New Orleans is safer. Don’t cut the programs that helped get us here.

New Orleans has spent years asking what it takes to make our communities safer. Today, we have something valuable: evidence that some of the answers are working.

Violence has fallen dramatically. New Orleans recently reached its lowest murder rate in more than 50 years. That progress did not come from policing alone. It came as the city embraced a broader approach to community safety, one that includes violence interruption, trauma recovery, behavioral health services, restorative justice, diversion and community organizations working directly with people and within neighborhoods most impacted by violence. 

Now, as New Orleans confronts serious financial challenges and begins making decisions about its 2027 budget, some of the very programs that helped build that progress could be vulnerable. The city has acknowledged that it is working through a fiscal crisis even as it moves toward greater stability. However, we cannot balance our budget by dismantling the community-safety infrastructure that helped make New Orleans safer.

Last year, after the Big Easy Budget Coalition presented its priorities to the city council, Council President J.P. Morrell made an important observation: New Orleans had roughly the same size police force, or a smaller one, in 2025 than it did in 2022, while crime had fallen to a 50-year low.

His explanation was clear. The city and city council had invested in services intended to prevent people from entering the criminal legal system. He pointed specifically to investments in opportunity and programs like mobile crisis response. His message for the next budget was equally important: city leaders should be “driven by results and data.”

We, at Vera Louisiana, agree.

Community safety is an ecosystem. But a comprehensive approach to safety must also ask what happens before a shooting, before a crisis and before someone enters the criminal legal system.

That is where the New Orleans Health Department and its community partners have become an important part of our city’s safety infrastructure.

Ubuntu Village’s NOLA Peace Ambassadors, for example, work block by block to build relationships, mediate conflicts and reach people at high risk of being involved in violence. This is also done in partnership with the New Orleans Health Department (NOHD)’s Office of Violence Prevention, University Medical Center’s Trauma Recovery Center, hospital-based violence intervention programs and other community partners. The city’s investment has enabled the program to expand both its staffing and geographic reach. 

Last year, the Big Easy Budget Coalition called for $1.5 million for NOHD community violence intervention through Ubuntu Village, alongside investments in hospital-based violence intervention, restorative justice, LEAD, trauma recovery, school-based violence interruption and other community-safety strategies. 

These programs do not always produce the most visible evidence of their success. Often, success is what doesn’t happen. The argument that does not escalate into a shooting. The retaliation that is interrupted. The person experiencing a crisis who receives care instead of entering the criminal legal system. The young person connected to an opportunity. The survivor who receives support after experiencing violence. 

The unseen victories of prevention can make these programs especially vulnerable during a budget crisis. It is easier to count a police car, an arrest, or a jail bed than to count a shooting that never happened. But violent crime and homicide is down, thanks in part to these prevention programs. They are not expendable.

We only have to look up the road to see why consistency matters. Baton Rouge invested in community violence intervention but later saw programs struggle amid shifting priorities and budget cuts. The Baton Rouge Community Street Team was forced to operate with little or no funding. By contrast, New Orleans sustained investments in violence intervention and expanded the reach of community-based programs. As violence-prevention practitioners have argued, this work needs consistent resources and time to mature. 

New Orleans should learn from that contrast, not repeat it.

We recognize the financial reality facing the city. There will be difficult choices in the months ahead. But the question cannot simply be, “What can we cut?” It must also be, “What can New Orleans least afford to lose?” Budgets are more than accounting documents. They are choices about what we value and about whether we invest before harm occurs or pay dearly to respond afterward.

If an investment helps prevent shootings, interrupt retaliation, stabilize families, connect residents to services and reduce later demands on police, then it is necessary.

If prevention programming helps emergency medical services, hospitals, courts, and jails, then eliminating that investment will not ultimately save us money. It will simply move the cost elsewhere and increase the human cost along the way. 

New Orleans needs effective emergency response and law enforcement. Community safety requires more than responding after harm occurs.  It requires both response and prevention.

The Big Easy Budget Coalition has spent years pushing New Orleans to invest more ambitiously in the things residents say they need to be safe and thrive. In a difficult budget year, our starting point is simple. If the Big Easy Deal, the coalition’s community-driven investment plan, is the ceiling, protecting our programs must be the floor.

New Orleans has invested differently. We have seen historic progress. Now is not the time to walk away from it. Protect the programs. Protect the progress.

Sarah Omojola is director of Vera Louisiana and Ashley Crawford is associate director of Vera Louisiana. The Vera Institute of Justice is a founding member of the Big Easy Budget Coalition.