HARRIS COUNTY – (September 4, 2022) – The Office of Justice and Safety (OJS) is seeking proposals from qualifying organizations for Community Engagement grants. The grants will provide funding for direct services that are preventative interventions to incarceration and provide: crime prevention and decreasing recidivism by providing support to those that are justice-involved.
Initiatives funded will support OJS’s effort to reduce racial and ethnic disparities within the criminal justice system, improve public safety in the county, and decrease engagement with county jails.
Community Engagement Microgrants: Administered by OJS, this program will further the goals of Harris County’s participation in the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC). The Community Engagement Microgrants will promote one or more of the following objectives: 1) preventing involvement in violent or criminal activity as either a perpetrator or victim among those who are at risk, 2) diverting youth or adults from formal system involvement at the pre-arrest, arrest, or earliest stage possible, 3) reducing the risk of reentry or re-involvement in the criminal justice system and 4) contributing to community healing through restorative justice practices.
The Community Engagement Microgrants recipient(s) shall provide all necessary labor and materials to assist OJS with engaging the community. This includes supporting organizations that directly serve justice-involved individuals, implementing preventative violence programming to at-risk populations, and supporting victims and community healing or restorative justice. The grant awards will cover a period beginning on or about November 1, 2022 and continuing one (1) year after that.
To learn more about the Community Engagement grants, a pre-proposal conference is scheduled for September 20, 2022, at 2:00 PM local time in Houston, TX, using the following dial-in information: Conference number (281) 985-1862, meeting number (access code): 661696484#. Attendance is optional, and organizations are encouraged to attend to understand the application process requirements better. For more information, click here to access the solicitation reference number 22/0284.