By Dianne Anderson

Terrance Stone and Rick Alanis are partners in crime, so to speak, but in a good way.

At times, they liken their crew to first responders working some of the most gang impacted neighborhoods in San Bernardino with ears to the ground before catastrophe strikes.

They compare it to ground zero.

“If this gang is getting ready to get into it with that gang or something happens at a party, we have people in the community from the community that grew up in some of these gang neighborhoods,” said Terrance Stone, CEO and founder of Young Visionaries Youth Leadership Academy.

Stone said their 10-team staff has intervened to help stop local shootings and disarm young people in the street.

“We were able to talk the gun out of the young man’s hand that was ready to commit violence. We have incidents like this all the time,” Stone said.

Every Wednesday, Stone and Alanis get together with other community allies and law enforcement to talk about stopping violence before it starts, including rumor control. They receive information on crime victims and go out on house calls, sometimes bringing food baskets to let them know they are available to help and for service.

Often, Stone said their staff knows of shootings ahead of time. They also talk to the suspect to learn what sparked the shooting, and how to prevent the next one.

It’s a dangerous job.

“Our staff goes into neighborhoods unarmed because we can’t go in with weapons, nightsticks or mace. We are knocking on doors of families that have been victims of gang crimes in the community,” he said.

Together with HOPE Culture, Stone and Alanis’ staff work the streets, some managing administrative work, but they are stretched thin in big gang territory. As a whole, San Bernadino County community indicators show there were 14,522 gang members in 801 gangs in 2019.

Recently, Young Visionaries and HOPE Culture received $1.5 million in funding through the California Board of State and Community Corrections, Violence Intervention and Prevention grant program. The grant, part of the city’s Violence Intervention Program, is in partnership with Loma Linda Medical Center, which Stone said oversees all of their evaluations.

Both Stone and Alanis started officially working together in 2018 with their first CalGRIP grant. But unofficially over the past 15 years they have worked local violence prevention programs, also going into schools when needed.

Lately, Stone said they are concerned the city may push the $1 million American Rescue Plan Act funding toward three new programs, which they think is a good idea as long as the administrators coming in are specifically trained for the community.

“It will be hard to get acclimated to this population because it’s like trying to jump in a moving car, we can’t wait for you,” Stone said.

Rick Alanis said now that their program has shown proficiency in their work with the local at-risk population, they are strongly focused on capacity building for the year ahead.

Alanis, executive director for HOPE Culture, has a center located off Mill Street, and works primarily with the Latino population. If a violence issue involves someone from the Westside, Stone sends one of his staff, which are all Black males and females.

They also hope to expand outreach with a community space on the Westside.

Coming up in January, Alanis said they are ready to open up programming at the small community center on Date Street and Park Avenue.

“We’ve stepped out on faith,” said Alanis, who is also the senior pastor of Victory Outreach Church in San Bernardino. “We just did a Thanksgiving dinner out of that center. We’re doing another toy giveaway in December.”

San Bernardino has seen increased gun violence shootings and homicides over the past two years, but Alanis said the group that their programming is contracted to serve has seen a significant reduction in gang gun violence.

They are not contracted to address other types of violence, such as robberies and domestic violence.

“There has been a reduction in the gang gun homicides that are gang-related. Our goal that we had set was 15% [violence reduction]. As of today, that has dropped by 20% to date from last year,” he said, but added, “of course we still have a month to go for this year.”

They get school referrals, and called out at different times to help with issues on campus, although they are not contracted to work with the high schools, they go in upon request to help.

At the start of this school year when the kids were fighting, he said they weren’t called out, but volunteered services anyway. They spent about one week at Cajon High School.

“While we were there, there were no violent incidents on campus, this is when they had riots or whatever you call it. When we got there, the principal was calling us back,” he said.

He said they have met with the superintendent to discuss putting regular mentors for violence intervention on campus at some middle and high schools.

“We’re working on that. We saw a need and willing to fill the need, and we’re waiting on the school district,” he said.

They are also keeping a close watch on future Measure S funding allocations, but he stressed that whoever gets funded for the violence prevention outreach from the upcoming $1 million ARPA funding must be closely connected to the community, and understand the local population.

They are also waiting and hoping for consideration for that funding stream.

“We have to make it fit in our city because it’s a different culture than Los Angeles, Oakland, Chicago Stockton or Boston. It’s a different gang culture and street culture,” Alanis said.

For more information, contact Young Visionaries at office (909) 723-1695
or email tstone@yvyla-ie.org