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Detroit is the kind of city used to rising from the ashes and rebuilding itself from the ground up – a city too often reduced to traumatic headlines and statistics, where everyday citizens are forced to put in real work to restore a sense of peace in the face of widespread governmental failure.
Here, Community Violence Intervention (CVI) groups are a lifeline, a way for neighborhoods to survive that would have otherwise been lost to gentrification and blight.
The stats speak for themselves:
Below are some of the powerful local CVI organizations redefining what community safety means in Detroit, each with its own unique methodology and outlook on approaching crime prevention and healing.
People’s Action
A product of Detroit’s East Side, People’s Action is about as real and raw as any community upliftment group can get.
These aren’t volunteers that wait on securing funding or getting permission to act.
Instead, they simply do what’s needed in the here and now: showing up after shootings to de-escalate tension, comforting families, mentoring youth, delivering groceries to families in need, diffusing street conflicts, and offering people rides to work or job interviews.
As part of the ShotStoppers program, People’s Action also created the “Adopt the Block” program, which serves as an avenue for neighborhood residents to take back their blocks with a sense of dignity, accountability, and love.
New Era Detroit
Since its founding in 2014, New Era Detroit has been a loud, proud, and unapologetically Black CVI combing street-level credibility with well-organized activism.
NED not only patrols the streets – they also provide at-risk residents of the Metro with food access, educational empowerment resources, and conflict mediation, connecting youth to resources that aim to minimize the chances of a crime occurring before it can happen.
It’s a model that has produced results, with there being an impressive 53% drop in crime in their zone in 2024.
Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency
Wayne Metro is proud to be one of the largest nonprofits in Southeast Michigan.
Here, you’ll find devoted volunteers that support the city’s grassroots community violence intervention efforts by offering residents funding, trauma-informed outreach services, and resource management.
They also do their part in addressing the root causes that lead to crime, such as housing instability, poverty, and at-risk youth, even partnering up with local orgs like Denby Neighborhood Alliance to make sure smaller CVI groups across Detroit have the tools they need to make a lasting impact
Force Detroit
Founded in 2015 by activist Alia Harvey-Quinn, Force Detroit is a CVI that hopes to restore peace to Detroit’s most blighted areas, rebuilding trust in the process.
They don’t rely on police.
Instead, they do what the police often won’t, utilize credible local advocates with deep ties to the very same streets they serve for everything from trauma response to mentorship programs.
Under new leadership since 2025, they continue to lead with dignity, healing, and results.
Detroit Friends and Family
Detroit Friends and Family is a crime prevention and community upliftment organization that firmly believes violence can be stopped with love, not just lectures.
Founded by Ray Winans, the organization is proud to provide everything from gang meditation to court advocacy to jail visitation and neighborhood outreach.
Their “safe surrender” model has also helped reduce violent crime in their zone by an impressive 80%, proving they don’t just wait for youth to show up…they go out and find them themselves, getting to them before the streets can.
The Detroit 300
Detroit 300—a neighborhood patrol that utilizes citizen volunteers— is a community violence intervention organization that was founded in the wake of a child’s tragic murder.
Since then, they’ve evolved into the Detroit 300 Community Action Team, their work spanning everything from mentorship to conflict resolution and self-defense classes.
They’re the type of people that always show up – whether it’s 1 PM to talk to troubled youth at a school or 1 AM after a shooting has occurred—they’re always there, no questions asked.
Denby Neighborhood Alliance
Denby Neighborhood Alliance is a CVI with a mission to transform at-risk youth into future leaders.
Under Denby’s guidance, area teens don’t just attend events – they run them themselves, acting as peace ambassadors and conflict mediators that do everything from organizing walks and peace circles to holding trauma-response training classes alongside block captains.
In short: Denby proves that investing in Detroit’s area youth isn’t mere charity work—it’s strategy in and of itself.
Ceasefire Detroit
Ceasefire Detroit is the Metro’s longest-standing CVI program, one that brings a little bit of everything to the table: social work services, law enforcement, clergy, and above all else, community outreach.
The organization is best known for providing high-risk individuals with a choice: they can either take full accountability for their actions and work to pave out a brighter future for themselves, or they can become just another statistic.
Though considered controversial to some due to their “scared straight” nature, the organization continues to evolve, partnering with Detroit’s ShotStoppers as well as other local grassroots orgs to stop the next senseless death from occurring before it can.
They may not always have all the right answers, but they always show up with the right question: “what do you need?”
Camp Restore Detroit
Camp Restore is a faith-based community violence intervention organization that aims to transform Detroit’s most battle-scarred, trauma-filled neighborhoods through hands-on volunteer work.
These are activists that sacrifice their time to do everything from mowing lawns to delivering groceries and rebuilding abandoned homes, beautifying the city’s most blighted blocks and greatly reducing the triggers that lead to violence erupting in the first place.
They also work closely with Denby Neighborhood Alliance, teaming up with them to provide at-risk residents with spaces of healing and safety.
Beat Da Odds
Beat Da Odds is a youth-focused CVI tackling violence head-on, one backed by volunteers that are no stranger to struggle.
In fact, many of them have had to overcome extreme adversity themselves, taking that experience and wisdom into jails, schools, and rec centers to intervene with at-risk youth before the streets can swallow them whole.
Through active mentorship, engaging youth panels, and even a CVI basketball league, Beat Da Odds has proven that early intervention is not just preventive—it’s a vital part of ensuring a brighter future for everyone.
One City, Many Frontlines
In summary, all of these Community Violence Intervention organizations form a living framework of resistance and resilience in a city that has grown far too comfortable with being let down.
These are Detroit’s devoted peacemakers, protectors, possibility-builders – each with their own unique flavor, each united by a shared truth:
No outsider is coming to save Detroit’s most blighted areas.
The people of the city will have to save themselves.