It seems like every day we are hearing about another shooting on the streets of Boston, and the violence has many sounding the alarm about the need to get more guns off the streets.
But one organization is trying to help in a different way by paying those who used to be part of the problem. It gives former gang members a small stipend so they can focus on their future.
A string of shootings on the streets of Boston -- from violence in Chinatown to stray bullets in Mission Hill -- has police trying to figure out what's driving it. But at Boston Uncornered, they're working to prevent it.
"I just shake my head because I know like you can change," said program participant Kendrick Hood. "If I can change anybody could."
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More on Boston violence
Before Hood found the organization that works with gang-involved young adults, he served time for violent crimes.
"I know from experience when I was that age I felt like there was nothing out there for me," Hood said.
But at Boston Uncornered, Hood got the resources and support to break the cycle that traps so many young people -- and he says it saved his life.
"I honestly think I’d be in prison or worst case, dead," he shared.
Hood's goal now is to help others find a way out, so they can work with college readiness advisors like Ron Hopkins.
"A lot of my students they identify because I've been there," Hopkins shared. "I've been shot, I've been incarcerated for different violent things."
At Boston Uncornered, they're not discouraged by this latest uptick in violence. Instead, the CEO says it drives them to want to help even more.
"People get really exercised and excited when there's an uptick in shootings," said Mark Culliton, "but the truth is for the young people we work with, this is consistent. There's always shootings, there's always murder in their lives and we're consistently trying to say that can end. That should end. And that will end in Boston."
Marking it harder to stop the violence is unserialized, untraceable firearms that people are making at home.
