The black plastic chairs started out in a grid: eight to a row, at attention for whoever might stand up front.
Sharri Thomas was having none of that. As people trudged across the lawn of a Shaker Heights church on a spring day, she urged them to pull the chairs together and circle up.
“No sitting in the back,” she said. “Come on up close and be with family.”
Tomica Lawson sat in the center of the cluster. It was her son, Jayden Bonner, who was shot and killed last August at age 17. It was her son that the small group huddled to grieve and honor.
A local poet read a verse in honor of Jayden. Thomas presented Lawson with a framed copy of a county proclamation that honored his life.
Then, Lawson spoke quietly about the son she lost and the legacy he left.
“Every time I picked up one of his friends or dropped them off, he always let them know how much he loved them,” Lawson said. “I just want everybody to take that: When you see somebody you love, whether it’s your homeboy or whatever, don’t be afraid to say I love you. Jayden was not afraid to share his feelings.”
This is Thomas’ goal: to unearth the grief people are carrying and bring it into community. She and her husband run a nonprofit called Rivers in the Desert that provides on-site grief and trauma support for people affected by gun violence and other incidents. They are ordained ministers and are well-versed in gun violence: Their son survived a gunshot injury 15 years ago. They traverse the city in two mobile “healing” vans – large RVs stocked with snacks, coloring supplies and stuffed animals. They park at crime scenes, schools, vigils or hospitals and let community members visit as needed. In Shaker Heights, they held the ceremony to dedicate one of the vans as “Jaybo,” Jayden’s nickname.
“When there’s a critical incident — a shooting, a stabbing, a fatal accident, a fire … we have systems in place that respond to the incident. EMS shows up, police show up, fire shows up,” Thomas said. “There’s no system that responds to community while they’re picking up the pieces.”
In the wake of a tragedy, who’s there?
In Cleveland, 125 people died due to gun injuries in 2024. More than three times that many visited the emergency room as a result of gun violence. In Cuyahoga County, homicide, most by gun, is the top cause of death for kids under 18.
Those shootings leave behind hundreds of survivors and thousands of moms, dads, siblings, friends and classmates who are either grieving or dealing with the aftershock of an injury. Often, bills pile up – funerals, medical, rent – while incomes shrink as hours are spent coping with tragedy instead of work. Meanwhile, the emotional impact of the trauma looms.
In Northeast Ohio, the help available for families in the aftermath of gun violence is patchwork at best. Some find their way to grassroots groups like Rivers in the Desert for support. Depending on the circumstances, they might get extra help from a local hospital or nonprofit. Yet most face similar realities: limited, unstable programs propped up by small local grants and an ever-shrinking pot of federal dollars. Thomas and other community violence intervention advocates believe their work is important enough to merit more serious investment.
“There are lots of amazing organizations that are doing incredible work on the ground, but they don’t have enough capacity and there’s not enough sustainable funding for them to be able to broadly provide support,” said Dr. Sarah Sweeney, a family physician who works with local survivors of firearm violence and conducts research about support for survivors.
So while some victims and surviving family members are caught by Cleveland’s safety net, many fall through. Three out of four Northeast Ohioans who experience violence — shootings, stabbings and assaults — didn’t get one or more resources they needed afterward, according to a recent survey of about 270 residents Sweeney helped with. That included help with utilities, housing costs and long-term mental health counseling.
Thomas, Sweeney and other advocates said Cleveland’s major hospital systems could step up to address the gap — especially as they debate local trauma centers. These centers are where people injured by firearms are treated. In January, the Cleveland Clinic announced plans to open a new Level I trauma center, which upset competing hospital and trauma center MetroHealth.
“Some of the most brilliant people in all of Cleveland are our healthcare leaders. … I want them to take that energy and that intellect to just put a little bit of it toward looking at the gun violence epidemic,” said Dr. Ed Barksdale, a pediatric surgeon formerly at University Hospitals. Barksdale created a program at University Hospitals to respond to children’s gunshot wounds, after seeing how many kids returned with violent injuries. But he said he didn’t feel the hospital invested in the program as much as it should, so he left for Chicago in 2024.
“I’m not telling any leader what to do, but if this is the leading cause of death for children in the community, why wouldn’t you?”
How local trauma centers respond to gun violence
Cleveland’s hospital systems argue that they do plenty to support survivors of firearm injuries, especially since the work is not typically reimbursed by insurance. Over the past decade, both of Cleveland’s Level I trauma centers put together what they call trauma recovery teams. The catch? They’re historically funded by external grants that dip or even disappear.
MetroHealth has a six-person team of trauma recovery coaches who have social work or therapy backgrounds and meet survivors and their families at the hospital bedside. The team is large enough to connect with every MetroHealth trauma patient who is a victim of crime, said Shanell Harris, the manager of the trauma recovery center. Though the hospital chips in some money to pay for salaries, it’s primarily funded by a half-million-dollar Ohio Victim of Crime grant, which shrank three years ago.
