| Name | Kevin |
|---|---|
| Last Name | Muhammad |
| Home Address | 3914 Yorktown Road Chattanooga, Tennessee 37416 United States |
| Organization Name | Community Haven |
| Describe Your Role In The Organization | Founder and President, Kevin Muhammad is the Controller for Senior Living Communities. Mr. Muhammad is a Chattanooga native; grew up on the Westside of town, a Baylor graduate who earned his Bachelor of Science in Accounting from UTC. He is the former Youth Director at New Hope Missionary Baptist Church and former Boys Club employee and volunteer at the Carver Recreation Center who has spent a majority of his adult life mentoring youth. Member and local leader of the Nation of Islam. With his leadership, business acumen and passion for the community, Mr. Muhammad will serve as the Executive Director. As Executive Director, Mr. Muhammad will supervise the administration of the partnering programs to ensure that they continue the mission of Community Haven as well as oversee the workforce developed as a result of the initiatives herein. If awarded this City of Chattanooga American Rescue Plan funds, he will oversee the grant compliance and document the implementation of the projects herein to provide the necessary reporting to the City of Chattanooga. |
| Organization Address | 815 N Hickory Street E 3rd Street on West Chattanooga, TN 37404 United States |
| Website | https://communityhavenchattanooga.org |
| Best Phone Number To Reach You | 4236453712 |
| Alternate Phone Number | |
| Email Address | brotherkevin@epbfi.com |
| Alternate Email Address | thecommunityhaven@gmail.com |
| Please Describe Your Project In Detail | Community Haven is a nonprofit organization recognized by the Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) in August of 2018. The mission of the Community Haven is to change lives through [job] training, leadership, youth and family outreach, small business entrepreneurship and community initiatives. Since 2015, Community Haven has hosted a number of programs and support for negatively impacted communities with a goal to make our communities a decent and safe place to live. Community Haven is proposing a systematic alliance with a specific effort to reduce and respond to violent crimes in the Bushtown Community. Community Haven seeks to form an alliance that will develop a community policing program focused on interrupting violence and reducing crime. This alliance will deploy the following: • A Community Patrol program will establish car, foot and bike patrol that will focus on violence prevention. This initiative will begin with trained community volunteers in the neighborhoods under the supervision of contracted unarmed security personnel conducting training. This door-to-door integration in the Community establishes a presence and a first line of defense to learn about other needs in the neighborhood. A referral to other Services may be dispatched as a result of the regular interactions. A secondary goal of the community patrol includes youth mentoring. • The Life Repair and Response Center houses the control center for the intake processes as well as the following programs: o Conflict Resolution Center – Through this funding opportunity, Community Haven will implement a Conflict Resolution Center that will train and prepare community partners and volunteers to resolve conflict and minimize violent escalations. The Community Haven’s former Board of Directors were trained and conducted Conflict Resolution in Alton Park that resulted in eliminating numerous escalations in this Community. o The Mentoring and Tutoring program is a preventative measure to violent crimes. The goal of this program is to mentor youth in the community by providing conflict resolution and leadership development at an early age. The students will also be able to receive tutoring that is specific to their learning styles. o Anger and Trauma Workshops will be conducted to reduce the frequency, intensity, duration, and specific modes of expression of trauma-related anger. In addition to the programs mentioned herein, Community Haven is seeking to upgrade/ renovate the campus. The Community Haven is a five-acre campus with 8 buildings, a parking lot, a large basketball court, a smaller basketball court, and several huge fields. The upgrades / renovation of the campus will include the Administration Building, School, Dormitory, Maintenance Building, and grounds for the facilitation of training classrooms, workshops, townhall meetings, summer camps, boot camps, partnership office spaces, community patrol headquarters, commercial kitchen, restrooms, and more. |
| Please explain how your project meets the requirements of the American Rescue Plan | Gun violence not only affects the families of the victims, but it also affects the city’s budget and the neighborhoods. Much of the violence in and around the city involves firearms. The costs continue after the police investigation ends; it exceeds the medical bills and impact public health. Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly called the scourge of gun violence an epidemic, as shootings n the city have continued to rise into 2021. As of early July, there were 114 shootings reported in the city proper, up from 79 at the same time in 2020 and 69 in 2019. Three years ago, a grant sponsored by the Solutions Journalism Network reported that shootings cost an estimated $260 billion in the United States (US). During that time, Tennessee ranked No. 7 for the highest costs of gun violence in the US, approximately $8 billion per year (Fite and Collins, Cost of Crossfire, 31 March 2019). “Firearm-related injuries account for about $2.8 billion in emergency department and inpatient care annually (Fite, Time Free Press, p. A5).” Mayor Kelly stated that poverty and a lack of opportunity are some of the underlying conditions that lead to gun violence. Chattanooga's poverty rate of 12.7% is only slightly higher than the 12.3% national rate. According to the 2021 Census Data, there are approximately 11,000 homes in the Bushtown Community with an average of 26.52% of these households living below poverty level. There is a great need for education support and workforce development with an emphasis on enhancing economic development in the underserved areas. A study by the University of Chicago Crime Lab, in partnership with the Chicago Public Schools and local nonprofits, provided significant scientific evidence that a violence reduction program succeeded in creating a sizable decline in violent crime arrests among youth who participated in group counseling and mentoring. Studies show that connecting youth to mentoring programs is a viable strategy for both preventing and reducing delinquent behavior (Journal of Experimental Criminology, 2014). A Chicago-based youth program with over 800 male participates showed a 44 percent decrease in violent crime arrests during these interventions and participating youth became more engaged with school as a result. Through the American Rescue Plan fund, Community Haven seeks to provide social, emotional, and community violence interventions to disproportionately impacted communities. There have been physical changes in the Bushtown Community; however, the impact of this change has not manifested in the changed behavior of its current citizens. Community Haven will institute programs such as Anger and Trauma Workshops that are proven to help people cope with anger. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services state that while anger is something we all experience, it can create major problems in the personal lives of those who have experienced disasters. Post traumatic stress can mask itself beneath depression, anxiety, anger, and violence (homicidal and suicidal actions). Having a community resource to assist in identifying and address these issues before they become behaviors thwarts the increase of citizens needing professional behavioral health help. |
