If the D.C. Council approves Kwelli D. Sneed as D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s pick for executive director of the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE), she will officially lead an agency that, since its inception, has struggled to gain consistent interagency support like what many in the violence prevention community desire.
Most public witnesses who testified at Sneed’s confirmation roundtable on Dec. 2 posed fewer questions around Sneed’s capabilities, and more around how best to support her in a role that, to some degree, overwhelmed her predecessors.
Some of them, like Lorenzo Ford, went even as far to explain how ONSE’s offerings, including the Pathways Program, advances the agency’s mission of gun violence reduction.
“I thought I knew more, but I was opening my mind, and opening up my career paths and networking skills,” said Ford, a Pathways ambassador and graduate of the program’s 18th cohort, at the very end of a three-hour confirmation roundtable hosted by the council’s Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety.
Ford said he joined, and successfully navigated the Pathways Program in recent years at the advice of past participants he knew from his neighborhood.
“Everything I learned in this program, I can say launched my life into a better direction,” Ford told D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto, chair of the Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety. “I could say that for myself and other members of my cohort. Other ambassadors in previous cohorts are why I was in it.”
Kwelli Sneed Makes Her Case to the Council’s Judiciary Committee
The process to confirm Sneed is unfolding at a time when D.C. Councilmember Trayon White (D-Ward 8), an ally in the violence interruption community, is fighting a federal bribery charge and awaiting the release of a council ad-hoc committee report that will determine his future in the John A. Wilson Building.
Earlier this year, an indictment implicated White and employees of ONSE and other District agencies as alleged participants in a scheme to steer government contracts toward Life Deeds, a nonprofit that struggled with compliance during previous grant and contracting cycles.
At the start of the 2025 fiscal year, ONSE extended Life Deeds’ contract by another 90 days to allow for the transition to another vendor. Sneed confirmed on Dec. 2 that Life Deeds and ONSE will no longer have a relationship by the New Year.
After White’s arrest and arraignment, Pinto and Bowser put plans in motion to scrutinize violence interruption contracts. On Dec. 2, in response to Pinto’s question, Sneed spoke about ONSE’s work in recent months to enhance grantee compliance and bring the oversight process in-house.
“The grants manual fully shows the transparency of what you’re expected to do to be in compliance in our space,” Sneed said.
Soon after, she delved into ONSE’s newly formed compliance unit.
“This unit of employees will be assigned to many of the new grantees to constantly work in tandem with them to make sure they’re leading the metrics, submitting documents and providing information on a timely basis,” Sneed said. “And if there’s a breach in that agreement, there’s a process they will be outlined to follow.”
On Nov. 22, Bowser announced Sneed as her nominee for ONSE executive director. The selection culminated a nationwide search that started after Linda Harlee Harper’s death in 2023, Bowser said.
Sneed, a Ward 4 resident and second-generation D.C. government employee, has more than 15 years of experience in public service, with stints at Office of the State Superintendent of Education, Department of Public Works, Department of Parks and Recreation, and Department of General Services.
Bowser said that she felt confident putting Sneed before the council, based on the results of her work at ONSE, like violence reduction in priority areas, and the decrease in violent crime in recent months.
“It takes someone who knows government, who knows how to work in contracting and procurement, gain the confidence of the community, and have knowledge of the city,” Bowser said. “At the end of the day I determined, especially with Kwelli Sneed’s leadership through two tough times, that she’s the right person for the job.”
By the time she became ONSE interim executive director in 2023, Sneed had worked closely with Harper in ONSE and what’s now called the Office of Gun Violence Prevention. She’s since hired subject-matter experts, explored the transition from a neighborhood-based to ward-based violence interruption strategy, and gelled plans together for the expansion of the Pathways Program’s workforce development component.
In her remarks before the D.C. Council’s Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety on Dec. 2, Sneed pledged to keep working in honor of her childhood friend Rico, who died from gun violence in the early 1990s, and Harper, whose death triggered Sneed’s ascent to interim leadership.
“If given the opportunity to continue serving, I intend to finish the work my team and I started,” Sneed said, citing a 34% reduction in gun violence in ONSE’s 25 high-priority areas across the city. “Our work requires compassion, empathy, resilience, flexibility and adaptability. We are a team that’s part of an ecosystem that builds safer communities.”
Some of the dialogue between Sneed and Pinto centered on the question of ONSE’s mission, which Sneed said often necessitates collaboration between her agency and other District agencies and entities in control of the resources needed by residents who are at the greatest risk of committing or becoming a victim of violence.
“It’s not only helping the actual client, but their parents or family. Helping them with emergency placement, job readiness, burial support, preparing an individual for a pivot to a better way of living,” Sneed told Pinto.
“If you’re meeting people where they are, they come with all sorts of dynamics, circumstances and situations. So addressing the whole person, you can’t overlook, silo or compartmentalize the different circumstances they bring to the table.”
The Question of How Best to Support Sneed
Despite calls by D.C. Police Union Chief Greggory Pemberton and Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Kathy Henderson to disband ONSE, Pinto expressed her support for the agency.
During Sneed’s confirmation roundtable, Pinto said that ONSE’s success depends on collaboration with other stakeholders.
“I have studied other successful violence interruption models across the country, and something they have is consistent buy-in from the executive, chief of police, religious leaders, community organizers, violence interrupters themselves, and therefore the broader community,” Pinto said.
“This model is complicated but can be done when we work together and focus on our consistent goal, which is reducing gun violence.”
On Dec. 2, a total of six witnesses, mostly from Wards 5 and 7, testified before Pinto, and later her fellow committee member, D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At large).
Most did so, not only in support of Sneed, but in criticism of the status quo.
In his testimony, Delonte Gholston, pastor of Peace Fellowship Church said when it comes to violence prevention, D.C.’s business and philanthropy community should go to lengths the government and faith-based community cannot.
“It’s ridiculous that in what’s supposed to be an all-agency approach, basic services aren’t working on behalf of families,” Gholston said. “All Black, all men living in poverty. The one thing to make someone in those conditions secure [is] mental, physical and spiritual wellness. You have to make people whole. That can’t be exclusively led by the government.”
Ward 7 continued to dominate the confirmation roundtable, with Jay Brown of Community Shoulders and Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Ashley Renee Ruff (SMD 7F02) also weighing in on the current state of affairs.
Ruff, whose single-member district includes ONSE, touted the need for what she called the agency’s deeper engagement with Ward 7 residents.
“While I am aware of holiday events, these events are not well publicized, leaving large portions of the neighborhood uninformed and unable to participate,” Ruff said.
“I know ONSE has experienced internal losses and grief but our community experienced similar hardships. The lack of consistent engagement undermines the office’s ability to understand and address the issues we face daily.”
In the realm of community engagement, Brown told Pinto that Sneed, as executive director, shouldn’t be more beholden to Bowser than she is to District residents.
“It’s ineffective and the community sees straight through it,” Brown said, emphasizing the need for transparency and communication.
“We need to give Sneed the support and independence with meaningful oversight with teeth so she can be effective and accountable to the mayor and community,” he told Pinto. “Silencing the people who are serving the community in these critical positions is a disservice to the public safety system.”