This group is trying to stop violence in Austin before it happens. But it needs funding.

Guzman Escobar was at Chicano Park in March when he noticed people running toward him. Someone yelled, "They're shooting!" Then he got hit.

The bullet ricocheted inside him, hitting his colon, then his pelvis and then his back, where it remains to this day. Someone patched him up quickly before he got to the hospital. Had he waited five to 10 more minutes, he would have died, the doctor told him.

It will be another year or two before he's healed, and he still walks with a cane.

Revenge was the first thing on Escobar's mind, though police had already arrested the suspect in the shooting. Escobar grew up in East Austin, frequently getting into fights and being locked up. But he didn't want to see the same future for his 13-year-old son — especially after being moments away from death.

Because of Escobar's past and his connection to the community, he was approached by Abel Lopez, who works with ATX Peace, the city's first community violence intervention program.

Now, working with ATX Peace to help prevent violence in some Austin neighborhoods, Escobar is trying to do what the doctors did for him: save a life.

"I got blessed," Escobar said.

Lopez said one shooting often leads to three or four more, and that's part of the work of a community violence intervention program: stopping acts of retaliatory violence.

ATX Peace is a joint venture by two nonprofits, Jail to Jobs and Life Anew Restorative Justice. The organizations received an $800,000 grant through the city of Austin's Office of Violence Prevention to start a pilot community violence intervention program last October.

The organizations are now seeking more funding through the city to expand the effort. Eddie Franz, program director for Jails to Jobs, said the group is sending a budget proposal to the City Council.

Michelle Myles, a manager in the Office of Violence Prevention, said the office has been approved to receive $1 million from the federal government after it sent a proposal for more funding to the office of U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin.

"We are grossly underfunded," Franz said. "It's a pilot program, so we understand that. ... (But) the city of Austin is growing, and those growing pains are going to create more and more tensions, more and more tight spaces, which increases violence and homicides. We don't want that. So what we're trying to do is get ahead of it. And in order to do that, we need adequate funding."

What is community violence intervention?

Different forms of community violence intervention have been around since the 1990s, and cities across the country, including Houston and San Antonio, fund similar types of programs.

In Austin, ATX Peace typically uses former convicts or people with a violent past who are ready to turn their lives around and start giving back to the community, Franz said. These people, such as Escobar, are trained to be "trusted messengers," the boots on the ground who go into the communities and try to meet with high-risk people before they commit a violent crime.

ATX Peace's program has three stages. First, staff members meet with potentially violent offenders to offer them a different lifestyle.

Second, they offer resources for anyone wanting to take up that option. This includes helping people get paperwork such as birth certificates, driver's licenses and Social Security cards. They also set people up with training for trade jobs, such as heating, ventilation and air conditioning technicians; auto mechanics; or commercial drivers.

Third is what they do after a shooting: visit victims and other people involved in the shooting, typically the victims' friends and relatives, to try to prevent retaliation.

ATX Peace has been set up in two areas of the city: North Austin, in the 78752, 78753, 78754 and 78758 ZIP codes; and in Southeast and East Austin, in the 78702 and 78741 ZIP codes.

Franz said that programs such as ATX Peace are supplemental to policing and that both are required to address public safety in a city.

"We're trying to stop the violence before it happens," Franz said. "Once it happens, that's law enforcement's domain, and they're great at that. But we're trying to be proactive and be in the community."

Violence intervention programs have been shown to reduce homicides 30% to 60% in areas where they are used, according to the Giffords Law Center. Since starting in Austin, Franz said, ATX Peace has been able to prevent at least six shootings.

Chico Tillmon, director of the community violence intervention leadership academy at the University of Chicago, said everyone in the municipality has to be on board with community violence intervention programs for them to work, including law enforcement, government and social services personnel.

Tillmon came to Austin to work with the Office of Violence Prevention as an expert when the office was setting up violence intervention programs.

He said many people want to give these programs just a year or two, and if they are not getting the results they sought, they want to stop the funding.

"That's the wrong attitude," he said. "The way we're supposed to measure it is: Are they actually engaging the individuals they said they would? Are they helping transform those individuals' lives that are that less than 1% (of the population) that are the drivers of violence? Because if they are doing that, violence should go down, but when it spikes, we can't put all the responsibility on them and relieve all the other actors in the public safety ecosystem."

'Doing life better'

ATX Peace tries to get people resources such as cognitive behavioral therapy and job training so they can learn to deal with their emotions and have options to turn to outside of the streets, Lopez said.

"Going through our program, they have a better opportunity of not just having a career or a job, but doing life better," he said.

Lopez said it's not always a success. Many people go into his office and tell him they want to get better, but they continue to commit crimes.

Richard Robinson III,  program director with Life Anew Restorative Justice, the other nonprofit that received part of the grant in Austin, said community violence intervention work is not just violence prevention.

"In order to get the violence to be prevented, you have to have relationships with people that are in the midst of that," Robinson said. "And sometimes the only way to have relationships with those (people) is to kind of help (them) navigate through some of their situations, which may not be violent-related."

'I'm moving forward'

For many people whom Lopez helps, one of the first things he does is take them to get their vital records.

That's what Marcos Bailon was doing Tuesday. He's had four DWIs and served time in jail for them. He works two jobs, but he's still homeless. He's trying to get his driver's license, but he didn't have a copy of his birth certificate.

So Lopez took Bailon to the vital statistics office in Central Austin, where he helped Bailon fill out the paperwork and then paid the $22 charge to get his birth certificate.

"I feel like a citizen," Bailon said to Lopez and Escobar as he walked out of the government office holding the document. "I feel like I'm moving forward. Usually, I'm moving back. ... I wish there was more programs like this."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Why a violence intervention group is seeking funds from city of Austin