First phase of One Safe Central Texas Roadmap for Peace released to curb violence

AUSTIN, Texas — Central Texas leaders are taking a regional approach to addressing community violence with the release of the first phase of the One Safe Central Texas Roadmap for Peace.

The plan brings together community organizations, nonprofits, and local officials around a public health approach to violence, focusing on prevention, healing, and opportunity.

Eddie Franz, co-founder of ATX Peace, said the roadmap reflects a shift in how violence is addressed across the region.

“A lot of times you think that you can incarcerate the problem away,” Franz said. “What we’ve seen is that a lot of the individuals that are creating some of the violence and some of the crime in our neighborhoods have the highest trauma rates that you can imagine.”

Franz said the collaborative approach is already making a difference.

“We’re starting to strategically plan how to continue the decrease in homicides,” he said.

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According to the Austin Police Department crime statistics, there were 55 homicides in 2025, down from 73 in 2024 and 75 in 2023.

“This last year we had an unbelievable decrease, one of the record-breaking decreases in a year that we’ve seen in a long time,” Franz said.

Judge Denise Hernandez, the presiding judge of County Court at Law #6, said addressing violence requires broad cooperation.

“It takes all of us, right?” Hernandez said.

She said bringing different voices together helps create more effective solutions.

“Bringing us all together, we bring lived experience, we bring different perspectives, which allows us to create intersectional solutions to help uplift our community,” Hernandez said.

The roadmap comes as local violence prevention efforts face a funding setback following the loss of a grant.

“With that grant funding being pulled, it delays the impact,” Hernandez said. “It delays our ability to be on the ground supporting our system-impacted youth.”

Despite those challenges, Hernandez said the work is continuing.

“Our goal is to continue to work together to keep the work moving forward,” she said.

Hernandez said the group is working with Austin Public Health to track data and monitor changes in crime as the plan moves ahead.