About our new Safe and Thriving Communities Division

The Safe and Thriving Communities (STC) Division is the newest division of HSD and was created in direct response to the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. These powerful protests brought attention to the need to invest in BIPOC communities and support community-based organizations. To answer this call, STC was formed as a way to consolidate the City’s safety, gender-based violence, and victim advocacy investments and prioritize the needs of the community using $27 million in annual investments.

Message from our STC Division Director

"From the moment I watched the first seconds of what became the end of George Floyd's life, I realized the urgency of finding a way to protect the most vulnerable people in the most vulnerable places. I did not then, and I do not now believe that we must accept casual violence and racism as an inescapable part of life and our society. I want to work in this new safety division to directly address the needs of Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) communities in a way that reimagines a society in which every person has the agency to meet basic needs with dignity. As a society, that is the only way we can truly thrive. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly."
– Rex Brown