MILWAUKEE — Now to a growing effort to make sure 2023 is the year that stops Milwaukee’s rise in deadly violence. The city has broken its own homicide record for the past three years in a row.
As part of the solution, Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention (OVP) is trying to expand the role of an already critical community resource: public libraries.
The Office of Violence Prevention has been meeting with Milwaukee Public Library leaders twice a month to come up with a plan to utilize libraries more effectively for crime prevention, community building and programming for teens.
They're brainstorming ways to get more people - especially those most at risk - through library doors.
The director of the Office of Violence Prevention, Ashanti Hamilton, met with us at Villard Square Library, which is just a block away from where the first homicide of 2023 occurred. A 17-year-old boy was shot and killed along Villard Avenue Sunday.
“Instances like that feel like a constant reminder of the challenge that’s before us, but what I want to remind people, is that it’s possible to create a stronger, safer city, and that they play a role in helping make that happen,” Hamilton said. “Many people don’t know how they can play a role, and we want to create a menu of options. The library has a very huge footprint in the city and they’re servicing many of the same communities we’re trying to have an impact in. Trainings can happen here; conflict resolution and mediation can happen here. Libraries are a place where we can create more activity and resources.”
This is part of a larger plan set forth by Alderwoman Milele Coggs in city budget planning, to increase collaboration among city departments.
The Office of Violence Prevention is also looking to work closer with the Neighborhood Improvement Development Corporation and the Dept. of Public Works on programming for healing spaces in city parks, as well as the Department of City Development to bolster housing programs and offerings at city properties.
