July 2, 2026
This budget season in St. Louis, the stakes were extremely high. The people of St. Louis have navigated the aftermath of political and natural disasters: the state taking over our local police department and moving aggressively to hoard money and power, and an EF-3 tornado that tore through the heart of historically Black neighborhoods, displacing thousands of residents and businesses and leaving them without adequate government support.
The challenges we face didn’t start from the state takeover of police or the multi-level governmental failure in response to tornado victims. It started from decades of political decision-making that has intentionally disenfranchised the very neighborhoods and criminalized the very people residing in the tornado’s path.
In the face of this reality, the Hands Off STL Coalition spent the budget season uplifting a pathway for hundreds of St. Louis residents to be part of a supposedly democratic process. Together, we not only spoke up about the City’s funding priorities; we actively took part in shaping the landscape in which we survive, work, live, and dream of thriving.
When the FY27 budget cycle started out, the City chose not to allocate sufficient funding to life-saving programs. The community spoke out, rallied, testified, and called for a budget with moral substance. Together, we championed the programs that are true lifelines of our city. Over the span of several public hearings, city residents, workers, business owners and organizations consistently and clearly advocated for the City to prioritize investment into programs like Code Blue, Right to Counsel, and the Office of Violence Prevention, and to divest from policing and other systems of control and punishment.
As a result of our collective efforts, we have seen, once again, that organizing works! Together, we made a difference. The funding the City allocated to Code Blue, Right to Counsel, and the Office of Violence Prevention is significantly more than when we started – from zero to millions of dollars in some cases. And, for the first time in history, the City allocated money from the general operating budget directly to homeless services.
The truth is, this fight has not been without struggle or pain. At the center of our advocacy are people who have courageously brought their personal experiences, their grief, and their grit, to the front lines.
We have not hesitated to speak the truth about the harm police cause and the paradox of a City that invests the most money in its deadliest department. We have not hesitated to call out the extremely sluggish and insufficient responses to the recovery of North City. We have not hesitated to demand that people who happen to be poor and people of color deserve safe and affordable housing, and the chance to live in community and raise families here without threat of violence in this city – whether from police, eviction, or natural disaster.
We have committed to mobilizing and practicing grassroots, participatory, and democratic action at every turn, and especially at a time when individuals at all levels of government are unabashedly leaning into authoritarian tactics – weaponizing news media against truth-tellers, condoning violent arrests and prosecuting community members, and attempting to vilify and misrepresent people who have survived the precise, state-sanctioned harms we are publicly advocating to dismantle.
As we reflect on this season, we uplift the wisdom of the late poet June Jordan, who wrote, “if you make and keep my life horrible then, when I can tell the truth, it will be a horrible truth; it will not sound good or look good or, God willing, feel good to you, either.”
Whether under the umbrella of The Hands Off STL Coalition or another, we remain committed to centering the experiences of the people and organizing toward a St. Louis region where everyone has what they need to thrive. We remain committed to resisting forces of tyranny and oppression, and we remain committed to an unfiltered truth-telling about what actually keeps us safe.
— Hands Off STL Coalition (made up of community members and local organizations such as Action St. Louis, Freedom Community Center, Forward Through Ferguson, Tenants Transforming Greater St. Louis, For the Culture STL, the Organization for Black Struggle – St. Louis, The MICA Project, ArchCity Defenders, and PSL St. Louis)