Parker Administration awards 2026 anti-violence grants as Philadelphia homicides continue to fall.
As Philadelphia observes Gun Violence Awareness Month, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and the Office of Public Safety announced on June 16 the first 47 neighborhood organizations selected for the city’s Targeted Community Investment Grant (TCIG) 2026 anti-violence grants. Parker said the initiative is personal, recalling her experience as the child of a teenage mother and an uninvolved father, raised by her grandparents. “Where are the supports for people like the young Cherelle Parker and those who weren’t products of that perfect familial environment?” she asked. “It was organizations like yours that were working on the ground for boys and girls like me.”
The funding was established to strengthen community-based organizations that intervene in conflict, support families living with grief, and create opportunities for youth. Chief Public Safety Director Adam Geer said the city’s approach to violence prevention has become “more sophisticated,” “more intentional,” and “more strategic.” For many of the organizations selected, the work is personal. These are groups that know the names behind the statistics.
One of these people is Roz Pichardo, founder of Operation Save Our City. “This TCIG grant will help the youth of my Kensington community gain skills for a future career as a responder, and that can be a segue to the medical field or a career as an EMT, nurse, firefighter, or social worker,” Pichardo said after receiving her third TCIG grant. In a community marred by addiction, poverty, and loss, Pichardo has kept the Sunshine House open on Kensington Avenue, where people in the area come for food, relief from the heat, and help during a crisis. Kensington Avenue is home to worry and survival; in contrast, the Sunshine House is a place where people are seen, heard, and treated with dignity. Young people are redirected through summer programs, and everyone can find a door that is still open.
The announcement came as Philadelphia continues to see a steep decline in homicides. As of June 15, the Philadelphia Police Department had recorded 67 homicides in 2026, down 33 percent from the same point last year. The city ended in 2025 with 222 homicides, its lowest total since 1966 and far below the record 562 killings recorded in 2021. That decline has come during a period of increased city investment in anti-violence work. What began around 2014 as smaller block-level seed funding grew sharply during the pandemic, when shootings and homicides rose across the city.
Under the Kenney administration, roughly $22 million was directed toward grassroots violence-prevention efforts. Later concerns about oversight and management helped push the city to rebuild the program into the current vetted, tiered grant system overseen by the Office of Public Safety. The larger grant tiers will open later this year. The Community Capacity Grant, available by invitation only, will award amounts of $50,000 to $100,000. The Community Expansion Grant will offer awards from $100,000 to $1 million for more established organizations focused on trauma healing, mentorship, and violence prevention. The Office of Public Safety will post additional information on its grants page. Organizations with questions about eligibility may contact the office at ops@phila.gov.
Incarnacion Marino of Hunting Park, whose son was a victim of gun violence in 2015, said the grants represent hope for families. “We all deserve to walk on safe streets,” Marino said. “Although it is too late to save my son and many others, these programs can help save someone else’s child, so that the family will never have to know the excruciating pain and trauma that lasts for generations.”