Cedar-Riverside residents and business owners are raising the alarm after the city announced it would not renew the contract for violence interrupters in the neighborhood.

Metro Youth Diversion, a violence interrupter group that helps de-escalate potentially violent situations and engages with community members, left Cedar-Riverside after four years of patrolling the neighborhood. The contract expires March 31, according to Neighborhood Safety Department officials.

This comes after weeks of scrutiny from the Minneapolis City Council over issuing contracts to certain violence interrupter programs from the city’s Neighborhood Safety Program. 

A city official from the Neighborhood Safety Department said in a city council meeting on March 17 that the Metro Youth contract was not renewed because the neighborhood is no longer in the top eight areas of violence in Minneapolis. 

When the Metro Youth was initially given the contract in 2020, the hope was that the group could counter rising crime rates in the neighborhood, City Council Member Jamal Osman (Ward 6) said.

Osman said taking away the youth interruption group is a flawed approach once there is progress. 

“They say, ‘Oh, because that area of the city, it’s safe.’ The data doesn’t support it. We don’t have a lot of crimes. And I say that’s the point,” Osman said. “Because we invested in that part of the community. We bought those services and those services have worked. So we shouldn’t be taking away something that’s working.” 

In response to the program not getting renewed, the West Bank Business Association, North Central University and Elliott Park Incorporation, Inc. all sent letters to city officials voicing their concerns. 

Russom Solomon, co-owner of The Red Sea Ethiopian Restaurant on Cedar Avenue, praised Metro Youth Diversion for understanding the cultural background of Cedar-Riverside in their work. He said ending the Metro Youth Diversion contract risks undoing the progress that was made.

“Over the years, we have made improvements in our relationship with them. They understood our needs and made relationships. So the sudden cut or not renewal of their contract is a very sad and disturbing thing for us,” Solomon said. “If the perception of safety is not good, people are not going to come support our businesses.”

KJ Starr, the executive director of the West Bank Association, said she is worried that without the group in the neighborhood, the opioid drug use in the area will worsen. 

“I think our neighborhood gets a worse reputation than it deserves. We’re a pretty safe neighborhood, but we are ground zero for the opiate epidemic,” Starr said. “We have a lot of drug use happening in the neighborhood that really affects how safe people feel in the neighborhood and can also affect safety if it’s left completely unchecked.”

The effort to return Metro Youth to Cedar-Riverside is already underway, as Osman introduced an amendment to allocate funds for the program at Tuesday’s city council meeting.

Even though the amendment passed in the City Council, Starr and Solomon said they were upset about the lack of communication from Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s administration on maintaining programs like this. 

“We just need to get all on the same page about how we’re going to address safety and what’s continual response and who’s responsible for what,” Starr said.

Along with the amendment, the Neighborhood Safety Department officials said they will implement a combination of safety services to Cedar-Riverside as soon as resources are available.

Correction: This article has been updated to include the information that the contract expires March 31 and that a combination of safety services will be implemented as soon as resources are available.