Boston is moving to expand trauma care for residents in the neighborhoods hit hardest by gun violence, seeking organizations to provide both clinical treatment and on-the-ground crisis response after shootings and other violent incidents.
The city's request for proposals, posted this month, targets a defined population: Boston residents directly affected by community violence. The dual focus signals that the city wants providers capable of both deploying quickly in the aftermath of a violent incident and delivering sustained therapeutic care to survivors and witnesses over time. Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury, the predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods that absorb the city's highest rates of shootings and homicides, are the communities most likely to be served.
The procurement reflects more than a decade of shifting thinking about how cities should respond to gun violence. Through the 2000s and into the 2010s, violence was largely treated as a law enforcement problem. A growing body of public health research changed that framing: repeated exposure to shootings and homicides produces cascading psychological harm, including PTSD, depression, and substance use, that research suggests perpetuates further violence. The COVID-19 pandemic sharpened the urgency. Gun violence spiked nationally in 2020 and 2021, and federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act gave cities including Boston an opportunity to invest in community-based responses outside the criminal justice system.
Mayor Michelle Wu's administration has made this approach central to its public safety agenda, establishing the Office of Community Safety and expanding violence intervention work at the Boston Public Health Commission. Boston Medical Center's Violence Intervention Advocacy Program is among the most established hospital-based programs in the country. This RFP represents an attempt to build on that infrastructure with services procured and funded at scale through the city.
The sustainability question looms. Much of the investment cities made in trauma and violence intervention over the past several years was funded by one-time pandemic relief dollars that are now running out. Whether Boston will back these services with sustained city budget dollars, rather than treating them as a temporary experiment, is something advocates and city council members have pressed the administration on. The outcome of this procurement process will offer an early answer.
