Grants are opening soon for community groups that have ideas for reducing violence in Nashville, according to the mayor’s office. Ron Johnson, the city’s recently appointed community safety coordinator, is encouraging people to apply.
He says there are grassroots groups in the city already doing good work that need more resources to scale up, as well as new initiatives the grants could fund.
As for his own role in the mayor’s office, Johnson says his mission is to help groups build relationships with each other.
“I look at hopefully being successful by bringing people together who may have never worked with one another,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t mean that we have to agree on every thing, but we know the end results. Everybody would agree we want to … change the trajectory of the violence that we’re seeing in our communities.”
The grants from Mayor John Cooper’s office are coming as the police department is piloting a new program that sends clinicians out with police officers on mental health calls and as community members have called on the city to rethink public safety. Cooper’s press secretary, Chris Song, says it’s unclear exactly when the grant application period will open, but the goal is within the next few weeks.
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