Mfume secures $1 million grant for Roca Baltimore violence prevention

Rep. Kweisi Mfume has secured $1,032,551 in his FY2026 appropriations request for Roca Baltimore, and the hard question now is simple: what does that money buy in a city still counting shootings, funerals and young men pulled into the same cycle again and again?

The answer, if the grant delivers what its backers say it will, is more than another program announcement. The funding is tied to Roca’s “Building Skills to Support Community Safety” project and would train young people, police officers and front-line staff from probation, parole, schools and community organizations in emotional regulation, de-escalation and long-term behavior change. The goal is to identify, reach and keep contact with young men at the highest risk of violence before a crisis turns into another arrest or homicide.

Roca Baltimore operates from 880 Park Avenue and has been in the city since 2018. The organization, founded in 1988, works with young men involved in the justice system and those at high risk of gun violence, using a four-year, stage-based model built around relentless outreach, cognitive behavioral therapy, education, employment and other support services. In a city that had the third-highest violent crime rate in the country in 2016, with more than 1,780 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, that kind of long-horizon intervention has become part of Baltimore’s violence-prevention infrastructure.

The scale matters. Roca moved into a 15,000-square-foot home in Mount Vernon in 2023, a sign that the group is trying to build a more durable base for work that can take years, not weeks. WYPR reported that Roca had helped 445 young men since 2018 and that 95% of participants who stayed with the program for two years were not incarcerated for new charges in 2022. Other local reporting said Roca had served nearly 750 of Baltimore’s highest-risk young men since its expansion here.

Roca’s own data has also pointed to measurable shifts, including a 16% lower arrest rate, a 7% reduction in homicides and a 3% drop in non-fatal shooting victims among 17- to 24-year-olds after four years of outreach and support. Those are the benchmarks Baltimore residents will watch now: how many more young men Roca can reach, whether the program can deepen ties with police and corrections staff, and whether more participants move toward jobs, schooling and stability before violence defines their future.

For Baltimore, the grant is not just a vote of confidence in one nonprofit. It is a test of whether federal dollars can still be translated into fewer shootings, fewer arrests and more second chances on the city’s hardest-hit streets.