Chicago Is Seeing What Works in Public Safety—But City Hall Is Getting in the Way

Chicago is finally seeing what works in public safety. The problem is City Hall is getting in the way.

This reality is impossible to ignore for those of us working closely with the organizations doing this work every day. As Chair of the Board of Lawrence Hall, one of Chicago’s oldest and most respected youth- and family-serving organizations, I see firsthand what is delivering results on the ground and, just as importantly, how those efforts are being quietly undermined by decisions coming out of City Hall.

Recently, Lawrence Hall and several South Shore social service providers participated in a roundtable with Mayor Brandon Johnson to discuss the real and measurable reduction in violence in the South Shore neighborhood.

As Lawrence Hall’s leadership put it in the Chicago Sun-Times:

“We feel that change in violence. It’s a fun place to walk around. We’re very eager to keep it going. We know exactly what it is that made this happen—and we don’t want it to be lost.”

What made it happen wasn’t slogans, press conferences, or finger-pointing. It was sustained, neighborhood-based work: mentorship, violence interruption, trauma-informed care, and trusted relationships built over years by agencies like Lawrence Hall.

Yet, during this same period of success, the City has stifled this work. It has rejected grant applications for proven mentorship programs at Lawrence Hall and other organizations like Stewart’s Lost Boyz. At the same time, the City has made it harder for providers to do their jobs by dragging out contracts, rewriting LPA language, and creating bureaucratic obstacles that delay—or outright deny—funding.

The message to the Mayor was clear and candid: this progress will not continue if the funding does not continue. You cannot starve what works and then claim surprise when the results disappear.

The Mayor acknowledged that there are serious problems with how funds are disseminated and that additional funding is needed, citing the City’s recent budget debacle. But acknowledgment is not a strategy, and passing the buck to Springfield does not solve a problem that must be solved here, now, in Chicago—where real people, and their children’s lives, are at stake.

Chicago has a priority problem.

At Leading a Better Chicago, we are laser-focused on this disconnect: the City’s failure to align its spending, contracting, and accountability systems with programs that demonstrably work.

We do not need more rhetoric. We need better funding models, faster contracting, and the political will to invest in success rather than deflect responsibility.

If we are serious about public safety—and about sustaining the gains neighborhoods like South Shore are finally seeing—then City Hall needs to stop getting in the way and start leading by backing what works.

In the meantime, I encourage you to consider supporting organizations like Lawrence Hall, through donations or your time, that are delivering real results every day—often despite the considerable obstacles placed in their path.

We will continue to push for these results, armed with data, lived experience, and the voices of those doing the work every day.

More to come.

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