University Hospitals has fewer resources. The initiative Barksdale helped develop at Rainbow Babies & Children’s to assign a social worker to children with gunshot wounds is still in place. But the hospital no longer receives a nearly $290,000 Ohio Victim of Crime grant to help pay for it. The state cut the funding in 2024. The trauma recovery program is now solely supported by the hospital, and it’s small: currently two people.
Program coordinator Matthew Krock is one of them. The team is “pretty good” at meeting the demand for services, he said. Krock and his colleague are trained to provide trauma-based therapy services and stay in touch with the family for a year after they’re discharged. They continue to visit them at home, providing personalized mental health support and helping find assistance for food or housing.
University Hospitals doesn’t have a corresponding program explicitly for gunshot victims at its adult trauma center. The hospital does have social workers, care coordinators and a trauma advocate available for adults in its trauma center, wrote Mike Tobin, a spokesperson for the hospital, in a statement.
“When it comes to firearms violence our priority is clear: save lives, support recovery, and help patients return to their families,” Tobin wrote. “As a Level 1 Trauma Center, we do that as well as anyone in the country, often at a significant financial loss to our health system.”
Still, gun violence survivors and their families notice where support systems fall short. Natasha Lovelace spent two months at the hospital after her daughter, Makayla Barlow, was shot in 2021. The 17-year-old was taken to University Hospitals’ adult trauma center.
Lovelace said she spoke with hospital social workers there just twice. The first time, an intern called to tell Lovelace that her daughter was in the hospital but struggled to say why. After Makayla survived and was recovering in the hospital, another social worker popped in to give Lovelace a brochure. No one sat down to explain how to apply for victims of crime funding or what emergency financial assistance existed, even though she had to stop working to care for her daughter, Lovelace said.
“There was money left on the table that I could have been reimbursed for, services that I could have connected to that I just wasn’t aware of and wasn’t told about,” Lovelace said.
Survivors and anti-violence advocates are curious to see what the new Cleveland Clinic trauma center will offer, too.
In a statement, Cleveland Clinic spokesperson Andrea Pacetti wrote that it anticipates “exploring” the development of a hospital-based violence intervention program at its new trauma center. Across the country, these programs often provide special case management and services for injured patients and their families in the hospital and afterwards.
The hospital in Cleveland hasn’t decided on any specific model, Pacetti wrote. Its Level I trauma center in Akron may offer some insight. Starting this June, the Akron hospital will partner with nearby Summa Health to provide trauma-based therapy bedside to violently injured patients. But the hospitals will have to share one therapist, whose position is funded by $80,000 from the City of Akron.
Hospital support teams can only go so far
Another challenge is that Harris, Krock and their teams are sometimes charged with finding resources for patients and families where there are none.
Violent crime survivors or their families often need assistance paying bills and for emergency shelter, since they may not feel safe at home. But more than half of those surveyed said that they got little to no help with housing and utility bills.
That’s because there’s just not a lot of dollars on hand to pass out, Harris said. The grant that funds MetroHealth’s trauma recovery center can pay for utilities, rent and food. But Harris has to limit how much they can spend on each family, especially as the grant has been cut. As for emergency shelter, Brenda Glass Multipurpose Trauma Center offers safe housing for survivors of violence. But not every person meets the qualifications to stay there, Krock said.
Survivors can also apply for victim of crime compensation from the state, which will reimburse lost wages and funeral expenses. The two hospital teams help people apply, but it’s widely panned as a difficult and fickle process: Krock said it usually takes a minimum of four months to receive it. Many get rejected anyway. Lovelace said she applied a year after her daughter was shot but was denied. The process is so burdensome and funding so tight that Mar’Yum Patterson — who spent nearly a decade working with a local nonprofit to support gun violence victims and survivors — said she used to put money from her own pocket toward families’ funeral costs.
Tiffany Scruggs oversees the City of Cleveland’s office of violence prevention and intervention. She said there are some options for residents to get emergency financial help after a shooting, like Cuyahoga County’s emergency assistance funds. Lawson received a $5,000 grant from the Changing Lives Foundation, a Strongsville nonprofit that offers financial assistance in catastrophic need, after her son was killed.
Still, Scruggs said there’s not enough. The city has had early conversations with the county’s new Office of Violence Prevention and community-based groups about potentially designating funds to support families after a violent event, she said.
It can also be tough to connect residents with long-term mental healthcare, Harris said. Shorter-term options are available: MetroHealth’s trauma recovery team offers four months of it, Krock’s team offers a year and FrontLine Service has a countywide program to give three months of counseling to family members after a homicide.
After the free services end, hospitals and FrontLine typically refer patients to more traditional therapists that bill insurance. That’s challenging if a patient or family member lost insurance coverage because they had to stop working. Long waitlists often make it difficult for patients to get help quickly. And it can be tricky to find mental health workers who have experience dealing with traumatic and violent loss, said Eileen Zatta, the program manager for FrontLine’s Traumatic Loss Response Team.
