Minneapolis violence interrupters say new city rules will reduce their staffing and pay

Some Minneapolis violence interrupters say new contracts with the city will gut their organizations by requiring them to operate under smaller budgets, with less staff and lower pay.

Violence interruption is part the city’s push to use alternatives to police by having community groups hire “credible messengers” — some of them formerly incarcerated or former gang members — who can mediate conflicts, defuse tension and interrupt the cycle of violence and retribution. Groups of violence interrupters can be seen in the streets often wearing matching, brightly colored shirts and coats.

T.O.U.C.H Outreach is one of five nonprofits chosen by the Neighborhood Safety Department to get a one-year violence interrupter contract — pending City Council approval on Thursday. The one-year T.O.U.C.H contract is for $708,400 beginning in April.

Muhammad Abdul-Ahad, executive director of T.O.U.C.H, said the city is requiring him to have fewer violence interrupters, pay them less and pay new benefits to employees. He expects he’ll have to reduce his staff from 32 to seven.

He’s being told to reduce his spending on community events, reduce pay from $35 an hour to the low 20s, and drop his staffing to seven for teams sent into the streets.

“That’s highly upsetting,” he said.

He said he’s been told he has to submit workers’ names to the Neighborhood Safety Department for approval, and must also get substitute workers approved before they can fill in for a shift, which seems unworkable.

“As nonprofit organizations, it’s like they’re just bullying their way right now,” he said.

The city wants to do mandatory drug testing and do background checks, but Abdul-Ahad fears making workers’ identities more public could jeopardize the workers.

“I’m supplying individuals with opportunities to have a job that probably can’t find a job somewhere else,” he said.

Lea Lakes, interim director of the city’s Neighborhood Safety Department, which oversees the program, touted “significant enhancements” to contracts during a Tuesday council committee meeting, with stricter monitoring and reporting to ensure transparency and accountability.

Contracts are now based on the Cure Violence Global model, which treats violence like an infectious disease. Cure Violence provides technical assistance to Minneapolis’ violence interrupter program called MinneapolUS. Now the city is setting standards for salaries that nonprofits must pay their violence interruption workers, as well as their expenses and benefits.

The old contracts had “vague reporting requirements” and the groups would deploy large numbers of workers largely near businesses and in commercial areas, sometimes overlapping other groups’ areas, Lakes said.

Now the city is requiring the use of smaller teams to work in designated areas, mostly in neighborhoods and near schools and parks. The city will do drug screening and background checks on new hires, and won’t allow people with active warrants to be hired, she said.

No alcohol or illegal recreational drugs will be allowed to be used during shifts or while violence interrupters are wearing uniforms, Lakes said, and the city reserves the right to drug test workers during their shifts.

Using five years of crime data, the department identified which areas of the city to target with violence interrupters, most of them in north and south Minneapolis.

The city will provide violence interrupters with uniforms (polo shirts, a winter jacket, rain jacket, fleece jacket and mesh vest) as well as cell phones, ID cards, business cards and backpacks with Narcan and first aid kits.

Violence interrupters are to be paid $45,000 to $55,000 annually, with benefits and mental health resources.

That works out to $22 to $26 an hour for violence interrupters like Jamar Nelson, who works for 21 Days of Peace. He finds that “weird” because in the past, the city would require violence interruption groups to pay workers $25 to $30 an hour.

Abdul-Ahad thinks the new Neighborhood Safety employees “don’t know anything about this work.”

“They don’t have anyone from the community” working in the office, he said.

There’s talk of a lawsuit, he said.

A City Council committee approved the new contracts Tuesday, but focused primarily on which areas of the city will get violence interrupters verus those left out. Particularly the north Minneapolis area that was originally going to be covered by a nonprofit run by a prominent north Minneapolis pastor who has come under fire for his and his employees’ conduct.

The Rev. Jerry McAfee’s nonprofit, Salem Inc., was slated to get a $650,000 contract but it was pulled back for additional review last week on the same day two of his workers were charged with multiple felonies in connection with a shootout after a community barbecue. Those workers were with his other nonprofit, 21 Days of Peace.

Council Member LaTrisha Vetaw, who represents Ward 4 in north Minneapolis, pressed city employees to explain what will happen to the area Salem was supposed to cover. She said people on the North Side are concerned about the loss of services and jobs – up to nine interrupters.

City Attorney Kristyn Anderson said no decisions have been made about that.

“I think there are still options for coverage,” she said, without elaborating.