Photo: Arnitta Holliman - Facebook
Arnitta Holliman
Arnitta Holliman
According to police crime statistics, Milwaukee experienced historically violent years in 2020 and 2021. The city’s homicide rate increase was among the top five highest in the nation. Shootings increased by 25%. Reckless driving has been like a creeping cancer. According to Acting Mayor Johnson, Police Chief Jeffrey Norman, District Attorney John Chisholm, Alderman Michael Murphy, 414LIFE head Reggie Moore and grass roots Black leaders, violence prevention looms as Milwaukee’s most important challenge for 2022.
As director of the city’s Office of Violence Prevention (OVP), Arnitta Holliman is in a position to get things done. She was born and raised in Milwaukee on 12th and Atkinson in zip code 53206. She attended Samuel Morris Middle School and Juneau High School and earned her undergraduate degree at Marquette University, majoring in psychology and minoring in criminology and law studies, before earning her masters degree in clinical psychology. She is a licensed therapist and professional counselor and has worked in private practice, school and community clinics and prisons. She has also done group and individual therapy.
Before coming to the Office of Violence Prevention, she headed the Sisters program at Benedict Center helping women in the street-based sex trade experience healthier and safer lives. The OVP hired Holliman as manager for the Resiliency in Communities After Stress and Trauma program where she worked with high-risk young people and their families who experience trauma. After two years in that role, she was appointed Director of the Office of Violence Prevention in May of 2021. I spoke to her on a frigid Friday in late January.
Let’s start out with the Office of Violence Prevention’s mission statements. One of them is to provide strategic direction and oversight for Milwaukee’s efforts to reduce the risk of violence through linked strategies in partnership with government, non-profit, neighborhood and faith organizations. That sounds complicated.
OVP has 30 strategies in addition to the six goals under the Blueprint for Peace. These principles guide our work. We partner with system partners, community-based and neighborhood organizations, and people who are working to prevent and interrupt violence. We convene meetings with our partners, and we help fund organizations that serve youth, domestic violence victims and family trauma. We attend community events and work groups that are trying to stop the violence. We also respond in real time to dramatic situations: shooting, homicide, a domestic violence incident.
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The OVP public health approach uses a four-pronged strategy. One of the prongs is this: Designing, implementing, and evaluating violence prevention strategies which includes adoption of evidence-based practices on individual, family, community, and societal levels. What are these violence prevention strategies?
One important strategy is our direct service, the 414LIFE program. 414LIFE addresses violent incidents. We partner with the Medical College of Wisconsin to carry out the 414LIFE program headed by Reggie Moore, former director of the OVP.
In 414LIFE, violent incidents are handled by Violence Interrupters who work on the ground to mediate violence or retaliatory violence whether individuals or groups. For example, if someone is shot, there might be retaliation. We also have an outreach component, Outreach Workers doing door to door conversations, or attending neighborhood events. Then, there are the Hospital Responders who help injured victims who are brought to our partner, Froedtert Hospital, after the victims experience trauma incidents. The Hospital Responders counsel family members and connect victims with various services.
What are the other areas that comprise the Office of Violence Prevention mission?
Family violence is important. Our OVP Outreach people work directly on preventing domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking and child abuse. We also fund some organizations that focus on preventing family violence. For instance, Karin Tyler works on domestic abuse and family issues. There is also the Suicide Prevention piece headed by Daynesia Kendrick. She works with faith groups and community residents. She teaches residents about how to recognize the signs for suicide and educates people on gun lock awareness. We supply city and county health clinics with gun locks.
How do Karin or Daynesia get their information about ongoing stressful situations or violent behavior? Seems like these situations need immediate responses.
We get referrals from the police, or residents will call our office or reach us through social media. Or maybe one of our non-profit partners will alert us to a problem. We also hear from community activists like Vaun Mayes in the Sherman Park area. Another component of our work falls under RECAST, an acronym for Resiliency in Communities After Stress and Trauma. RECAST was funded in 2016 by a federal grant, $5 million for five years. Simmone Kilgore is a licensed therapist and the RECAST program manager who leads our work around trauma prevention, healing and wellness.
How are all these strategies working so far?
We’re seeing a phenomenal level of coordination and partnership we’ve not seen before.
