The Montgomery County government announced Thursday it is awarding $1.2 million in security grants to county-based nonprofits, faith-based organizations and houses of worship that have demonstrated they face a risk of being targeted for hate bias incidents.
“It is unfortunate that we need these grants. There was a time when we didn’t need these grants. Unfortunately, this is not that time,” County Executive Marc Elrich (D) said during a press conference at the Isiah “Ike” Leggett Executive Office Building in Rockville.
The grant program is sponsored by Elrich and the County Council through the Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. This cycle, the county provided the largest amount of funding the program has distributed.
Council President Kate Stewart (D-Dist. 4) said during the briefing that the grant program has become more important amid changes at the federal level from President Donald Trump’s administration.
“As the White House stokes fears and flames of discord, we are seeing many people in our community be fearful. We hear from residents and we feel their worry when they tell us they are scared to go to places of worship,” Stewart said. “We hear and feel the sadness and the trepidation and the voices of parents who are concerned to send their children to places, andwhen we hear the concerns and the anger from our LGBTQ+ community.”
According to Elrich, the county received 121 grant applications for the funding, with the requests totaling more than $1.6 million, “significantly exceeding” the $1.2 million set aside by the county in this year’s operating budget. A total of 110 projects were selected for funding.
Hate incidents on the rise
The county has experienced a wave of hate incidents over the past couple of years. Elrich pointed to the Montgomery County police department’s 2024 report on bias incidents, which revealed that 45% of the incidents reported included some type of verbal intimidation, 11% were written intimidation and 11% involved simple assault. Three out of four of the 192 bias incidents reported involved religion or race.
According to Luke Hodgson, director of the county’s Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, the county’s Black community and Jewish communities are the target of most of the reported incidents, followed by the LGBTQ+ community. More than 60% of reported hate incidents occurred in schools, Hodgson said.
According to an October 2023 report from the Maryland State Police, spikes in antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ+ incidents contributed to a nearly 20% overall increase in hate incidents in the state in 2022. In the county, drag story hours have faced violence and bomb threats, pride flags have been vandalized and torn down, and antisemitic graffiti has been found in various public spaces across the county.
“These numbers do not reflect the type of county we want to live in. Montgomery County is proud to be one of the most culturally diverse communities in the country, and we’re focusing on safety and security for everyone,” Elrich said during the briefing.
The county reported a 38% increase in applications for grant funding in the cycle awarded in March 2024, with more than 150 organizations applying. The program started in 2018 when county leaders met to discuss ways to address and prevent targeted hate incidents shortly after the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh.
Councilmember Andrew Friedson (D-Dist. 1) was one of the sponsors of the original program.
“I am troubled by why we have to be here today for what is happening in our community, in our county and in our country, but I am deeply proud for why we are here and how we are responding to what we are seeing and what our residents, our places of worship, our ethnic and cultural institutions are facing,” Friedson said Thursday.
Responding with action
To qualify for this year’s round of grants, an organization was required to demonstrate that it is a nonprofit at risk of hate crimes based on its work or the communities it serves, or a religious organization that has 501(c)(3) nonprofit status and is similarly at risk, according to the county’s Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.
Organizations were allowed to submit up to five applications if they had multiple facilities. Each facility was eligible to receive up to $15,000 in grant funding. The funds can be used for security uses, such as hiring personnel, planning and training, drills and cameras, or a special device called a fususCORE that shares security camera footage directly with the police department through a voluntary program. This is the first year that funds also could be used for the device.
Police Capt. Nicholas Picerno said the device shares a security camera’s video feed in real time. “If there is, unfortunately, an act or an assailant event at a location, we would have real-time information on what is happening live so that officers can make a better informed and better tailored response,” he said.
Rahat Husain, community liasion for the Burtonsville-based Muslim community nonprofit Idara-e-Jaferia, said during the press conference that he and members his organization are grateful to be first-time recipients of the program’s grant funding. He said the organization and its members have experienced increased threats and hate speech over the past few years, including bomb threats sent during Friday evening prayer meetings.
Husain said the grant will enable the organization to improve security at its location and to provide response training for staff, members and volunteers and information about emergency response protocols to volunteers.
“The funding allows us to respond not with silence, but with action, resilience and preparedness, and it affirms to us that Montgomery County stands with communities under threat,” he said.
Rev. Laura Norvell of Faith United Methodist Church in Rockville said her congregation has been the target of threats and vandalism, including vandalism of a memorial garden where graves are located, for displaying LGBTQ+ pride flags and messages of support to marginalized communities.
“We’re grateful for financial resources that make it possible now for us to install security equipment, specifically many cameras, and when everything is installed, we will be able to monitor our entire property,” Novell said. “It helps our congregants to feel safe and secure as they gather in what they consider to be a safe space.”
Ron Halber, executive director of the North Bethesda-based Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), said he is grateful for how the grant program has expanded over the years. He was involved in planning for the initial program in 2018.
“[Houses of worship] are not institutions that are raising money hand over fist. The idea of trying to provide an additional layer of security, or providing money for security is very, very expensive,” Halber said. “There’s only so many cameras you can buy … there’s only so much shatterproof-window film you can put up … . But that police officer standing in front is the No. 1 deterrent to incidents. And for many synagogues and other houses of worship, without this funding, they wouldn’t be there.”
