Montes, who is the organizing director of Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice — a national group of 187,000 crime survivors advocating for public safety reform — was named to the first U.S. cohort of the prestigious Obama Foundation Leaders Program late last month. He's the only Denver resident among the 100 professionals who were chosen.
"I want to make sure communities heal," Montes says. "A lot of times I don't have the solutions, or sometimes I get stuck where I don't know what to do, and that's where I was when I saw the program. It builds my skill set around the issue I care about while building a network across the country and while representing Colorado and Denver."
As the flagship program of the Alliance for Safety and Justice, Montes's group "aims to replace over-incarceration with more effective public-policy solutions that are rooted in crime prevention, community health and support for victims" and tries to "advocate for more services and funding for victim services," he explains.Montes is especially keen on seeing more trauma recovery centers in the metro area and across the country to help with the mental and behavioral health of crime victims. These centers are meant "to provide people one place to get the support they may need," he says.
The perpetrators of crime are often victims of violence or crime themselves, he explains, and having ways to address their trauma could prevent a harmful cycle. "What could have been different if they got the support that they needed early on in the process before they even got to that point?" he asks. "We're not a direct service provider, but we try to show through evidence-based practices how local communities can advocate for themselves.
"This is something we've been advocating for across the country, and we've been successful in different places," he continues. "We see so many times that there are barriers to people needing help. That's one of the things I really want to focus on with my work in Denver."
He's hopeful he can make a larger-than-life impact on "how we address trauma" and the way lawmakers think about public safety through the Leaders Program, which has trained more than 700 people across the country since its inception in 2018.
Participants take part in a six-month virtual training course for community leaders, elected officials, business owners, journalists and other professionals trying to change society for the better. The people selected for the program have to be between 24 and 45 years old and have at least three years of experience as leaders in their issue area.
"I wanted to figure out how I can grow better as a leader," Montes says. "I hadn't really gotten coaching or training before, and when I heard the announcement, it hit a lot of the check marks that I was looking for."
"I wanted to figure out how I can grow better as a leader," Montes says. "I hadn't really gotten coaching or training before, and when I heard the announcement, it hit a lot of the check marks that I was looking for."
The son of Mexican immigrants, Montes has lived in Denver for ten years after growing up in Los Angeles. Several generations of his family have lived in Colorado, settling down in Aurora, Centennial and Denver over the years. He considers the metro area his home and continues to work in the Mile High City advocating for the ideas that the Leaders Program champions.
"Obviously, I care about my community, and I want to see the work that I'm doing reflected in the community where I live," Montes says. "I'm going to be rooted here in Denver, and I care about my community and our safety. I have loved ones who have been victims of crime and haven't gotten the services they need."
Originally, the Obama Foundation Leaders program only accepted applicants from Africa, Asia and Europe. But in November 2022, it expanded to start taking people from the U.S. as well.
Montes, 37, has only lived in Denver for ten years but has deep roots here and cares about the safety of the Mile High community.
Courtesy of the Alliance for Safety and Justice
Montes met with his fellow cohort members for the first virtual session on Friday, August 4, and has so far focused on making sure "we have timely conversations" to figure out "how we can turn all of our ideas into actions," he says. They've also been geared toward promoting "civic engagement and democracy."
"I didn't know what to expect," Montes admits. "I was a little nervous around where I fit in."
But now, he says, "I've been able to meet the caliber of people who are leading, who are training."
Program members have to meet each week for the virtual sessions, with the cohort talking together in breakout groups or meeting with subject-matter experts. Montes already "had the opportunity to ask questions, to dive deep, to bring in my perspective of living here in Denver to the national stage," he says; he was also provided with a coach "to help define our goals." In addition, he'll have the opportunity to attend an in-person convention in Chicago before the program ends in December.
"They're trying to build a community of support; they're really breaking us in," Montes notes. "We're trying to build an overall network because there's so many people doing different work across the country [in the program]."
The main drive in Montes's heart is a desire "to build a safer state here in Colorado," he says. But for him, that means focusing more on offering a hand to victims, who feel the failures of public safety the most.
"Public safety is not just the absence of crime. It's the presence of well-being," he says. "It's not just about reducing the crime rates. Obviously, that's important, and that's something we should continue to do...but we kind of just rely on having a crime response system. I want to make sure we can really focus on the well-being of making communities across Denver feel safe."
Montes meets with legal associations in Colorado and elected officials "to just uplift this idea" of recovery centers and doing more for victims of crime. He saw the announcement earlier this year for the Obama Foundation program and was attracted to its premise.
"It finds leaders from across the country that have a diversity of experiences," Montes says. "There are folks from the public sector, the private sector, tech and different things, but also a diversity of ideas."
Getting exposed to these things is especially helpful as an emerging leader in Denver and in Colorado, both of which Montes considers rich with different perspectives, he adds.
"One thing that I appreciate about our state of Colorado, and Denver specifically, is there are a lot of opinions and there's a lot of ideas that people have around solutions, politics, geographies, sports or whatever it may be," he says. "I wanted to make sure I joined a space that really promoted that. I didn't want anybody to feel alienated in my work."