In the last couple years, according to Milwaukee police statistics, violence has been on the rise. In my conversations with influencers on all levels, they tell me that the many silo organizations work separately and rarely interact. I am in regular contact with some of the central city grassroots leaders - Vaun Mayes, Tracey Dent, Tory Lowe, Ajamou Butler, and Elizabeth Brown. For years, they have been operating as volunteers. They feel that neighborhood leaders should be included in discussions with city department leaders and politicians—and also that the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money should help fund their own small nonprofit organizations. Do you agree?
Oh, I absolutely agree. I’ve heard this before, and I understand their needs. We love it when we can contract with the small grassroots organizations. We know they are on the ground doing work, but they do not have the resources. The problem has to do with what is required to receive a grant contract from the city. To receive grant funding, those neighborhood activists are required to head a group that meets city contract requirements, or they need to partner with a larger group that already meets the requirements.
That means the OVP can’t give money to organizations without the grant approval. These grassroots people walk the streets and immediately react to traumatic situations. They are effective at violence prevention on a small scale. Is there some way you can help them get a grant or help them with funding?
We’d like to help, but we don’t make the decisions as to what is required for a grant from the City of Milwaukee.
Who does make those decisions?
I would imagine it’s the city comptroller office. They have clear guidelines.
The District Attorney John Chisholm told me of a study about cities who have funded grass roots organizations and how effective that has been in reducing crime. I’m not sure why the city comptroller office should have the power to determine if grass roots leaders get funding.
I understand, but this is the Milwaukee process for groups to qualify for contract money. It’s out of our hands. If we could make it different, we would. But I do understand how much work the community activists are doing, their passion, and their labor of love.
Clear this up for me. Currently, I believe the OVP has nine staff positions and a budget of $3.7 million. The city of Milwaukee has received $8 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). At one point, Acting Mayor Johnson said the Common Council’s plan was to spend $16.8 million on the Office of Violence Prevention. But Alderman Michael Murphy recently told me the OVP is getting $6 to $7 million from ARPA, and that money is in addition to your regular budget. This is all confusing. How much money will the OVP actually get? Or have you got it?
I had asked for $16.8 million for over four years.Through ARPA, Gov. Evers allocated half that amount, $8.4 million from the state, and that covers four years. We don’t yet have the funds but hopefully will in the next couple months. We have until 2026 to expend those funds. Our 2022 budget so far is $3.7 million but not all of those funds come from the city, some is from the federal grant money. And some of the ARPA $8.4 million will go to 414LIFE. Presently, our own OVP team has six positions filled, but we need to fill three more open positions soon. We will also be funding grants from outside organizations.
Note: Governor Tony Evers stated that the state is investing COVID relief money to help reduce violent crime, with $6.6 million for the Medical College of Wisconsin’s 414LIFE Violence Prevention Project, and another $8 million to Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention.
The 414LIFE program falls under the leadership of Reggie Moore, former director of the OVP. It is my understanding that 414LIFE falls under your purview. Yet, Reggie Moore and his 414LIFE employees work for the Medical College of Wisconsin. Can you clarify how this system works?
Medical College of Wisconsin has the contract for the 414LIFE program, but 414LIFE is still our program, and we work closely together, our team and the 414LIFE team.
Acting Mayor Johnson referenced the Blueprint for Peace started in 2018 by Reggie Moore and the OVP. This Blueprint identifies six goals to address violence. I won’t read all six goals but I am interested in Goal #1: Stop The Shooting- Stop The Violence. What are your plans to achieve Goal #1, which is currently very crucial?
That goal, Stop The Violence, falls under 414LIFE. However, the other work we do goes through our partners and organizations that are involved in the prevention work with young people and with families. We meet bi-weekly with our partners: the District Attorney, Medical College, Safe & Sound, Boys & Girls Club, Milwaukee County, the Mayor’s office, city police and federal law enforcement. We examine trends around violent incidents like shootings, family violence, drug overdose, juvenile problems, and we try to shift our focus, depending on the trends.
A lot of the inner city residents who have lived around violent incidents don’t know about Blueprint For Peace goals or the OVP strategies or hear about all the meetings you have, or even about the nonprofits you fund. They just want to stop the violence right now, an immediate need. Is there a way you can better communicate your efforts to the average citizen?
We are working on that, being more proactive in helping the community to understand what we do. Basically, we cannot sustain a reduction in violence without trauma prevention, healing and wellness. At the OVP, we understand their pain. We are not removed from that pain. In violence prevention, there needs to be a healing component.
