This Bay Area City Takes the Lead on Gun Violence Prevention. It Starts With Neighbors

Despite a shoestring budget and a small staff, Kira Lee has faith that within six months, her organization’s unique approach to gun violence prevention will make the streets even safer in Richmond, a progressive city renowned for its success in reducing gun deaths.

Richmond is California’s first city to partner with Silence the Violence, a nonprofit that seeks to create safer and more equitable communities. The national effort invites residents to tailor violence prevention efforts to the needs of the blocks, streets, and roads in their neighborhoods. The local collaboration is known as the Richmond Safety Stakeholder Association.

“Think HOA with a safety component,” Lee, the executive director of Silence the Violence, told KQED.

According to Lee, the program is designed to help make safety accessible to all neighborhoods, regardless of affluence, by tapping community members intent on improving the lives of their neighbors.

She said Silence the Violence has had no trouble finding people in Richmond to participate because those closest to a problem are usually the most motivated to find solutions. According to Lee, 41 organizations have signed up, as well as hundreds of residents.

“Violence changes people, and it drives them in a way that they will work for free. It changes the way you speak up for yourself. It will drive you in a way that a job or a career can’t,” she said. “When you need a change, when you need to know that when you wake up in the morning, something will be different by the time you go to bed, it’s different.”

Silence the Violence was given $50,000 by the city. The organization asks residents, referred to as safety stakeholders, to describe their skills — and their troubles. This could be a sister experiencing abuse or a parent worried a child is being recruited by gangs that commit violence, in addition to stressors such as struggles with mental health and the lack of employment options.

The next step is making the right resources accessible, such as an emergency mobile safety directory, funds for youth activities or crossing guards, and social programs like the Nosy Neighbor, where retired residents sit outside for safety and visibility.

Every Wednesday at 6 p.m., there’s a training session for safety stakeholders. From May 30 to June 1, 2025, the first Silence the Violence summit in Richmond will be held. It will focus, Lee said, on teaching residents the “full life cycle of safety at household, neighborhood and city levels.” Attendees will also discuss gun violence, domestic violence, poverty and education gaps.

“Essentially, what we do is connect the dots,” Lee said.

Richmond is no stranger to innovation when it comes to gun violence. In the early 2000s, a group of incarcerated men at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center began what evolved into the city’s Office of Neighborhood Safety.

Sam Vaughn was one of those men.

“We had elected officials come in. We had the pastors and church members and organization leaders. And we were just giving them the best we had — best advice, the best direction,” he said.

Vaughn now helps run the office, which has provided job training, substance abuse treatment, mentorship and up to $1,000 a month for those who put down firearms. The process has become so successful at reducing homicides, UC Berkeley created a class to study its model. But Vaughn said there’s still more to do.

“We look at it like we’re a trauma center. We’re trying to just stop the death,” he said. “But where’s the aftercare? Where’s the family practitioners? Where’s the health centers to keep you from getting diabetes in the first place? So everybody has a role to play.”

That includes longtime community organizers like Elana Bolds. She’s organized Put Down the Guns block parties for 16 years and said her doors are always open for neighborhood kids.

“They know that Miss Elana is always getting ready for the next event that will benefit them and spotlight them like they’re little stars because that’s how I treat them,” Bolds said. “I don’t want them to feel like they’re throwaways and they don’t matter.”

She remembers the peak of gun violence in Richmond when there were many more funerals. She sang at many of them. Last year, there were eight homicides recorded in Richmond, an 83% drop since there were 47 in 2007 when gun violence in Richmond spiked. This year, there have been 10 homicides.

“My overall wish is that it’s more,” Bolds said, referring to gun violence prevention in Richmond. “If I got me and them, and you and you and those over there — more help, more love, more solutions, more hands, more volunteers, more to where the community benefits. The kids can be kids again. That’s it. It’s all worth it.”