Coming off a violent Juneteenth weekend, a broad coalition of city leaders, faith groups and anti-violence advocates gathered Monday to make a pointed ask of Chicago City Hall: create a permanent, standalone Department of Gun Violence Prevention.
Backers argue that a single, long-term office could stitch together street outreach, contracting, and other prevention services that are now scattered across city government. They say it would stabilize funding for violence interrupters, link housing and jobs programs to prevention work, and give Chicago a lasting strategy for reducing shootings instead of hopping from initiative to initiative.
Deputy Mayor for Community Safety Emmanuel Andre stood alongside elected officials, pastors, and outreach leaders at a City Hall news conference to roll out the proposal, casting it as a consolidation of existing prevention work rather than a new law-enforcement arm, according to FOX 32 Chicago. Video from the event shows organizers urging Mayor Brandon Johnson to move quickly, first with an executive order, then with a City Council ordinance that would lock the office into city law.
Organizers said the coalition includes Live Free Illinois and Ald. Ronnie Mosley and that they plan to press for council sponsors to introduce legislation, Axios reported. "It's time that they consolidate existing resources under one department," Rev. Ciera Bates-Chamberlain told the gathering.
What the office would do and the cost
Proponents estimate the new department would carry about a $100 million budget, drawn from existing public-safety dollars, and say it would have full contracting and procurement authority to put violence interrupters and other intervention workers on the city payroll, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. That price tag would represent roughly 3% of the city's public-safety spending this year, the paper notes.
Mayor Brandon Johnson told the Sun-Times he supports creating an office that would keep prevention efforts "aligned, accountable and sustained over time," a signal that supporters hope will translate into real money during budget season.
How they'd try to make it permanent
Backers say the rollout plan is twofold: ask Johnson to create the office by executive order in the short term, then push for a City Council ordinance that would write it into the municipal code so it outlasts any one administration.
Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson told Axios that embedding the office in city law would make it much harder for a future mayor to undo compared with an agency created only by executive action.
Deputy mayor's role and background
Andre, who was appointed deputy mayor for community safety in April, has emphasized restorative justice and community-based strategies since stepping into the role. Advocates say his office would be at the center of coordinating city agencies and neighborhood programs if the new department is approved, as described in a recent profile by WTTW.
Supporters argue that building a formal department around that work could slow the churn of short-lived programs and give violence-prevention nonprofits more predictable funding streams, instead of leaving them to scramble from grant cycle to grant cycle.
What comes next
Backers told reporters they want to introduce an ordinance before the August City Council recess and push for it to be taken up during the fall budget process, with some advocates hoping for a formal launch in 2028, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
The Chicago Police Department deferred questions to the mayor's office, which means Johnson's political backing and the inevitable budget trade-offs will likely be the biggest obstacles ahead.
For now, the proposal has cracked open a familiar Chicago debate: how to balance short-term law-enforcement responses with longer-term community investments, and whether a permanent department can deliver measurable reductions in shootings while surviving the next round of budget pressures. Those are the questions City Council members and the mayor will have to answer as advocates try to turn this concept into law.
