Latino Civic Alliance to Receive Funding for Violence Prevention

The Washington Department of Commerce has announced $7.6 million in grants to a plethora of community-based violence prevention organizations.

These organizations are disproportionately clustered in King, Pierce and Spokane Counties, where firearm violence tends to exert the heaviest toll. (In the state's most populous city, there were over 70 homicides last year - a level of carnage unmatched in recent Seattle history.)

But the Latino Civic Alliance, which maintains offices in Quincy and Moses Lake, is also set to receive grant monies. The LCA is one of 21 participants tasked with developing "trauma-informed and culturally competent programming" centered on "planning, prevention and crisis intervention," according to a Commerce press release.

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The WA Office of Equity stipulates that programming "must be targeted to meet the unique needs of each community." This is called "targeted universalism." No two communities are exactly alike, so no two communities should have identical strategies for deterring firearm violence.

Prevention can mean anything from mentorship and youth development to "social wellness and advocacy." Sometimes it means literally inserting oneself in the line of fire; Steve James' The Interrupters is a vérité-style documentary about the self-sacrificing nature of violence prevention.

Individual grant amounts range from $150,000 to $450,000. Funds are valid - useable - through June 30, 2025.

Grants are funded through the Community Reinvestment Program (CRP), a creation of the state legislature. In 2022, the legislature earmarked $200 million to help redress historical wrongs. The 50-year war on drugs - defined by Commerce as "the historic design and enforcement of U.S. state and federal criminal laws and penalties for drug possession" - has had many indirect and unintended consequences, chief among them an escalation in firearm violence.

We are awaiting comment from LCA director Nina Martinez.