Cash to gun violence victims: City launches pilot program of grants for funerals, other expenses

Chicago police work the scene where a man and a woman were shot and killed while traveling in a vehicle on West 21st Street in the Pilsen neighborhood in November. (Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Time)

With Chicago topping 700 homicides for the second straight year, Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday created an Emergency Supplemental Victims’ Fund to provide cash grants to the families of those killed.

The pilot program will start in five Chicago neighborhoods plagued by gang and gun violence — East Garfield Park, West Garfield Park, Englewood, West Englewood and New City — before expanding to “more communities in the future,” according to City Hall.