enforcement. You can’t have just one or the other. And they have to coordinate and that’s what this grant really helps us to do.”

Kalamazoo — like cities across the country — saw a surge in gun violence in 2020, with a peak in 2022. Stakeholders doubled down on policies and practices that had worked well for the previous decade, trying to treat the underlying causes of gun violence to prevent people from ever picking up a gun.

“We’re not just looking at the actual shootings. It’s everything that can happen before that and looking at enacting systemic change to reduce gun violence,” MTC co-founder Jen Heymoss said.

The bet is paying off, KDPS says: Homicides and shots fired calls are down 50% this year over last.

KDPS will use its share of the grant money to fund a data-driven and evidence-based study to identify gun violence hot spots and intervene in those areas with community outreach and educational events.

“We know that a very small number of people drive the majority of our violence. We at the public safety department know who they are,” Boysen said. “What we can do is make sure that the outreach and prevention efforts are directed at the few people that are causing the violence.”

For Gryphon Place, a crisis intervention hotline, the money will support efforts to connect individuals at risk of violence with helpful organizations in town. The MTC will use it to develop a hospital-based violence intervention program based out of Bronson Methodist Hospital specifically tailored to Kalamazoo.

“It’s not a copy-paste: ‘Here’s a hospital based violence intervention program. Let’s slap in onto Bronson Hospital,” MTC’s Heymoss said. “(We consider) what does it look like to set this up? What are the trainings that are needed for street outreach, that will be bedside, for supervisors, for community-based organizations and what’s needed for hospital administration?”

The grant money is available to these organizations and their partners on a reimbursement basis so that they can pay for projects right away.