| Where would your project take place? | Bushtown Community to start and expand to the surrounding neighborhoods each project year. The target zip codes initially are 37404 and 37406. |
| How much will your project cost in total? | 5392000 |
| Do you have any matching funding sources from other local governments, private entities, non-profits, or philanthropic entities for your project? | No |
| Please describe the source and list amounts of any other funding. | |
| What portion of the project are you asking the city to fund? | |
| If funded, when would your project start? | June 1, 2022 |
| How long would your project take to complete? | 3 years |
| What milestones would you use to measure your project’s progress? | While Community Haven has an established track-record of navigating through these underserved and underrepresented communities, gathering input from businesses, organizations, and individuals in support of these initiatives is crucial. Community improvement efforts are most effective when its members are active in addressing their own needs. As a result, Community Haven will conduct quarterly town hall meetings to ensure that our efforts continue to meet the needs of those involved. During these sessions, oral responses and survey data will be collected from participants and presented with quarterly project status and expenditure reports. We will track the community impact over time to measure our progress. The Executive Director will oversee the grant compliance and document the implementation of the projects herein to provide the necessary reporting to the City of Chattanooga. The milestones will be measured by the number of people served in the community as well as construction progress on the property renovation. |
| How would you ensure accountability and transparency throughout the project lifecycle? | The Executive Director will report on the project’s obligations and expenditures using generally accepted accounting principles. The Executive Director will ensure that credible partnerships are formed in the alliance mentioned. In attrition to the names and contact information listed below, other key personnel in this project include Martels Carter, Jamal and April Morris, Rev. Charlotte Williams and Veronica Carter, owner of Supreme Bookkeeping & Tax Solutions. The Executive Director will provide information about its activities and governance to the Board of Directors that is accurate, complete, and made available in a timely way. The Executive Director will establish practices such as governance, ethics, policies, financial transparency, internal controls, and regulations to demonstrate accountability. The Executive Director will hire an independent CPA firm to audit the financials yearly. |
| If successful, how would your project benefit the community? | The Community Patrol provides a safety, economic and social benefit to the community. Supervisors and volunteers in the Community Patrol are members of the community. In addition to developing a sense of pride in one’s neighborhood, the economic benefit is substantial to the families and the community. The support services through the Life Repair and Response Center are city-wide and aims to mitigate and prevent violence and retaliation, respectively. The overall benefit is to reduce the impact on the City’s budget as a result of firearm related injuries and the neighborhoods affected. The benefit of reducing gun violence compared to the program costs in this proposal is significant. For example, every $1 spent on the counseling and mentoring programs in Chicago, $31 of gun violence expenses were saved. |
| How will you attract community buy-in for your project? | The families participating in the programs and Community Haven’s existing presence and partnerships will be a significant voice in attracting community buy-in for the project. In addition, Community Haven will continue to deploy grassroots marketing efforts including door hangers/ flyers, word-of-mouth advertising and social media postings to attract newer members of the community. |
| Name | Kevin Muhammad |
| Contact Information | 4236453712 |
| Name | Betty Maddox |
| Contact Information | |
| Name | Curtis Green |
| Contact Information | |
| Name | Jamal & April Morris |
| Contact Information | |
| Name | Martels Carter |
| Contact Information | |
| Name | Veronica Cartet |
| Contact Information | |
| Is there anything else you would like us to know about your project? | We will leverage the experience of a former Crime Scene Investigator and Public Education Specialist who lost her son to gun violence in May of 1993. In response to this murder, Ms. Betty Garner Maddox founded a homicide support group called Grieving Relatives in Every Violent Event (G.R.I.E.V.E.). As the founder of GRIEVE, Ms. Maddox advocates for the fundamental rights of victims of crimes with compassion, honesty, dignity, and most importantly, love. GRIEVE is a non-profit support group that provides resources, advocacy, and support to individuals who have lost loved ones to homicide, suicide, gangs, domestic violence, and substance abuse. GRIEVE also advocates improved communications between the affected communities and law enforcement. Through a Conflict Resolution Center and the GRIEVE partnership, Community Haven will help families heal and seek justice within the ordinance of the law and NOT desire to avenge their loved ones’ death. The goal of this network is to uncover the root cause of the violent behavior through therapy and introduce positive alternatives to violence. The Community Patrol will be supervised monitored and trained by Global Protective Services (GPS) personnel. Mr. Curtis Greene, Proprietor and Director of Global Protective Services has been a law enforcement professional for more than twenty (20) years. He is highly trained in all aspects of protection. Curtis Greene was former Director/Chief of Police at Chattanooga State Community College, a Criminal Investigator at the Chattanooga Housing Authority, and a former Law Enforcement Officer at the Chattanooga Police Department. Mr. Greene established the GPS enterprise with a vision of establishing a security business designed to ensure the safety of individuals who may be exposed to elevated personal risk because of their employment, status, wealth, associations, or locations. This vision became the catalyst for the development of the various types of protection services offered at Global. |