Palm Springs nonprofit gets $2.1 million grant to address youth violence on city's north side

A Palm Springs nonprofit has been awarded a $2.1 million grant to develop programs aimed at reducing violence among youth on the north side of the city.

The grant was awarded to We Are One United, a Palm Springs-based nonprofit, by the California Board State and Community Corrections' Violence Intervention grant program. That state program provides funding to cities and organizations that are engaged in work to reduce violence.

We Are One United was founded in late 2020 by John Epps, a longtime business instructor at the University of California-Riverside. Epps previously worked as the director of the Center for Non-Profit Advancement at the Palm Desert-based Regional Access Foundation. We Are One United is described on its website as an organization "working for for community, equity and well-being."

The efforts funded by the grant will be focused on Palm Springs City Council District 1 and particularly the Black, Latino and Filipino communities that reside there, Epps said. District 1 encompasses an area north of San Rafael Drive as well as a few neighborhoods east of the airport.

The district is the sole council district in which racial minorities constitute a majority. Several neighborhoods on the north side, particularly the Desert Highland Gateway Estates neighborhood, are plagued by higher crime rates and other problems.

Epps, who now lives in Highland near Redlands, said he wanted to launch an effort focusing on north Palm Springs because he came to know the community well while serving as a fiscal agent for the Desert Highland Gateway Estates Community Action Association during his time working for the Regional Access Project Foundation.

He added that his organization plans to use the grant funds to attempt to address violence through three broad efforts: establishing programs and initiatives that will mold youth to be community leaders, developing mentoring programs for kids, and by working to create and implement violence mitigation strategies.

The organization has paid staff members, including those who work in fundraising and policy. However, Epps says it also relies on volunteers and plans to focus heavily on partnerships with people on the north side. He said he is already working with area leaders such as City Councilmember Grace Garner and Jarvis Crawford, who manages the community center on the north side of Palm Springs and hopes to make connections with leaders in the Filipino and Hispanic communities on the north side.

He also said he has been in touch with Palm Springs Police Chief Andrew Mills and called the police "a pivotal part of this."

"It's all hands on deck, really, if we're going to be successful at doing this," he said. "There's a lot of retired people in this community who can volunteer and support us."

Epps said he is keeping and adding to two lists: one of the things that must change in the community to achieve desired changes and another of what must change outside it.

"Prioritizing those things that we identify, and then going after them is how I think we're going to get this done," he said.

The crime mitigation strategy, he said, will begin by convening several focus groups consisting of residents and other people with ties to the north end aimed at delving into the violence issue, its causes and possible solutions.

"Mitigation is really that idea of when we start talking with each other instead of talking at each other it's going to make a big difference," he said. "And then the second part of that is as we start identifying the real issues, it's, what partners do we need and what strategies so that we can begin to change what's behind [the violence and challenges in the community.]"

While the organization says it will take a multi-faceted approach to addressing violence issues in north Palm Springs, Epps says many of the strategies will focus on developing the area's kids so that they can have successful careers and lives and eventually create a foundation of leaders and advocates for the community. Epps said he hopes to create programs that will reach kids starting in elementary school.

"Unfortunately, from what I'm understanding and talking with people at the schools and in the community, this is starting pretty early with the kids like middle school and maybe even by the end of elementary, so we know we've got to start with them," he said.

However, Epps said the programs will not be exclusively focused on kids because the causes and impacts of violence touch people of all age groups and especially parents.

"It's really hard to say we're just going to work with youth because if you come and work with me for two hours and you go home and your home is out of order then all of my work just went down the drain," he said.

Among the offerings the group wants to bring to the community are sessions where they will train people about how to start new organizations and take other steps to better the community and regular community events that they hope will allow the community to connect and grow closer.

"We try to invite people in because the people you hang out with are not people don't want to shoot, they're not people you're gonna beef with, and if you do have something that you disagree about, you learn that you don't have to be disagreeable in your disagreement," he said. "And these are just mindset shifts that I think we can help people make."

Increased attention to crime in north Palm Springs

The grant comes when new attention is being paid to the issue of violent crime in north Palm Springs, and particularly the Desert Highland Gateway Estates neighborhood. In May, the Palm Springs Police Department held a community meeting at the James O. Jesse Desert Highland Unity Center to discuss crime in the neighborhood and what residents would like to see done about it.

One frequent topic of discussion during the meeting was the desire of residents to see the city fund and develop new programs aimed at kids that would keep them engaged and off the streets. During the meeting, Police Chief Andrew Mills said that the department cannot start such programs on its own but pledged to push the city to start such programs and help residents to do so.

The meeting also revealed an often-tense relationship between residents, who spoke about their feelings of distrust toward police and charged that the police do not respect the community, and the department, which expressed frustration of its own about a lack of buy-in from residents about addressing the community's crime problems and finding solutions.

In March, police went door-to-door in the neighborhood asking for their input on possible solutions after two fatal shootings occurred in the neighborhood in one week. The victims in those shootings were a 36-year-old woman and a 45-year-old man. No other homicides have occurred in north Palm Springs so far this year.

While going door to door, the department distributed fliers stating that the Desert Highland Gateway Estates community accounts for approximately 2% of the city's population and 30% of the city's total gun violence.

North Palm Springs saw an increase in crime about two years ago in part because of an increase in shootings back and forth between members of the Gateway Posse Crips gang, which has been active in the Desert Highland Gateway Estates neighborhood since the 1980s and another gang based out of the Santiago Sunrise Village mobile home park, police have told The Desert Sun.

A 2021 Desert Sun analysis of Palm Springs crime data reported to the FBI between 2010 and 2021 showed that an uptick in violent crimes in the Desert Highland Gateway Estates area started several years ago.

The analysis found that between late 2019 and summer 2021, police reported five fatal shootings in the area. Three of them involved teenagers.

A 17-year-old boy was fatally shot in July 2020 in the area of Palm Vista and Granada Avenue. A 15-year-old boy was killed in August 2020 in the area of North Granada Avenue and Bon Air Drive. A 19-year-old Indio woman was fatally shot at that same intersection last July.

During the May meeting, Frank Browning, the Palm Springs Police lieutenant in charge of policing on the north side, said much of the crime in the neighborhood occurs along Granada Avenue in a two block area between West Palm Vista Drive and West Avenue Circa.

Paul Albani-Burgio covers breaking news and the City of Palm Springs. Follow him on Twitter at @albaniburgiop and via email at paul.albani-burgio@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Non-profit gets $2.1 million grant to address violence in north Palm Springs