New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker announced a new Department of Community Resilience on Monday. If approved by the Board of Alders, the city department would bring together efforts of a host of agencies from police to social service to lessen violence in New Haven.
Elicker said the response to city violence can be dramatically improved by housing it all under one roof.
“We very deliberately are housing this department under the community services administration because we believe very strongly this is a health epidemic around violence and increase in violence and that we need to put social services at the forefront of how we solve it,” Elicker said.
Elicker said the new department will incorporate work on violence prevention, prison reentry issues, housing and homelessness, mental health and substance abuse.
This comes as firearm related homicides in the city this year have reached the same number as all of last year.
Dr. Mehul Dalal is the Community Services Administrator who would oversee the new department.
“We can’t arrest our way out of social problems this is a lesson our nation learns over and over again,” Dalal said.
The new $6 million a year department will need approval from the Board of Alders. They would need to vote to shift $4 million from other departments and use $2 million from federal funding.
