Freelon proposes mutual aid to fight Durham’s ‘double pandemic’ of COVID-19, violence

Pierce Freelon wants the City of Medicine to try a new remedy for the gun violence surging across Durham.

The activist and newly appointed City Council member proposes Durham spend $750,000 on “mutual aid centers” and grassroots organizations to support embattled Black and brown neighborhoods.

“Are we going to be fighting this constantly uphill battle with kids who are already lost to the streets? Or are we going to treat the symptoms and the underlying causes of violence?” Freelon said in an interview with The News & Observer. “Let’s name poverty as violence.”

Freelon brought the proposed We Are The Ones Fund to the council Thursday. His first initiative since joining the board in the summer, it would be a “community capacity building and violence intervention fund” created by several community groups, many led by Black women in Durham.

Communities of color are facing a “double pandemic of violence and COVID-19,” the proposal states.

Council members watched a presentation from Nia Wilson, executive director of the nonprofit SpiritHouse, and Chi-Ante Singletary, chief reparations officer and co-founder of Cypress Fund, a race and wealth equity organization working in the Carolinas.

“This proposal addresses what folks in the Black community have called a state of emergency,” Wilson said. “And we know that there is a correlation right now between what’s happening in our communities with COVID-19 and how that impacts an increase of violence.”

The fund’s name comes from a quote by June Jordan, a feminist Jamaican-American poet:

“And who will join this standing up. and the ones who stood without sweet company will sing and sing back into the mountains and if necessary even under the sea. we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Addressing root causes

Policing has long been the city’s “one-trick prescription” to gun violence, Freelon told The N&O.

He said Durham needs to spend on more holistic measures.

“If our budget is a reflection of our values, we’re spending $70 million a year on policing,” he said. “And the budget for programming for youth, for example, is woefully inadequate, especially during a pandemic.”

Police Chief C.J. Davis said something similar at a news conference last Thursday, when she and Mayor Steve Schewel advocated for programs that address root causes.

“It can’t be just the police department,” Davis told reporters. “You can’t arrest crime away.”

As of Nov. 7, a total of 274 people had been shot in Durham this year, 24 of them fatally, according to police statistics.

The number was up 74% compared to the same time last year, when 159 people had been shot, The N&O reported.

What would the fund cover?

The proposal asks the city and county governments to each pay $250,000 from their respective COVID-19 relief funds.

The Cypress Fund and other partnering organizations would raise money to match the investment up to $250,000, the proposal states.

About $312,000 would pay for “mutual aid centers” and “wellness ambassadors.”

Three mutual aid centers would serve as drop-off spaces for food and clothing donations and host group therapy, meditation and other programs and violence interruption training, the proposal states.

Freelon and the other organizers have not yet identified which neighborhoods would get a center. SpiritHouse would recruit the wellness ambassadors to run them, the proposal states.

About $140,000 would cover administration costs, and nearly $98,000 would cover a relief fund designated for “emergency medical needs” or “unexpected funeral expenses,” the proposal states.

A total of $200,000 would fund micro-grants to Black and brown neighborhood organizations. The Cypress Fund would administer the grants, said Singletary, through a public application and community voting process.

Wilson said she had compiled a list of 50 potential organizations for grants.

The fund’s focus on youth programming arises from what Freelon heard when he asked residents of McDougald Terrace and Oxford Manor about public safety, he said.

He also received input from Chris Keenan, who runs a group called Building Leadership for a Solid Tomorrow, he said. Keenan had polled residents of public housing complexes during “Safe Zone Friday’s,” the group’s series of summer BBQs, to ask what they wanted more of in their communities.

“The overwhelming conclusions were clear,” Wilson told council members. “Community members wanted more youth programs, sports, kids activities at night and on weekends, and healthy foods.”

City Council members want details

While the mayor and council members supported the idea, they asked how the money would be spent and pressed Wilson and Singletary for details.

Freelon brought the idea to the council without following the city’s standard Request for Proposal process, in which city staff members evaluate a proposal and bring forth their recommendations.

Mayor Pro Tem Jillian Johnson said she liked the proposal, but suggested staff provide a “neutral source of evaluation and information.”

Schewel also suggested city staff flesh out more details before the council decides to vote.

“We demand specificity because we know that that produces accountability,” Schewel said.

Wilson said she plans to bring the proposal to the Durham County Board of commissioners once the newly elected board members join in December.

Freelon said the fund has raised $50,000 so far from private donors.

This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 5:06 PM.