By David L. Snelling

Miami – A nonprofit organization credited with reducing the crime rate among youth and young adults in the Miami-Dade County area is in peril after losing several crucial grants.

In April, the federal Department of Justice terminated its $2 million a year grant for the Circle of Brotherhood. The community-based grassroots group also learned the roughly $700,000 Miami-Dade County grant, which was frozen earlier this year, will not be restored.

Furthermore, the city of Miami terminated the nonprofit’s annual grant funding which was approved by the office of Mayor Francis Suarez.

As a result, Circle of Brotherhood Executive Director Lyle Muhmmad said the organization had to layoff 50 employees and place several critical programs on hold, including anti-violence and wellness interrupting the school-toprison pipeline and mentoring the prison population programs.

Muhammad said it costs an estimated $5.6 million a year to fully operate the organization and the only funding it hopes to rely on is $2 million from U.S. Rep. Fredrica Wilson, which also could be in jeopardy due to the government shutdown.

Muhammad said the organization is in dire need of funding and is reaching out as time is running out.

“We’re relying on private businesses and other funding to come through,” Muhammad said. “We were able to keep our entire staff from April to September despite funding cuts but as of now, we lost 50 individuals working in our community and the streets of Miami-Dade County.”

Muhammad and other Circle of Brotherhood members pleaded with county commissioners two weeks ago to reinstate the funds in a lastditch effort to save the programs.

But their entreaties apparently had fallen on deaf ears.

Muhammad said $100,000 of the grant money was reallocated to the Martin Luther King Foundation, and Miami officials designated $800,000 for the same organization after terminating the grant with the Circle of Brotherhood.

Miami City Commission Chairwoman Christine King is the executive director of the MLK Foundation and a close ally of Miami-Dade County Commissioner Keon Hardemon.

Hardemon sponsored an item in 2025 to freeze the county grant for the Circle of Brotherhood pending review on how the money was being spent.

Reportedly, there has been a rift growing between Hardemon and the organization after the latter endorsed his 2024 opponent, former county commissioner Audrey Edmonson.

The funding freeze was lifted but again placed on hold due to Miami-Dade’s $402 million budget shortfall which cut off funding to nonprofits to balance its financial plan for the current fiscal year.

Muhammad said the issue has become political and putting the lives of youth at risk.

“It’s not about the organization,” he said. “It’s about services not being provided to the neediest population in the county. We should be expanding but instead we are going backwards.”

Ashley Blake, a communications director for Hardemon’s office, said the commissioner can’t offer any comments at this time due to a pending lawsuit against the commissioner and county.