Mayor Zohran Mamdani is directing $4.8 million in previously budgeted city funds to expand gun violence prevention work in Bushwick, Harlem, and Washington Heights/Inwood, adding 42 new outreach positions to neighborhoods where community groups have long worked to keep disputes from turning deadly. The announcement, expected Tuesday, will route $1.6 million to each of the three areas for fiscal year 2027, funding 30 new credible messengers along with program managers, administrative staff, community coordinators, and education and employment specialists.
The expansion builds on the city’s Crisis Management System, which deploys trained violence interrupters to defuse disputes, prevent retaliatory shootings, and connect at-risk residents to support services, according to amNewYork, which first reported the plan. The CMS network, which dates back more than a decade, currently operates in 46 neighborhood service areas and will grow from 29 to 31 NYPD precincts under the new funding, per the Mayor’s Office of Community Safety. Washington Heights and Inwood previously had no CMS street-outreach coverage at all, according to the administration.
City Hall says the three neighborhoods were selected based on crime data, unmet service needs, and other indicators. In Bushwick specifically, the timing lines up with a rough stretch for the 83rd Precinct, where major crime rose 31.6% from 2025 during the period Vital City analyzed—the largest percentage increase of any precinct in Brooklyn, according to Vital City. Hoodline has reported on gunfire near Maria Hernandez Park and along Myrtle Avenue in recent weeks as the neighborhood grapples with that surge even as citywide violence trends downward.
Bushwick Could See Hires First
In Bushwick, the funding will expand The Wick Against Violence, operated by Southside United HDFC–Los Sures, which already runs programming at Woodhull Hospital and the Bushwick Houses. A city spokesperson said the Bushwick rollout could begin sooner than the other two neighborhoods because Southside United already operates CMS programming there, giving it a head start on hiring and onboarding. The organization, led by Executive Director Juan Ramos, previously expanded its youth violence interruption model across NYCHA’s Bushwick and Cooper Park Houses using a $1 million federal grant awarded in March 2023, according to The Greenline…