Grassroots organizations fill the void
Sometimes formal mental health support isn’t exactly what people are searching for in the moments immediately after a tragedy or shooting, Zatta said.
That was the case for Thomas, with Rivers in the Desert. After their son was shot more than a decade ago, Thomas and her husband witnessed two young boys get shot and killed in front of their home in 2021.
“There was no system there to help me and my family process,” Thomas said. “I didn’t necessarily need a counselor. I needed community to show up.”
So that’s what Thomas and her husband created. Two years ago, the two started showing up at vigils and hosting grief support events. They bought the RV so that residents didn’t have to figure out transportation, childcare or even leave their home to get support — Rivers in the Desert could go to them. Thomas hired a part-time case manager and contracted with practitioners who can lead yoga or breathwork sessions.
The ramp up means Thomas and her husband can help more people. But it also costs more money. And like many community-based anti-violence organizations, it runs on a shoe-string budget by cobbling together small grants. She estimates the organization will cost $260,000 to run this year, but she only has about a third of that so far. A $50,000 grant from Cuyahoga County ended last December, and she’s in a fundraising campaign to help fill the gap. Thomas wants to coordinate a system so her units can be dispatched to emergency scenes, but she doesn’t have the funding.
“I went to a grant interview yesterday for $1,500,” Thomas said in April. “…Honey, listen, every penny helps.”
Thomas’ refrain is common among the grassroots organizations working to combat gun violence. Michelle Bell created the nonprofit M-PAC Cleveland after her son Andre was murdered in 2019. Through it, she packs “We Care” bags to pass out to families after a gun violence injury or death. They’re stuffed with basic necessities still needed in the midst of tragedy — hygiene products, activities for kids — and a journal where families can chronicle their emotions. Each also has a $250 gift card to help with groceries and other necessities.
But money to fill those bags is running low, Bell said, even as summer brings rising gun violence. Because of that, she can’t pass out many bags to hospitals and other agencies that hand them out. The government grants that Bell does get require reimbursement, meaning she often has to dip into her own savings first.
And Cleveland Peacemakers Alliance — a community-based violence interruption group that works with survivors of shootings and their families — lost a $2 million grant last year after the federal government canceled it. The money helped pay for the group to visit victims’ families bearing food, money for groceries, a hotel room or a donation toward a funeral.
As federal funding dries up, who will step up?
Federal funding for violence intervention has shrunk under President Donald Trump: The administration cut about $218 million in grants for community violence intervention and victim service programs last April, according to the Council on Criminal Justice. States like Ohio are also getting less money for grants supporting crime victims because the fines and fees white-collar criminals pay to fund them are shrinking.
So the question falls to local institutions: How do they support gun violence survivors and their families?
Cuyahoga County established its Office of Violence Prevention last May. Myesha Watkins, its leader, said part of her charge is beefing up support for community groups like Rivers in the Desert that work directly with residents impacted by violence. Watkins is well-versed with the funding challenges that come with community organizations, as she herself led Cleveland Peacemakers for six years. Watkins said she hopes to dedicate a huge portion — best practice is 70% — of the new office’s budget back into community-based groups.
The challenge is that the office’s current budget consists of one line item: Watkins’ salary. To access more funding, Watkins said she and the county are applying to grants from foundations, the Department of Justice and other organizations. Some federal funding options still exist, Watkins said, often with law enforcement at the lead instead of community groups.
The City of Cleveland invests some dollars into community-based violence intervention groups, including $1 million from a soon-to-expire federal grant and another $1 million annually from what it calls a Neighborhood Safety Fund. Those investments don’t go very far when split among dozens of agencies: Between 2023 and 2024, more than 40 agencies got some of the Neighborhood Safety Fund, Ideastream reported.
Scruggs said the city is narrowing the number of organizations it funds and investing more in the ones they do. The Neighborhood Safety Fund gave money to five organizations last year, including the Brenda Glass Trauma Center and a nonprofit that provides grief services focused on Black men.
That means leaving some agencies out: Rivers in the Desert didn’t get funding. Thomas said local, state and federal governments need to make more funding available in the first place. She pointed out that the grant dollars the city invests in violence intervention pale in comparison to the more than $200 million police budget.
Thomas has the same request for local hospitals who treat patients with gunshot wounds and bill insurance for doing so, though. As the Cleveland Clinic opens its new Level I trauma center, Thomas hopes to see it and other local hospitals heal patients beyond the flesh and bone. There’s so much that comes after a life is saved, she said. She saw it firsthand when her son was shot.
“The hospital did their thing, right? But when he came home, I spent the next four months … trying to nurse my son back to health,” Thomas said. “And literally, his body got better, but his mental health did not. I got my son through it, but I was jacked up.”
“There are so many more parts to this,” she said.
