• Mayor signs Executive Order establishing new office; Longtime community leader and advocate Teferi Brent to serve as Director
• Hudson-Webber Foundation invests $200,000 to support the office
• New office will house existing Community Violence Intervention (CVI) programs, as well as Cease Fire, survivor advocacy program and new crime prevention efforts
• Major new prevention focus will be domestic and intimate partner violence, including conflict resolution and restorative practices

Building on Detroit’s historic reductions in violent crime, Mayor Mary Sheffield today signed her second Executive Order creating the Office of Neighborhood and Community Safety, a City office designed to advance a holistic, public-health approach to violence prevention and community safety.  

The Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood and Community Safety is supported in part by a $200,000 grant from the Hudson-Webber Foundation to develop a coordinated, community-driven violence prevention infrastructure.  This new office will coordinate and strengthen Detroit’s violence prevention, intervention, community transformation and re-entry efforts by uplifting the voices of community members impacted by violence and aligning city departments, community partners and service providers around shared goals.

It also will explore ways to reduce the previously unaddressed issue of domestic and intimate partner violence, which last year accounted for 17% of homicides in Detroit.

“All categories of major crime in Detroit saw significant reductions in 2025, with new historic lows of criminal homicides, nonfatal shootings and carjackings,” said Mayor Mary Sheffield. “Detroit has shown that when we work together, real progress is possible. Our comprehensive approach to public safety is working, but sustaining that progress requires continued partnership and further strengthening the bridge between government and neighborhood leaders. This office is ensuring that every neighborhood has the tools and support it needs to be safe and thrive.”  

Longtime community advocate Teferi Brent will serve as Director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood and Community Safety, bringing more than three decades of experience across community organizing, faith-based leadership, and business management.

“True safety starts in our neighborhoods when people feel seen, supported and valued,” said Brent, “Our ultimate objective is to serve as a bridge between governmental resources and community-based safety organizations. We believe in a whole-of-government approach that eliminates silos and makes critical resources more accessible to our first responders and community leaders.”

Centralizing Violence Prevention Strategy

The Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood and Community Safety serves as a centralized hub for Detroit’s violence prevention and intervention efforts – bringing together programs that have been built over the years and ensuring they are coordinated, data-driven and responsive to community needs. By focusing on prevention, trust-building and accountability, the office aims to create and deploy strategies and programs that result in safer neighborhoods and a stronger Detroit for all residents.

“Hudson-Webber Foundation is proud to support the City of Detroit in strengthening a coordinated, community-driven approach to violence prevention,” said Donald Rencher, President and CEO of the Hudson-Webber Foundation. “We know that sustainable public safety is achieved when residents, community organizations and government work together. This new office represents an important step toward building the infrastructure, trust and long-term strategies necessary to ensure that every Detroit neighborhood has the opportunity to be safe, stable and thriving.”

Mayor Mary Sheffield signs second Executive Order.

The Executive Order signed by Mayor Sheffield today - which goes into effect on April 7 - includes the following services:

• Community Violence Intervention (CVI) – ShotStoppers: Development and strategic use of evidence-informed, community led strategies to immediately prevent violence through relationship-building, wraparound service provision, and violence interruption and mediation.
• Conflict Resolution and Restorative Practice Initiatives: Supporting neighborhood-based strategies that include community training, hubs that provide trained, neutral mediators to help people resolve disputes, and centralized services that increase accessibility and center equity.
• Survivors Advocacy & Survivor Services: Using emotional, practical, and legal supports to assist crime victims. Best-practice tools such as Trauma Recovery Centers and other community-based interventions will be researched and considered for support and implementation.
• Domestic Violence / Intimate Partner Violence Prevention & Intervention: Strategies to align, expand and amplify existing resources, teach healthy relationship skills, and create proactive environments along with victim-centered support to stop abuse before it escalates.
• Reentry Support Services (Adults and Juveniles): Assessment of the existing landscape of reentry supports in order to identify gaps, support effective programming, and align resources to expand services and solve for factors that contribute to recidivism.
• Group Violence Intervention (GVI) – Ceasefire: Facilitate behavior change by building upon existing partnerships between community members, law enforcement, and social services, providing healthy alternatives and opportunities that reduce violence within at-risk populations.

The office will work across city departments and external partners, including public health agencies, social service providers, law enforcement and criminal justice partners, schools and hospitals, neighborhood organizations, housing and parks departments, Detroit PAL, the Wayne County Dispute Resolution Center, Center for Working Families and the Department of Human, Homelessness and Family Services.

New Prevention Focus: Domestic Violence and Intimate Partner Violence

Using data and information gathered by the city’s successful CVI program, which deals primarily with gang-related violence, the Office of Neighborhood and Community Safety will work toward impacting a largely unaddressed source of violence in the city: Domestic and Intimate Partner Violence.

“Our CVI groups have done an incredible job bringing down the number of gang-related homicides and shootings and that work will continue,” said Brent. “What their community work has shown us is that domestic and intimate partner violence is a major source of violence that needs focused attention for us to further reduce homicides in Detroit, saving more innocent lives.”

To address that, Brent said that his office will assign staff to further research the issue in Detroit and develop strategies to address it, which would include conflict resolution and restorative practices. “Domestic violence really can’t be effectively addressed without these two approaches,” Brent said. “Just like CVI work, our job is to change patterns of behavior and to give people options and tool other than violence.”

The new focus has the support of organizations already doing this work in the community.

“Detroit is the first city to devise a comprehensive strategy from the Mayor’s Office specifically designed to address DVI and IPV-related fatal and nonfatal shootings,” said Negus Vu, President of the The People’s Action community organization. “That leadership matters. It sets a precedent. It sends a message that we are not waiting for solutions, we are building them.”

"If we truly desire sustainable, peaceful, and safe communities across Detroit, restorative conflict resolution must be a foundational strategy within our neighborhoods, not an afterthought," said Dr. Keisha Allen, CEO of Black Family Development International Training Institute. "I commend the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood and Community Safety for recognizing that real safety is co-created with the community through restoration, engagement, and proactive conflict resolution."