The Department of Probation (DOP) has come under fire in the past few months after abruptly cutting funding this past August for NextSTEPS, a popular and effective mentorship program that served young residents in the city’s public housing developments. The move has left the program’s proponents shocked and has prompted larger concerns about the direction of the DOP under new Commissioner Juanita Holmes, who was appointed in March.
Next STEPS (Striving Towards Engagement and Peaceful Solutions) was a violence prevention program operated through 17 service providers that contracted with DOP. These organizations offered individual and group mentoring to more than 200 young people in 14 NYCHA developments who had experienced serious violence.
The program began in 2014 as part of then-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Mayor’s Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety, which was designed to address disproportionate levels of violence at the selected NYCHA developments. It was modeled on Arches, a program started under the Bloomberg administration that targeted 16- to 24-year–olds on probation.
Both Arches and Next STEPS employ credible messengers—those who have experience with the criminal justice system—to engage youth in a cognitive behavioral therapy-based curriculum designed to steer them away from violence. But unlike Arches, Next STEPS was open to all youth, regardless of probation status.
“[With] Next STEPS, we were able to get [to the youth] before they became justice involved,” said Dorin Hammond, deputy project director at the Living Redemption Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit that operated both programs for residents of Harlem’s St. Nicholas Houses.
Next STEPS had an annual budget of $2.5 million. According to Hammond, many service providers were told in May that the program would be extended until June 2025, but in late August, the DOP went back on that decision.
On August 24, the 17 service providers contracted with DOP to operate the program received an unexpected email, advising them that the department would no longer provide funding. The message included a directive to cease operations by August 31. Service providers expressed their astonishment and disappointment in a letter addressed to Holmes.
Tee Haywood, the lead mentor for the Osborne Association—the Next STEPS provider for Bronx NYCHA developments—told the Amsterdam News about the abrupt nature of the program cuts.
“It was very sudden,” he said. “They gave us a notice and two weeks later, they took the program out.”
Holmes doubled down on these cuts in a call with service providers on September 6, and continued to defend her decision at a September 29 meeting of the City Council’s Committee on Criminal Justice.
At the council meeting, Holmes asserted that Next STEPS was redundant to other city-run mentoring programs, and that its service providers had failed to provide her with evidence demonstrating it was successful in reducing recidivism.
“Unfortunately, Next STEPS was cut because they couldn’t support the metrics I was looking for,” she said.
Holmes attributed the short notice of cancellation to the fact that she was only made aware of the program a few weeks before the contract was set to expire.
“It was just thrust, you know, in my face,” she said.
After providing her testimony and taking questions from council members, Holmes left the meeting before representatives of service providers gave their testimonies.
Service providers’ response
Both council members and service providers at the meeting rejected Holmes’s justifications for cutting Next STEPS.
They argued that the credible messenger-led nature of the program set it apart from other mentoring programs and made it uniquely equipped to engage hard-to-reach youth. They also pointed to a 2018 evaluation that demonstrated Arches was successful in reducing recidivism as evidence that Next STEPS should be considered an effective program as well.
“Commissioner Holmes failed to provide a clear, credible, or even rational explanation for the abrupt termination of the Next STEPS program,” Councilmember Lincoln Restler told AmNews.
Holmes said she was only able to get attendance figures from Next STEPS service providers, when she was looking for clear, measurable outcomes of the program, like helping participants achieve an educational milestone, secure employment, or stay out of gangs.
But providers said that they were never told what data Holmes was looking for. In addition, they said they produced monthly reports that included updates on participant outcomes like GED attainment, college enrollment, and employment.
Overall, service providers and council members took the cuts as a sign that the DOP was heading in a more punitive direction under a director with a long history at the NYPD.
“I am deeply, deeply concerned…that the department is regressing to its darker days of a punitive agency, of an agency that looks like the police department,” said Councilmember Alexa Avilés at the hearing.
