In an effort to combat increasing crime and gun violence, San Francisco officials could soon be offering payouts to at-risk residents as incentives to stay above the law.
Under the Dream Keeper Fellowship pilot program unveiled by Mayor London Breed, a small group of high-risk individuals would earn a $300 stipend so long as they aren't involved in illegal activities, the San Francisco Examiner reports. Those residents could receive up to $200 more for achieving other goals, such as attending job interviews or following probation guidelines.
“In many cases, sadly, the common denominator is that these folks do not have any sort of income," said Breed, according to KPIX-TV. "And so part of what we’re trying to do is make sure that money is not a barrier to turning your life around."
Along with the pay incentives, the program also would pair residents with life coaches from the Street Violence Intervention Program. They will be tasked with keeping individuals on the right path to hitting their program benchmarks.
“We know that $500 in San Francisco is not a significant amount of money,” Sheryl Davis, executive director of the Human Rights Commission, which is helping roll out the initiative. “But if it’s enough to get you in to talk to folks, and be able to make a plan for your life, then that’s huge.”
San Francisco's program is taking its lead from a similar effort in nearby Richmond. Operation Peacemaker Fellowship offers stipends up to $1,000, and 2019 study found that it helped decrease gun murders by 55% and overall shootings by 43% since its inception in 2010.
The city would like to start the program in October and include only 10 residents. By the end of the year, another 30 people could be added
Officials want to kick off the latest program with about 10 participants in October, before expanding the stipends to another 30 high-risk individuals by the end of the year, officials said. They’ve already hired two life coaches to work with participants at SVIP and are looking to hire two more.
“What we are actually doing is trying to address the root causes of some of what’s happened,” Davis said. “Six thousand dollars per person, when you look at it annually, is nothing if it helps deter criminal activity compared to the amount of money it costs to incarcerate someone, let alone the impact of the activity itself.”
The stipends will be funded by the city's Dream Keeper Initiative, which is the mayor's $60 million plan to move money from city law enforcement and invest it in the Black community. Breed sees the program becoming a powerful anti-violence tool for her city, and not simply "cash for criminals," which some critics have called it.
“My desire is to get to them, not to just make an arrest, but to get to them and to try and figure out if they would be willing to work with us on something that is an alternative,” she said at a Violence Prevention Summit in August, according to the Examiner. “We can’t just put them in a program without making sure that they have money, without making sure that they have something to take care of themselves.”