Speakers urge Austin leaders to protect community violence intervention and social services

Dozens of residents and advocates used the council's public-comment period to press elected leaders to protect a set of community investments from proposed budget reductions.

Multiple speakers with frontline roles and local nonprofits described CVI and related services as life-saving and said cuts would worsen violence and destabilize families. "This work saves lives," said Nadia Barbot of Moms Demand Action, urging councilmembers to fully fund the city's community-violence-intervention programs. Sean Oliver, executive director of Life Anew and ATX Peace, testified that neighborhoods served by ATX Peace saw steeper declines in homicides (he cited a drop from 90 in 2021 to 55 in 2025) and provided counts of clients and outreach touches to argue for continued investment.

Speakers from harm-reduction and reentry organizations (including Maggie Luna of the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance and Tara Tucker of Alliance for Safety and Justice's Scaling Safety Project) described wound care, street outreach, reentry assistance and de-escalation services that they said reduce costly emergency responses. Other commenters urged continued funding for early-childhood supports, immigrant legal services and tenant-stabilization programs.

Some public commenters raised procurement and oversight concerns. Zenobia Joseph asked the city manager to review outcomes from a $2.9 million sole-source contract and criticized proposed cuts that she said disproportionately affect vulnerable residents; Carlos Leon described problems he experienced seeking accountability through the Austin Police Oversight office and urged funding be contingent on improved transparency.

No formal budget votes were taken during the public-comment portion; councilmembers acknowledged the testimony and asked staff to provide more granular contract-level impact analyses at upcoming work sessions. The council later moved the process forward by setting a July 30 public hearing on the proposed budget.

Why it matters: The testimony shows organized support for CVI and social-service spending and outlines the specific services and metrics advocates say would be lost if cuts proceed; staff and council signaled they will return with contract-level detail before final adoption.