Hammond said Holmes’s actions are a sign that she is skeptical of community-based, credible messenger-led programs, noting how she touted the NYPD youth mentorship programs—Blue Chips and Girl Talk—as alternatives to Next STEPS. Holmes started both these programs during her time at the NYPD.
“The credible messenger movement, allowing things to be credible messenger-led—she’s not okay with it. And these are the…undertones that you hear with her administration,” Hammond said.
While Holmes insisted at the hearing that those enrolled in the program would be directed toward other mentoring programs, service providers said that a successful transition had not yet taken place. Instead, they said, many participants have been left in limbo, putting them at risk for engaging in violence.
“When we cut effective preventative programs, more young adults end up in our criminal justice system, where we waste millions of dollars incarcerating people, instead of helping them get on the right track,” Restler told the AmNews, noting that the population of minors incarcerated in the city has doubled in the last two years: The average daily population for youth in secure detention increased from 106 in June 2021 to 227 this August.
Others at the hearing questioned the cost effectiveness of cutting the program. Ahmed Rodriguez, director for community engagement and mediation at Queensbridge Houses, noted that it costs around $560,000 to incarcerate an individual for a year, and that programs like Next STEPS can help reduce this expense.
“We’re saving money by investing in this program,” he testified.
Holmes declined an interview request, but the DOP provided a statement echoing her reasoning at the hearing:
“Based on a thorough annual evaluation, DOP has determined that young New Yorkers living in public housing can get the mentorship support they deserve through other existing programs and will not renew this $2.5 million program. Every single New Yorker served by this program will be able to get mentorship support from the exact same providers through other DOP and city programs, including Arches, Blue Chips, and Girl Talk,” the statement read in part. (While Arches targets the same age group as Next STEPS, Girl Talk is designed for teenage girls, and Blue Chips is an athletic-based program for 12-17 year olds).
Inside Living Redemption’s Next STEPS program
At Living Redemption, the cuts to Next STEPS have hit hard.
The program is housed at Harlem’s Soul Saving Station, a church built on the foundation of second chances—especially for those affected by the legal criminal justice system. Throughout the building, murals encouraging justice and peace cover the walls. There’s a T-shirt press and a newly installed 3D printer, which Hammond hopes will both encourage youngsters to engage with their creativity.
Over eight years, Living Redemption’s Next STEPS program served 192 youth. The program operated in cohorts of 16, with participants typically graduating within nine months. Hammond said 74 of their youth were connected to employment, and 11 have enrolled in college.
At the beginning of the program, participants would work with mentors to create individualized success plans.
“We would do an intake with them, have them do a self-assessment, and just meet them where they’re at,” Hammond explained.
The program itself consisted of 72 sessions, with participants attending two times per week. The sessions involved both one-on-one and group mentoring, using an interactive journaling-based curriculum that aimed to help youth change their mindset about violence by teaching them de-escalation strategies and how to handle difficult emotions.
In addition, the mentors helped youth with practical tasks, like obtaining a Metro card and an ID, and preparing for court dates or job interviews.
Each participant also received a $60 stipend every two weeks for attending the required sessions. The stipends were helpful not just for the participants, but also their families, many of whom were struggling to get by.
“That stipend might not seem like a lot to other people, but that $40, $60, goes a long way when you are trying to feed a house(hold),” said Christopher Moore, a program coordinator at Living Redemption.
The stipend also gave participants a sense of self-sufficiency and hope.
“It was showing that the kid was able to help because they were able to do things. Mother’s Day didn’t have to be so sad [anymore]…because they get a chance to buy something. Christmas [didn’t] have to be so horrible,” added Dedric “Beloved” Hammond, the site’s chief credible messenger supervisor.
In addition to financial support, participants cherished the emotionally supportive environment of the program—so much that they would come even on days they weren’t required to be there.
“It gave them an opportunity to drop their guard and be able to really feel safe,” Beloved Hammond said.
The fact that the mentors were available for participants all day, not just during program hours, contributed to this sense of safety.
