In an Oakland church, young men vulnerable to gang violence sit across from prosecutors, clergy, and survivors of shootings, receiving a message of unwavering support rather than punishment. The aim is to demonstrate that a future beyond incarceration, injury, or death is within reach.
“We’re going to talk about keeping you and those you love alive and free,” Jim Hopkins, emeritus pastor of Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, told the men who gather at his church. “If you put down the gun, start taking the (city’s) services, we’ll help you find another way.”
This unique approach is credited with helping the California city achieve historic lows in homicides. Experts point to a program that identifies individuals most likely to be drawn into gang violence and connects them with life coaches to help them transform their lives.
City officials convene weekly to review recent shootings and pinpoint potential participants. The city’s Department of Violence Prevention then engages these individuals, either one-on-one or in group sessions at the church, offering a range of services, including a dedicated life coach.
While no single factor can fully explain a city’s declining homicide rate, officials assert that the Oakland Ceasefire-Lifeline program has been pivotal, making a tangible difference one person at a time.
Homicide rates have seen a significant decline in major US cities recently, but Oakland’s reduction has been particularly striking. The city of approximately 400,000 people has not recorded such low homicide rates since 1967, a year marked by the powerful presence of the Black Panthers and the Summer of Love in nearby San Francisco.
For nearly a quarter-century, Oakland was consistently ranked among the nation’s most dangerous cities, with annual homicide rates ranging from 16.2 to 36.4 deaths per 100,000 people, significantly higher than the US average of around five per 100,000.
Oakland adopted the lifeline program, which originated in Boston, following a tragic year in 2011 when gun violence claimed the lives of three children aged one, three, and five in separate incidents.
The program initially saw a 43 percent reduction in homicides between 2012 and 2017. However, an audit in 2023 revealed that officials subsequently diluted the program, effectively dismantling it during the pandemic.
It was only after city officials implemented the audit’s recommended changes that the number of homicides began to fall again, from 118 in 2023 to 78 in 2024. Last year, Oakland achieved a record low of 57 homicides.
Police involvement in the program is minimal, limited to providing names of individuals expected to retaliate for a shooting or those at risk of becoming victims of retaliation. Holly Joshi, chief of the violence prevention department, noted,
“People may underestimate how little the clients believe in themselves, and how little they value their own lives.” Once selected, participants are introduced to individuals whose lives have been irrevocably altered by gang violence, such as parents who have lost a child or someone left paralyzed and able to communicate only by clicking their tongue.
Last year, Bernard, a 27-year-old former gang member, was one of 200 people matched with a life coach. He was contacted as he was leaving prison after serving six years for attempted robbery.
Today, he holds a full-time job, has an apartment, and possesses a renewed outlook on life. He says he is now more aware of community ties. “When I was younger, I didn’t realize I wasn’t only hurting myself. I was hurting everybody around me, everybody who cared for me,” said Bernard, who requested his last name not be used to protect his future opportunities.
Initially, Bernard was reserved with his life coach, 35-year-old LaSasha Long. However, after missing his mother’s funeral while still incarcerated, he suffered another profound loss: a close childhood friend died. He realized he needed to talk to someone.
“As soon as I called Sasha, she was there with advice,” he recalls. Long understood his pain, having experienced a chaotic upbringing herself after a stray bullet killed her mother when she was a toddler. She offered him guidance, telling him what she felt would have helped her move forward: that despite his losses, he still had much to live for, and his friend would have wanted him to live. He listened.
“I can’t take the credit for it because it was all him. He was the pilot,” Long says, adding that she provided practical support like rides and appointment reminders. “But he wanted to change. He wanted that.” Now, they chat on the phone daily, and their bond is evident in their playful interactions. Long describes life coaching as “heart work,” helping someone find light at the end of a dark tunnel.
Bernard now aspires to follow in Long’s footsteps, becoming a coach who can offer a lifeline to others who grew up surrounded by violence and financial hardship, much like his own upbringing with a drug-addicted mother and an incarcerated father.
He has discovered the profound joy of helping people. On a recent break from his job cleaning streets in San Francisco, Bernard saw a teenager crash his bike. The old Bernard would not have rushed over, much less reassured the embarrassed boy that everyone falls sometimes. Instead, he helped clean the gravel burn on the boy’s face and jokingly told him, “Tell your girl you got jumped.”
“All some of us need is to see or know that people care,” he said. “Once people realize that, I believe they start to do better, they want to do better. They figure there’s more to life.”
