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FW: Council Meeting 05/20/25, Agenda Item 4.1
From City Clerk <[email protected]>
Date Mon 5/19/2025 11:10 AM
To Agendadesk <[email protected]>
From: Kathryn Hedges < >
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2025 10:47 AM
To: City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Council Meeting 05/20/25, Agenda Item 4.1
Dear Mayor and Council Members:
I am a voter in Downtown San Jose, District 3. I am a member of SURJ and we support the recommendations of the ReImagining Public Safety Committee. I have been in emotionally abusive relationships and the last thing that would have helped my situation was to call the police. My partner would have calmly explained that I'm just a hysterical woman imagining I can live without his guidance, and talked the officers into taking me to a mental hospital.
Please approve the memorandum by Vice-Mayor Foley and Council Members Kamei, Campos, Cohen, and Ortiz to accept the Community-Led Solutions to Domestic Violence Report, direct the City Manager to continue their collaboration with the County and community groups, and return to the Council with a plan.
I want to thank the authors of the report for their extensive community outreach as well as presenting the history of how responses to domestic violence have changed over time.
I hope we can create a community (or communities) that support survivors/victims in the most healing way possible and breaks the cycle of violence. We have seen the success of another recommendation of the ReImagining Public Safety committee, the TRUST non-police crisis line. San Jose has a strong tradition of culturally- based community organizations who can adapt to the needs of their community instead of imposing outside standards on survivors/victims.
The memorandum from Council Member Doan to implement signage similar to that promoting our campaign against human trafficking has merit and I recommend that amendment as well.
Sincerely,
Kathryn Hedges
Showing Up for Racial Justice, Santa Clara County
5/19/25, 4:33 PM Mail - Agendadesk - Outlook
https://outlook.office365.com/mail/[email protected]/inbox/id/AAQkADUxOWI4ZjE3LTRkNDEtNGUzMS04MjAwLTIzNzdiYTdkMjc5NAAQA… 1/2
May 19, 2025
Mayor & City Council, et. al
City of San José
200 East Santa Clara Street, 18th Floor
San José, CA 95113
Sent via electronic mail
Re: Item 4.1 Community-Led Solutions to Domestic Violence
Dear Mayor Mahan, Vice Mayor Foley and members of the City Council:
This letter is submitted by the Race Equity Action Leadership (REAL) coalition.
We write today in support of the memo from Vice Mayor Foley and Councilmembers Kamei, Campos, Cohen and Ortiz to move forward with the work of creating a pilot to support survivors of interpersonal/intimate partner violence with culturally responsive and community-led pathways to safety and healing.
As highlighted in the recently-completed landscape study of domestic violence resources and gaps in the City, survivors of interpersonal violence often do not feel safer after contacting police.
The REAL Coalition proposes a joint venture of nonprofit partners to lead a design and research phase during Fiscal Year 2025–2026 to explore and develop a community-embedded approach to preventing and responding to interpersonal violence, which covers caregiver and family violence beyond an intimate partner relationship.
We want to be clear, this is not “more study;” it is the critical first step of creating a new approach to violence that will be responsive to community needs.
This proposal builds on the extensive groundwork laid by REAL Coalition member organizations in advancing community-centered alternatives to traditional policing and carceral responses to interpersonal violence.
Community-based violence prevention strategies that are non-carceral and non-policing in nature advance racial equity by addressing the disproportionate harm that Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color experience from the criminal legal system.
These strategies prioritize healing, accountability, and safety without relying on institutions that have historically criminalized and marginalized these communities. The REAL Coalition is deeply invested in these approaches because its member organizations are rooted in directly impacted communities and are committed to transforming systems in ways that are equitable, restorative, and led by those most affected by violence and systemic injustice.
In June 2023, the City Council voted to allocate $400,000 for community-centered design and launch of a pilot to support survivors of interpersonal/intimate partner violence.
REAL Coalition members were ready to begin that work but instead the allocated dollars were expended on the study of domestic violence resources and gaps in the City.
