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RISCRichmonders Involved in Strengthening our Communities (RISC) is a grass roots organization that empowers faith communities to unify across racial, economic, and religious lines in order to create a powerful communal voice that holds public officials accountable for solving the root causes of injustice. Southminster joined RISC as a member church in 2018.
Click here to learn more about RISC and its work. |
RISC Update: September 2021
Our Richmonders Involved to Strengthen our Community (RISC) Justice Ministry is kicking off this month! Our Team Leaders, Shelley Murray, Jan Belote, and Rich Kowalski will be hosting house meetings to hear about the issues are weighing on your hearts and get inspired to do some justice this year! Past RISC participants should expect to hear from our Team Leaders with an invitation to one of the house meetings. If you are interested and would like to join please contact Jan Belote at flysis44@verizon.net, there will be childcare and virtual meeting options available. In the meantime, here are two quick updates on our work in 2021!
Affordable Housing- Thanks to the amazing persistence of RISC in the face of a lot of adversity, the city council will be voting in the next few weeks to increase the amount of funding to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund (AHTF) this year from $3 million dollars to $10 million dollars. We did it! These funds go to support homeless services and development of low-income housing in the Richmond area. This win, combined with our victory in early 2021 that secured a future dedicated stream of funding for the AHTF, should keep the funding level at $10 million going forward. The Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board is eager to get to work and put us on a much better track to addressing housing insecurity in the Richmond metro area.
Gun Violence- Our Gun Violence team has done a huge amount of research in the past two years since voting to commit to this issue. We have met repeatedly with the Police Chief to discuss proven, data driven strategies to support police and communities in the fight to reduce violence, but he has yet to take action. This issue is more urgent than ever as Richmond is seeing an alarming increase in violent crime. Every day we wait to implement proven strategies means more lives lost in our city.
Affordable Housing- Thanks to the amazing persistence of RISC in the face of a lot of adversity, the city council will be voting in the next few weeks to increase the amount of funding to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund (AHTF) this year from $3 million dollars to $10 million dollars. We did it! These funds go to support homeless services and development of low-income housing in the Richmond area. This win, combined with our victory in early 2021 that secured a future dedicated stream of funding for the AHTF, should keep the funding level at $10 million going forward. The Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board is eager to get to work and put us on a much better track to addressing housing insecurity in the Richmond metro area.
Gun Violence- Our Gun Violence team has done a huge amount of research in the past two years since voting to commit to this issue. We have met repeatedly with the Police Chief to discuss proven, data driven strategies to support police and communities in the fight to reduce violence, but he has yet to take action. This issue is more urgent than ever as Richmond is seeing an alarming increase in violent crime. Every day we wait to implement proven strategies means more lives lost in our city.