Our Letter to HHS Secretary Becerra –
Youth ALIVE! has long advocated for leaders and policymakers to view gun violence as a public health issue. We have called for the mustering of public health resources, approaches and expertise to reduce violence and heal the individual and community trauma violence causes and that, unattended, can lead to further violence. In November, Youth ALIVE!, Mayor Libby Schaff, Roots Community Health Center, Moms Demand Action, Everytown for Gun Safety, the Community Justice Action Fund and the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention together signed a letter to the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra, imploring him to urge the Biden Administration to declare gun violence a national public health emergency. Read the text of the letter:
On behalf of constituents in Oakland and many other cities nationwide, we are requesting tht your administration make a declaration that gun violence is a Public Health Emergency (PHE) in response to the recent increases in homicides and shootings.
2020 saw the largest year-over-year increase in gun violence in our nation’s history. Firearm homicides in 2021 were the highest documented since 1993.1 This has been hitting communities like Oakland particularly hard. From 2019 to 2021, homicides increased by 75% (from 79 to 138) the most we have had in a decade. This year, we have already had 105 homicides. Gun violence is not simply a health crisis, it is a crisis rooted in racism and health inequities, as 95% of Oakland’s homicides last year were people of color.
We must recognize and treat violence as a health crisis and to mobilize our nation’s healthcare and public health systems and methods to work with communities and other sectors to stop this epidemic.
There are proven violence reduction strategies that we know work. To solve violence and address perhaps the single largest driver of racist health inequity in the nation, we have to invest in effective community-driven solutions that work.
We are grateful for the Administration’s leadership and investments in gun violence prevention. In 2021, the White House announced that States can use Medicaid to fund violence prevention. However, the current medical billing system is onerous and without taking additional steps to facilitate a pathway, the effective community-based programs that reduce violence (and its drain on our health and criminal justice systems) will not be able to access Medicaid resources.
We urge you to immediately declare gun violence a Public Health Emergency (PHE) so that appropriate resources can be deployed in a timely manner in communities hit hardest by this epidemic.