The findings in the report present an opportunity to move forward now and do the work to produce a set of community-based pilot recommendations to inform a future City-issued RFP for a Community Violence Intervention (CVI) program in FY 2026–2027.
We appreciate City staff’s work to identify funding to take this next step but we are concerned with using Opioid Settlement Funds to pay for the community-design process; the requirements to use those funds carry risk of diverting the focus of the design-process. However, we would like to explore how those funds could be used to fund the pilot selected to move forward in FY2026-2027.
We further support Councilmember Doan’s memo to explore options to place safety placards in public and private spaces.
Thank you for considering this request.You can reach REAL by emailing [email protected].
Sincerely,
Kyra Kazantzis, Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits, REAL Co-Convener Poncho Guevara, Sacred Heart Community Service, REAL Co-Convener Kathy Cordova, Latinas Contra Cancer, REAL Steering Committee Co-Chair
About the REAL Coalition
The REAL community of Silicon Valley based nonprofit leaders and allies has been meeting since June 2020 to use our positional power to advocate for a more racially-just and equitable society; to establish a peer network of leaders committed to fighting white supremacy and systemic racism in ourselves and our institutions; and to hold each other accountable to the promises we made in the Nonprofit Racial Equity Pledge. The REAL coalition is broadly representative of the nonprofit community including human and community services, behavioral health and health, arts and culture, domestic violence, older adults, food security, education, environmental, farming, legal, disability rights, LGTBQ rights, ethnic, immigrant rights, housing and homelessness, criminal justice reform, urban planning, and intermediary organizations, and others. Over 125 organizations have participated in the REAL Coalition.
Hello. My name is Joanna Kent, and I live in District 9. Thank you for your time.
My youngest child has a rare disease called Phelan-McDermid Syndrome. Within a few months of getting our diagnosis, he had his first regression of skills. I knew exactly what was happening as I slowly watched my son disappear. I am always thoughtful in explaining it because it wasn’t a regression. It was a complete and utter loss of devastation. My once adorable, sweet, gentle, slow, but excited to copy your movements, boy, was gone. And with him died my dreams for him, myself, and my family.
I became a shell of myself as he bit me, and scars began to appear along my body. He pulled my hair so much that I cut it all off because I had balding patches. He kicked, elbowed, and punched me. I silently took it all.
I took care of this person who didn’t know I was their mother, and I became numb and lost, accepting my fate.
I think that most people assume that domestic violence is something that people can escape.
The idea is that with the correct resources or mindset, one can walk out the door. Tell that to the parent of a child whom they care for who has violent outbursts. Or the child who cares for their parent with dementia who panics and thinks they are protecting themselves from this “stranger” who is truly their loving child who has given up so much to take care of their ailing parent.
Let’s also not forget the people with disabilities who themselves are mistreated, and either don’t know they are, based on their level of understanding, or are trapped due to forced poverty and dependence on those who tell them this is the better alternative.
I am TERRIFIED at the thought that someday someone will react to my child, who, out of excitement, hurts them, and they can’t control themselves or won't, then retaliate and knowingly hurt my child for something he has no idea he even did.
When your child is one of the 1% of the most severely cognitively impaired 1%, you see the world differently. Most people in my position care for the child 24 hours a day; any minute they aren’t, they hope for a miracle. I am planning for the worst and hoping I am wrong.
My story isn’t the only one like it. Many families hide it in fear of losing their loved one. Many families are terrified the police will be called on their loved one who can’t comply because they are not capable, whether it be from mental illness, cognitive inability, or complete dysregulation.
I rent a home because of the fear that the police would be called on our family because my son’s stimming would trigger a neighbor. Not everyone is as “fortunate” as our family to be able to afford the space to feel “safer” that the police will not show up to your door.
In San Jose, with over 20 thousand people dependent on In Home Supportive Services - this doesn’t even include those who are not on this program for care to live in their homes safely, please consider that there are people you did not consider, for whom police involvement isn’t an option, but a genuine fear.
Thank you again for your time. Please consider expanding this Community Violence Pilot to include those you might not typically have considered: caregivers and those who receive care in their homes.