The focus for the new $4 million Youth Reinvestment Fund is eliminating gun violence before it happens by focusing on kids and putting money back into grassroots organizations that can help at-risk youth.
“Research consistently demonstrates that investing in early childhood intervention among at-risk youth effectively decreases the likelihood of young people becoming adult offenders later on in life and saves taxpayer dollars in the long run,” Hidalgo’s office said in a press release.
This comes at a time when gun violence among children is at an all-time high.
According to the New England Journal, overall gun deaths increased by 13.1% from 2019 to 2020. For 1- to 19-year-olds, it went up by 30%.
Over 4,000 children died from gun-related deaths during that period, the New England Journal said.
The CDC now says gun violence was the number one cause of death among adolescents in the U.S. in 2020.
It’s a stark change in the country, where for the past 60 years, car accidents have been the number one cause.
During the press conference, Judge Hidalgo and Commissioner Ellis plan to name the non-profit organization Change Happens as the administrator of the new fund.
Arlene Alvarez, just 9 years old, was shot and killed on Valentine’s Day while sitting in the back of her family’s truck, caught in the middle of gun violence unrelated to her family.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office said they are working to upgrade the charge against Tony Earls, who was charged before the little girl died in the hospital.”The robber and suspect number two, they were shooting at each other. What did my husband do? He just stepped on the gas,” Gwen Alvarez, Arlene’s mother, said. “And that’s when the shooter, Earls, stopped shooting at the robber and just targeted us. He just started shooting at us.”
The press release says Change Happens is a local non-profit organization with decades of experience mentoring, educating and servicing at-risk youth. It will partner with other grassroots organizations across the county engaged in evidence-based work to administer funding and provide technical assistance and other support for the community.
