A New Orleans City Council committee has given its blessing to a new contract worth up to $2.8 million for Ubuntu Village NOLA, the nonprofit whose staffers walk into the middle of neighborhood disputes to keep them from turning deadly. The deal, which would run through 2027, still needs a vote from the full council before it's final.
The City Council Criminal Justice Committee approved the contract this week, according to FOX 8 Local First, though the station notes the agreement still has to clear a full council vote before it takes effect. Ubuntu Village NOLA describes itself as a nonprofit focused on preventing crime before it starts, relying on staffers who specialize in conflict resolution to mediate disputes in neighborhoods across the city.
At the center of that work are the group's Peace Ambassadors, who are tasked with stepping between feuding parties before a disagreement escalates into gunfire. The organization says on its own website that its “team of Peace Ambassadors mediates conflicts in the community and works to prevent retaliatory shootings,” per Ubuntu Village NOLA. The group also runs a program called INSTEAD, which diverts people away from court and instead offers holistic, community-based case management, the nonprofit says.
Moreno Frames the Contract as a Public Safety Investment
Mayor Helena Moreno has been blunt about how City Hall views the nonprofit's role, calling Ubuntu Village a public safety partner in comments reported by the station. She said the city has gone out of its way to protect the group's funding even amid broader budget pressure, telling the outlet, “We've kept them whole so they remain in the budget.”
Moreno also framed the renewal as proof that New Orleans is attacking crime from multiple directions at once, arguing the contract signals the city's commitment to addressing crime from all angles. Her comments come as the city reports striking numbers: the station's report cites NOPD figures showing a 70% drop in crime since 2022 and the city's lowest overall crime rates since the 1970s.
The mayor attributed that progress to a combination of law-enforcement partnerships and spending on prevention programs like Ubuntu Village, rather than crediting either approach alone. “due to the level of partnerships on the law enforcement side and the level of investment we are making on prevention,” she said, according to the same report. She also said New Orleans ranks among the top 10 cities in countries that invest in crime prevention, though the station notes that figure was offered with less certainty than her other remarks.
Budget Cuts Loom Even as Prevention Funding Holds
The renewal isn't happening in a vacuum. New Orleans is weighing budget cuts for NOPD and other city agencies, the same report notes, which raises the stakes for a nonprofit contract that depends on City Hall continuing to prioritize prevention spending over other obligations.
That tension isn't unique to New Orleans. Minneapolis's proposed 2027 budget includes $2.7 million in cuts to its own violence interrupters, a reduction that would leave those programs with just $800,000 to divide up, according to Governing. Minneapolis has also reported a 53% decrease in shootings between 2021 and 2025, according to the city's director of neighborhood safety, a number cities often point to when defending prevention budgets against cuts.
Other cities have poured even larger sums into similar efforts. Louisville is receiving $24 million and Baltimore is receiving $50 million for community violence intervention programs, Governing reports. A Johns Hopkins-led study found Baltimore's Safe Streets program was associated with a 42% reduction in homicides involving youth age 15 to 24 and a 21% reduction in youth nonfatal shootings at the neighborhood level, according to the same outlet.
Does the Model Actually Work?
The track record for these programs elsewhere is mixed but notable. A Cure Violence team deployed in Chicago's West Garfield Park in 2000 was followed by a 68% decline in shootings there, and six additional Chicago areas that adopted the same model saw an average 30% drop in shootings within a year, according to ProPublica.
Still, ProPublica cautions that the evidence for how well some of these programs work is mixed and sometimes elusive, a reminder that attributing crime declines to any single intervention is tricky business. New Orleans's own Office of Violence Prevention says it leads the city's violence-reduction efforts through partnerships with healthcare institutions, community organizations, service providers and academic experts, according to the city's government website.
For now, the fate of Ubuntu Village's next contract rests with the full City Council, which has yet to take it up. If approved, the $2.8 million deal would keep the nonprofit's Peace Ambassadors working New Orleans streets through 2027, even as the city sorts out how much room its budget has left for both policing and prevention.
