Based on data compiled as of 2024, one in 16 residents of chattanooga stands the chance of becoming a victim of a violent crime

The City of Chattanooga was awarded a $1,999,187 Project Grant from the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance under the Community-Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (CFDA 16.045). The grant will fund the "Project Chattanooga United to Reduce Violence (CURV)" initiative, which aims to address high violent crime rates in Chattanooga through a comprehensive, community-based approach. The initiative will bring together stakeholders to implement violence intervention and prevention programming in high-crime, high-risk neighborhoods, with a focus on serving youth and young adults aged 14-25. Key activities will include expanding the city's existing community violence intervention (CVI) efforts, such as deploying trained violence interrupters and providing wraparound services to address social determinants of health. The grant will enable the city to scale these CVI approaches to additional high-risk zip codes. The project period runs from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2027.

With a violent crime rate 282% higher than the national average, the city of chattanooga aims to build upon existing violence intervention and prevention efforts by proposing the project chattanooga united to reduce violence (curv). This initiative will bring stakeholders together to address violent crimes by using comprehensive, community-based, and resident response programming in high-crime, high-risk populations. This initiative is led by the office of community safety and gun violence prevention (csgvp), which defines and identifies high-risk populations by evaluating a communitys social determinants of health (sdoh), which are commonly assessed by the following factors: healthcare access, education access, social and community context, economic stability, and neighborhood environmental factors. Csgvp uses a multi-disciplinary and holistic approach when focusing on ZIP codes that face more poverty, barriers to resource access, and consequently, more crime, especially amongst the age group of 14-25 residents. Current CVI efforts are being carried out in east chattanooga, the highest priority intervention area by boots-on-the-ground violence interrupters. These violence interrupters are supported and trained by a multidisciplinary team that leads program development and execution, as well as addresses critical barriers to access by providing wraparound services and will use this funding will to expand to other ZIP codes.