Mayor Lightfoot Announces Community Safety Coordination Center

Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot joined fellow City, nonprofit, and community leaders to announce the first-of-its-kind Community Safety Coordination Center (CSCC). The CSCC is a multi-agency coordination center that will utilize the lessons learned from the City’s coordinated response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic demonstrated how much can be accomplished when government and community members work together to solve our most challenging collective issues. Throughout the pandemic, staff from healthcare organizations, public safety agencies, infrastructure departments, faith leaders, elected officials, and community organizations worked together to ensure our residents had access to the information, supplies, resources, and eventually, the vaccine needed to protect themselves. Through the CSCC, the City will utilize this same approach to enhance Mayor’s Lightfoot’s whole of government, community-driven approach to violence prevention and reduction.

The Community Safety Coordination Center will be tasked with coordinating resources, staff, funding, and information to engage residents and organizations in ways that are inclusive of the whole community. The center itself will be staffed with representatives from healthcare and mental health organizations, violence reduction nonprofits, youth services organizations, victim services organizations, education organizations, faith communities, local businesses, elected officials, and City departments.

The CSCC will also provide data sources and analysis on violent crime and the root causes of violence. In addition, the center will provide data on food insecurity, power and internet connectivity, affordable housing, and healthcare access. These efforts will ensure the City takes a more holistic and community-driven approach when using this data to prevent violence.

The CSCC will work closely with community leaders to identify what capabilities already exist to prevent and reduce violence and where the City can assist in garnering the resources needed to create short-term and long-term impacts against violence. The center will also coordinate City services and personnel to rapidly respond to the needs identified by community members to effectively prevent and reduce violence. 

While the City continues to fund and support violence interventions in the 15 priority communities identified in Mayor Lightfoot’s “Our City, Our Safety” plan, the CSCC’s primary focus will be on activating extensive resources within these communities on a phased basis, focusing first on West Garfield Park, North Lawndale, Little Village, and Englewood. The CSCC will begin operations in a temporary location downtown before moving to its permanent home in one of Chicago’s communities. 

A launch committee of community leaders is currently being formed and will mirror the incredible work done by the Racial Equity Response Team created during the City’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This launch committee will identify lessons learned through their work in the violence reduction space within their respective communities and work together to guide the City’s efforts toward violence prevention and reduction.  

In addition to the $52 million that Mayor Lightfoot is currently using to support violence prevention and reduction programs, the City will also work with the City Council to identify new funding streams. The funds from the American Rescue Plan will also help increase departmental budgets for violence prevention and response and provide much-needed funding for community organizations. The City will continue to coordinate with philanthropic funders to maximize the impact of dollars spent on violence prevention and reduction in the City.