In addition, the mentors’ own lived experiences allowed them to understand the lives of their participants, like the gangs or crews they might be part of, or their family situations, which meant participants could trust and rely on them.
“They work in the wee hours in the night to help triage and mediate all types of traumas and adversities that our youth and their families are facing,” Hammond said.
Hammond gave an example of one participant who sought advice for how to stay out of a crew that was trying to recruit him. Hammond said they were able to use their connections to the crew to help extract the participant. As a result of their help, the participant was able stay on track and go to college.
“Two years into college, he sent a text saying, ‘Thank you for being in my life. If it wasn’t for Next STEPS, I would have never made it to college,’” Hammond said.
Cuts “heartbreaking” for participants
For now, Living Redemption is continuing to engage with the youth who were in Next STEPS, but the mentors are fearful that the instability caused by the cuts puts youth at risk for justice system involvement in the long run. Five of the current participants will have the opportunity to transfer to Arches, but Hammond said that there is no mentorship program equivalent to Next STEPS for those who aren’t eligible for Arches, which he noted is already underfunded.
Two of Living Redemption’s Next STEPS participants expressed disappointment about the DOP’s decision to slash the program.
Keonna Bishop, a 20-year-old who credits Next STEPS with helping her graduate from high school, land a job at Chick-fil-A, and save and prepare for college, was shocked when she heard the program was being cut.
“Why would you take something away that’s also giving back and actually helping people, actually changing people’s lives in a way? Because Next STEPS changed my life,” she said, explaining that the program provided her with a second family.
“Having staff living in the actual projects where you stay [is a big benefit] because they understand what you’ve been going through,” Bishop said.
Participant Isieni Bermudez said he recently returned to the program after originally joining around 2017. The 24-year-old said he could always rely on Hammond and the other mentors, and that they’re now helping him navigate life as a single father.
Hearing that the program was cut was “heartbreaking,” he said. “I don’t want it to close. I don’t want it to end, because there’s just so much that they try to do for the community.”
Tyree Hicks and Kyani Freeman, alumni of Osborne Association programming who are now credible messengers, also rued the end of the NextSTEPS program.
“A lot of my youth don’t have a safe haven place to go to anymore or mentors that they may rely on or even a place where they may be able to bring their friends just to come to unrelease baggage or problems or issues they may be facing at school [and] in the community,” said Hicks. “That’s one of the biggest effects that we have had since shutting down the program.”
“If they don’t have a safe haven or base they can come to, they will never cope…kids need that space to grieve and [come into] their inner self,” added Freeman.
What’s next?
Since the DOP cut Next STEPS, Living Redemption’s program remains under operation without funding on either end. Yet Hammond and his mentees continue to show up without promise of salary or stipend.
“Even though the program is shut down, basically, it’s not going to stop us from (conversing) with (mentors).”, because it’s something that they built,” said Bermudez. “They came from the street, they came from the ’hood; we all did. We still live in St. Nick. For them to actually build it from scratch to put youth like us in a program where it helps us be better—you can’t give that up.”
To that end, Living Redemption plans to host a rally in Harlem in the next few weeks to draw attention to the cuts.
On the City Council side, Restler said he and other colleagues would provide more oversight of the DOP, and look into ways they can refund Next STEPS.
“If we can identify the resources to restore Next STEPS, we absolutely should,” he said.
Living Redemption is also exploring other ways to fund Next STEPS, such as through the Department of Youth and Community Development, or through funding from a well-resourced organization or foundation. To avoid a similar situation in the future, they want to make sure they have more control over the program and its funding.
The participants are determined to fight for Next STEPS as well.
“We’re still going to push the same way that we’ve been pushing, because we’re St. Nick’s kids. We never give up,” Bishop said.
Shannon Chaffers is a Report for America corps member who writes about gun violence for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.
Tandy Lau is a Report for America corps member who writes about public safety for the Amsterdam News. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep him writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://bit.ly/amnews1.