Link to Richmond Free Press article: RRHA gets REAL about reducing gun violence
Article by Jeremy M. Lazarus, published 9/21/2023
A crime-reduction initiative that Mayor Levar M. Stoney has spurned apparently will come to Richmond after all.
The city’s housing authority is partnering with the nonprofit REAL LIFE to implement the same initiative in Richmond that is credited with dramatically cutting shootings and violent crime in Hopewell.
A nationally recognized approach, REAL LIFE’s Project Safe, Alive and Free seeks to identify individuals who are most likely to shoot a weapon and offer them a choice of resources such as life coaches, job training and after-school programs to help them change, or a credible, targeted effort by law enforcement to lock them up.
Steven B. Nesmith, chief executive of the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority, announced the partnership with REAL LIFE in officially launching RRHAs new “Hope, Jobs & Security” initiative to improve the lives of residents of public housing.
To read the entire article, visit the Richmond Free Press’s website.
