ST. LOUIS — Mayor Jones said more than likely, everyone in the City of St. Louis has been touched by gun violence in some way.
"At least once a month, I find that, because St. Louis is so small, I know someone who knows someone who lost their life to gun violence," Jones said.
St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones has violence prevention as one of her top priorities. Especially as Public Safety Director Dan Isom tracks the City's homicide numbers during Monday's briefing.
"We are currently at 51 homicides and at the same time last year we were at 62 homicides and in 2020 at the same time we had 47 homicides," Isom said.
Jones is creating the Mayor's Office of Violence Prevention to put all of their safety resources in one place.
"We want to centralize that and make sure that there's a one-stop shop where people can go and call when they have questions about violence prevention efforts, what our efforts are and also reporting requirements as well," Jones said.
That office will be under one director and staff to push the incentives to improve public safety.
"We have to activate our open spaces and provide activities for our young people to turn away from guns. We have to have good workforce development opportunities to give people access to pay, jobs that pay not more than a living wage, but a thriving wage," Jones said.
Two fans headed to the Cardinals game weighed in on the City's efforts.
"Tishaura Jones is doing a good job trying to get things with the police and more protection and they want to revitalize the city and the only way they're going to do it is if they can get rid of the crime," Michelle Munn said.
"We've got to stop the violence. Black-on-Black crime is not OK. Any crime is not OK," Ashanti Shannon said.
"We have a beautiful city and a lot to offer, but the crime and things like that have just kind of deterred people, especially the people that live this city," Munn said.
Mayor Jones also made a $150 million commitment to reverse decades of historic wrongs in north St. Louis.
It'll take several years as she said north St. Louis didn't get like it is overnight, and it won't recover overnight.
Jones said the American Rescue Plan Act funds are a step in the right direction.
This money builds on the $80 million already programmed for St. Louis families across the city.
It also works in conjunction with Board Bill 82's $37 package for the corridors in north city.
Jones is holding town halls with people living in those communities to address the vacant lots, decrepit houses and to build housing developments that won't force current existing families out while revitalizing the neighborhoods.
"We're trying to build housing as diverse as our city is and that's everything from affordable and low income to market-rate housing. Right now, our real estate agents have a self-fulfilling prophecy because they don't have the comps because there's no market in north St. Louis, so we have to build a market where we can then start to sell homes and also build black homeownership and then build generational wealth," Jones said.
Mayor Jones is hosting two town halls.
The first is on May 11 at the O'Fallon Park Recreation Complex from 6 to 8 p.m.
The second town hall is on May 17 at Meramec Elementary School from 6 to 8 p.m.