Columbia’s Office of Violence Prevention looks to offer bus liaison contract to nonprofit
Nia Hinson
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Columbia’s leader of the Office of Violence Prevention D’Markus Thomas-Brown is hoping to offer a contract aimed at deescalating situations on public transit in the city to a nonprofit organization.
According to Thomas-Brown, his office plans to award the $99,840 contract to Powerhouse Community Development. The office was considering two liaisons for public transit in the city, after receiving reports of fights, threats and drunk passengers on city buses.
Thomas-Brown said his office had been having discussions about the issue since May.
The liaisons are trained in deescalation and would work toward offering peer support, life coaching and have an understanding of the services individuals can go to if they’re in need of help. Thomas-Brown said he sees the liaisons helping those who are riding the bus to help keep them safe, as well as bus drivers.
“Also being an intermediary for the bus driver so that the bus driver can focus on driving,” Thomas-Brown said. “They didn’t sign up to be the driver and a social worker or a driver in a deescalation element or helping people transition to services.”
Thomas-Brown said his office did not want to hire within its own office, but rather partner with a community based organization that had the ability to hire and offer the appropriate services. He hopes that organization can be Powerhouse.
“They had the training that was requested, the HEAT (Habilitation, Empowerment, Accountability and Therapy) training, certified peer specialist deescalation training, trauma-informed and mental health specialized training, being able to walk into a situation that’s not going to escalate but actually meet the person where they’re at when it comes to transit,” Thomas-Brown said.
The liaisons will be on six routes, according to Thomas-Brown.
Devon Harmon — a Columbia resident who rides the bus frequently to and from work — said he’s witnessed arguing and commotion on buses. He thinks the liaisons could be a positive thing, if they work toward engaging with passengers.
“I think it would be beneficial if it was more interaction, like people having conversations about things…there’s nothing wrong with talking to somebody that you’ve never met before.”
The Columbia City Council still has to approve the funding. The council will have their first read of the item during its Dec. 1 meeting, according to Thomas-Brown.
Office of Violence Prevention requests $1.8 million from DOJ
Thomas-Brown’s office is asking the Department of Justice for $1.8 million to help build out some of its collaborative efforts.
Thomas-Brown said he applied for the grant earlier this month, though it isn’t clear when the city will know if it’s been awarded the money. The office is looking to hire three new people with the funding, if approved, according to Thomas-Brown.
Those hires would include a community violence coordinator, as well as two community outreach supervisors. Thomas-Brown said the move would also include sending those hired to conferences to further their learning and engagement into community violence intervention initiatives.
The community violence coordinator would be tasked with being a collaborative partner with community-based organizations. Thomas-Brown said they would work toward filling gaps and also work closely with NOCAP groups in the community.
“That person will also help be an extension to community-based organizations, or those who want to start programs that are really in that space of where there are gaps for programming and lend the support of the Office of Violence Prevention,” Thomas-Brown said.
The two community outreach supervisors’ duties would include building street outreach and responses and help community-based organizations that don’t have the time or resources to build a rapid response team. Thomas-Brown said he intends to have one person focused on adults, while the other’s focus would shift toward youth in the community.
The two would also work toward building partnership with the city’s Project Management Office, which helps with data collection.
“We also have funding to partner with a liaison for the police department. We want an individual who’s able to be that intermediary between the Office of Violence Prevention and the police department, especially when we’re talking about focused deterrence,” Thomas-Brown said. “The desire in my eyes is, and it’ll be worked out with (Police Chief Jill Schlude) is that they could be housed in the police department as a delegated liaison to some of the community initiatives we’re doing.”
Thomas-Brown said in accepting the position, it was always his vision to expand the office. He says a one-person office is unsustainable and a “dying” office that isn’t able to implement everything that’s needed.
“So, that will give me the ability to be more out front, hand holding with different establishments and looking at the place of where we can give further funding into our CBOS and things like that to be able to actually look at strategy and vision and moving us forward in the intervention prevention space,” Thomas-Brown said.