Rochester area gets millions in grants to address gun violence, domestic violence, and more

Evan Bourtis News10NBC
Rochester skyline (file photo)

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The U.S. Justice Department has awarded groups across Western New York, including in Rochester, more than $16 million in grants to address gun violence, domestic violence, sexual assaults, mental health, and other challenges communities have faced.

The funding is going to 26 municipalities, school districts, and human service organizations across the 17 counties in the region. The grants are awarded under four categories: victim services, services for youth, law enforcement, and reentry and recidivism initiatives.

Local grant recipients for victim services:

  • Monroe County has been awarded $800,000 to continue improving the county’s criminal justice system response to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking.
  • Coordinated Care Services, Inc. of Rochester has been awarded $400,000, which will be used to support Rise Up Rochester and its efforts to ensure safe housing for victims of gun violence and their families, and provide advocacy throughout the court process.
  • The Research Foundation for SUNY Geneseo has been awarded $400,000 to work in collaboration with RESTORE, Chances & Changes, Inc., the Village of Geneseo Police Department, and the Livingston County District Attorney’s Office to combat domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking on campus.

Local grant recipients for services for youth:

  • The Sodus Central School District has been awarded $1,000,000 to work with the Wayne County Partnership and Ibero to better support migrant farmworkers and their families in Wayne County.
  • The Lyons Central School District has been awarded $998,874 for its Resiliency, Equity, and Safety Initiative, which will address the daily challenges of youth face in a high needs rural region.
  • The Wayne-Finger Lakes Board of Cooperative Educational Services has been awarded $999,987 to serve at-risk students and their educators in 25 school districts across Wayne, Seneca, and Ontario Counties, with a focus on social-emotional and mental health risks.
  • The North Rose-Wolcott Central School District has been awarded $998,826 for the Improving School Safety through Early Intervention Initiative, a program that will focus on 9th and 10th grade students at risk of not graduating on time or dropping out of high school.

Local grants for law enforcement initiatives:

  • Monroe County has been awarded $526,741 and Erie County has been awarded $819,884 to address of backlog of DNA analysis cases in the Monroe County Crime Laboratory the Erie County Forensic Laboratory.
  • Wayne County has been awarded $299,907 to hire a community resource officer in the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, who will guide the development of collaborations to reduce violence, especially intimate partner violence, drug-related violence, and youth violence.
  • The City of Rochester has been awarded $175,205, which will be used by the City of Rochester and Monroe County to support the efforts of the Crisis Intervention Services unit.
  • The Rochester Institute of Technology has been awarded $143,958, which will be used to reduce gun violence in the City of Buffalo through the Project Safe Neighborhoods Program, which is administered by RIT.
  • The University of Rochester has been awarded $64,003 for research efforts into AI-powered audio generation and the use of deepfakes for criminal activities, as well as the development of audio deepfake detection.

Local grants for reentry and recidivism initiatives:

  • PathStone of Rochester has been awarded $750,000 to develop and implement a comprehensive community-based adult reentry program to serve incarcerated individuals incarcerated eligible for release within 90 days. These individuals will be served by the transition to Tomorrow (T2T) program.
  • The Ontario County Economic Development Corporation has been awarded $729,132, to support the Finger Lakes Treatment Court, which is a post-plea, presentence court serving veterans and drug court participants.

In addition, Nearly $4 million in funding will be used to provide services to people impacted by the Tops mass shooting, where a White supremacist gunman killed 10 Black people in May 2022.