Calling it ‘the right thing to do,’ Bellingham City Council discusses crisis response team
Members of the Bellingham City Council heard from guest speakers Monday afternoon at a virtual meeting about crisis response teams designed as alternatives to policing.
The two speakers, who focused on planned models in Portland, Oregon, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, presented during the Public Health, Safety and Justice Committee Aug. 24.
As part of the national conversation surrounding policing and alternatives to policing, the city council committee, which is made up of council members Dan Hammill, Hollie Huthman and Hannah Stone, began discussions about whether to create a 24/7 crisis response team that would respond to 911 calls related to behavioral or mental health, substance use or other public health needs, such as homelessness.
Stone said when reflecting on the needs of the Bellingham community and identifying gaps or places where a different approach could be taken, crisis response is one of them. She said that when people call 911 due to a mental or behavioral health issue, an overdose or they’re homeless and looking for assistance, that person should have a professional who is best equipped to intervene, provide direction and services respond to their 911 call.
“At this point, I just want to be abundantly clear that the how component of this is not a consideration of mine. The what and the why are what I’m considering. The what is we have a severe problem with mental health response and substance use disorder. And why do we need to do this? Because it’s imperative to the families and the individuals that are impacted by this, as well as community members. I want them to know that this is taken seriously. It matters,” Hammill said.
Stone said the committee is focusing on four different types of crisis response teams, some of which are fully developed, and others that are in the pilot or design stages.
The committee heard from Kristin Johnson, the financial policy advisor for Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, and who works with the Portland Street Response Team, as well as from Mariela Ruiz-Angel who works with the Albuquerque Community Safety Department.
Portland Street Response
Johnson explained that the Portland Street Response Team pilot will send a two- or three-person team, including both a medical and mental health expert, into one neighborhood in Portland. She said the team was initially given $500,000 for the pilot program, but that has since expanded to include $4.8 million for a program that will eventually go citywide. Johnson said the teams will respond to everything except for calls involving a fire, a crime in progress or when someone’s life is medically at stake.
Johnson said the model focuses primarily on people who are homeless because in 2017 roughly half the people arrested in Portland were homeless. Johnson said the model for the street response team was borne out of the first responder-first idea, meaning that when someone requests help, the city will send the right first responder first who can then help provide subsequent services and resources. She said staff on the street response team will also receive culturally-specific training so that they will be aware and sensitive to the social and cultural needs of all clients on the street.
Johnson said in creating the program, they surveyed people who were without housing and asked them what they needed, what was missing and what the best kind of response would be to the issues they were facing.
“That’s where we learned no lights and sirens. Obviously no weapons, because there’s no criminal component with this,” Johnson said. “It was really important to uplift the community in all of this so that they not just felt, but knew that we were listening to them and were being responsive to their needs.”
Stone said that some have asked whether investing in a 24/7 crisis response team is the right step, when there might not be enough resources further down the road, such as short- and long-term mental health, behavioral health or substance use disorder treatment.
“Having someone be met by law enforcement when they’re not committing a crime and are actually in a very vulnerable state, it’s just not the right thing to do. It’s not a good use of city resources and it’s very traumatic for people who may then start to feel like who they are as a person is a crime. And I think that’s worth changing,” Johnson said.
Johnson said for a community the size of Bellingham, where 911 dispatch resources are intertwined with the county, it may make sense to have a countywide program, rather than a city-specific program. She also encouraged the council members to go over 911 call data to find the disparities within the system.
“We’re in unprecedented times. There’s always a way to figure out how to get something done. It just takes the will of people and council to figure out where your priorities are and then fund those,” Johnson said.
Albuquerque Community Safety
For Albuquerque, they also operate with a “right response at the right time” model, said Ruiz-Angel.
Ruiz-Angel said they have created an entirely new department, the Albuquerque Community Safety Department, that is separate from police or fire. She said the community wants to create a new culture surrounding the department that can be sensitive to the historical traumas of Albuquerque’s Native American and immigrant refugee populations.
Ruiz-Angel said the community is currently in the budget approval process for the department, but said she expects the money to come from a refocusing of money from other city departments, but not necessarily the police department, which has several hundred openings.
Ruiz-Angel said the program will continue to run through the 911 dispatch center and they won’t have a non-emergency line or hotline. She said they’re considering also having a trained clinician in 911 dispatch who ensures that people get the right responses at the right time.
“We really felt that this department was really the right response that we needed to take. It was the right choice for us. We also felt that it needed to live within the city because of the dynamics that we know exist in our community. And additionally, because a lot of our partners are completely at capacity and taking on something like this, we knew that even with as much money as we might be able to provide them, it’s still going to be a huge task,” Ruiz-Angel said. “We just really think that something like this might have more longevity living within city government.”
Ruiz-Angel also provided the numbers of calls and cost per call when responding to someone who is having a behavioral health or substance use crisis, as well as the cost per call to take someone to the hospital for such issues. By analyzing data, they found that there were zero times where people were taken to social services centers for that year, she said.
Ruiz-Angel told the council to make sure that whatever the council creates, that their messaging to the public and other emergency responders is clear. She said that wasn’t the case in Albuquerque and was a mistake they made early on.
“This is about investing in behavioral health and community, not taking money away from the police. … This isn’t about asking police to give more or go without resources, this is about helping them so that we can start to be experts in what we do and let police be experts in what they do. We’re not interested in doing any Band-Aids,” Ruiz-Angel said. “The work that’s going around this has really been intense and it is taking some time. This is the moment. We have the political will, we have the momentum. We’re really going to keep on moving forward with this.”
She also encouraged the council members to engage the community early and often and to gather data from all city departments, not just the 911 dispatch center or fire and police. Ruiz-Angel said the goal with the new department is to deliver the right response to the right call at the right time and improve broad access to a range of social services, which would allow the city to focus police resources where they’re most needed.
Bellingham next steps
Hammill said it’s important to hear perspectives from everyone, including experts and from police and firefighters themselves. He said they’re community members too, and the committee needs to be deliberate in bringing them into discussions surrounding a mobile crisis response team.
Stone said the next steps were to ask for reports from various city departments, to figure out what the breakdown of 911 calls are, and what the community’s existing resources are. Bellingham Police Chief David Doll said he will gather data for the committee to analyze.
Information was also provided in the committee’s packet about the CAHOOTS program out of Eugene, Oregon, which has been operating for three decades and has mobile response teams respond to 911 calls that are not appropriate for law enforcement, and a pilot program in Denver, Colorado, that sends a van with a health clinician and paramedic to mental health, substance use and other public health needs.
“We are looking for best practices coming from various communities across the country. I’m committed to doing this, I think it’s the right thing to do,” Hammill said.
