{"id":892617,"date":"2026-06-25T21:17:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T21:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/892617\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T21:17:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T21:17:21","slug":"san-antonio-weighs-future-of-violence-prevention-program-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/892617\/","title":{"rendered":"San Antonio weighs future of violence prevention program funding"},"content":{"rendered":"

Metro Health presented new data<\/a> at a Community Health Committee meeting showing declines in shootings, homicides and other violent crimes since launching San Antonio\u2019s regional violence prevention strategy.<\/p>\n

But with the city entering what officials have described as a difficult budget cycle<\/a>, council members quickly turned to a different question: Which programs are actually driving those results?<\/p>\n

The department reported violent crime rates declined across every major category it tracked between 2022 and 2025, including a 56% drop in homicides, a 46% decline in shootings and smaller decreases in assaults and sexual violence. <\/p>\n

Officials highlighted the city\u2019s five-year Regional Violence Prevention Strategic Plan<\/a> and the Stand Up SA<\/a> violence interruption program as key components of its public health approach to reducing violence, which operates on an approximately $11.5 million annual budget.<\/p>\n

Officials stressed, however, that the improvements cannot be directly attributed to any one initiative. Violence prevention administrator Erica Haller-Stevenson said multiple public safety efforts \u2014 including SAPD\u2019s hotspot policing strategy, problem-oriented place-based policing<\/a> and Metro Health\u2019s prevention programs \u2014 were implemented during the same time period, making it impossible to isolate the impact of any single intervention. <\/p>\n

That caveat became the central focus of the committee\u2019s discussion.<\/p>\n

As city leaders prepare for what has been described as one of San Antonio\u2019s most challenging budget cycles<\/a> in years, District 10 Councilmember Marc Whyte questioned how they could determine which violence prevention programs were producing the greatest return on taxpayer dollars if officials could not directly connect individual initiatives to broader declines in violent crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got tough fiscal times here in the city right now,\u201d Whyte said. \u201cIf this $11 million [budget] was cut to $7 [million] or $8 [million],<\/strong> what would you want to make sure we keep?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" District 10 Councilmember Marc Whyte pressed staff to identify which violence prevention programs they would prioritize if budget cuts become necessary. Credit: Diego Medel \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

Hard to measure<\/p>\n

Metro Health officials said they cannot currently calculate a return on investment for individual programs. Instead, Haller-Stevenson said public health interventions are evaluated differently than traditional policing strategies.<\/p>\n

While law enforcement can often compare crime <\/strong>rates before and after a tactic is deployed in a specific area, she said public health programs measure whether conditions improve across an entire population over time, making it difficult to attribute citywide trends to any one effort.<\/p>\n

She pointed to Stand Up SA \u2014 the city\u2019s violence interruption program that deploys outreach workers with lived experience to mediate conflicts, mentor people at high risk of gun violence and connect them with services\u2014as one example.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we do know is that 488 violent conflicts were interrupted in fiscal year 2025,\u201d Haller-Stevenson said.<\/p>\n

Those interventions, she said, represent conflicts that had the potential to escalate into shootings even if they cannot be statistically linked to the city\u2019s overall decline in violent crime.<\/p>\n

\"\"Metro Health violence prevention administrator Erica Haller-Stevenson said public health programs measure changes across an entire population over time, making it difficult to attribute citywide trends to any one initiative. Credit: Diego Medel \/ San Antonio Report<\/p>\n

Whyte acknowledged that community-based violence intervention is inherently harder to measure than policing tactics, but said council members will need better information as they begin working on the budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to make a lot of tough decisions like this,\u201d Whyte said. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to be able to do everything that we\u2019re doing right now moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Return on investment<\/p>\n

Other council members argued that uncertainty should not diminish the value of prevention efforts.<\/p>\n

District 5 Councilmember Teri Castillo urged colleagues to consider the role these programs play in preventing violence before it occurs by connecting residents with mentors, employment opportunities and other support before they become involved in violence.<\/p>\n

Committee Chair Ric Galvan (D6) said the discussion highlighted the need for better evaluation tools to help future councils understand which investments are having the greatest impacts. He asked whether additional grant funding could help the city measure the effectiveness of its violence prevention strategy.<\/p>\n

Haller-Stevenson said Metro Health had hoped to secure grant funding for a dedicated staff member to track implementation of the regional violence prevention strategy, collect data from partner organizations and evaluate outcomes across the city, but those grants never materialized.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Office of Injury and Violence Prevention at CDC was dismantled,\u201d Haller-Stevenson told council members. \u201cPretty much all federal funding is coming out of the Department of Justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the remaining federal funding opportunities are largely geared toward law enforcement and court-based initiatives rather than public health violence prevention programs.<\/p>\n

The programs discussed Thursday were largely built during years of expanding city investment in violence prevention<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Following a record number of intimate partner homicides in 2018, San Antonio designated domestic violence services as a priority<\/a> and significantly increased funding for prevention efforts. <\/p>\n

With the city now preparing for a difficult budget cycle, council members indicated those <\/strong>investments \u2014 once viewed as essential \u2014 could <\/strong>face closer scrutiny than they have in years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Metro Health presented new data at a Community Health Committee meeting showing declines in shootings, homicides and other…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":892618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,10870,16460,58248,198817,361839,26865,7164,62591,39680,49500,60238,83339,7202,7203,3677,361840,361841,358,7453,3187,7815,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,361842,19289,7819],"class_list":["post-892617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-america","tag-budget-cuts","tag-cdc","tag-city-of-san-antonio","tag-community-health-committee","tag-erica-haller-stevenson","tag-federal-funding","tag-federal-funding-cuts","tag-hotspot-policing","tag-intimate-partner-violence","tag-marc-whyte","tag-metro-health","tag-ric-galvan","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-shootings","tag-stand-up-sa","tag-teri-casitllo","tag-texas","tag-top-story","tag-tx","tag-typedaily","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-violence-prevention-strategic-plan","tag-violent-crime","tag-wc-500-750"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=892617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/892618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}