Bellingham City Council takes this step to create a mental-health crisis response team
The Bellingham City Council is moving forward with developing an unarmed 911 co-responder or crisis response program.
It directed the mayor’s staff to create a budget proposal that provides funds to create a 911 co-responder model. Once operational, the model would send an unarmed team of designated crisis responders, nurses and community health workers to behavioral health-related 911 calls, council member Dan Hammill said at the meeting Monday evening, Sept. 14.
“I feel responsible to my constituents. I was elected to address some of the most difficult problems in society. I’ve listened and heard their struggles and I am bound and obligated and compelled to act,” Hammill told The Bellingham Herald about his motion that was unanimously passed. “I was elated that my fellow council members saw the value in this proposal.”
In an interview with The Herald, Hammill said city administration has already started the budget process, but he wanted to make sure this was included so that program development can begin as soon as possible. He said his motion directs the city to provide funds for creating the program. Hammill said he views it as a pilot program or limited version of the program that could be used to treat patients and collect data as part of the program’s development process.
Hammill said beginning in October, the mayor’s office will present the budget. After that, the budget will move into the council’s hands and they will work with and make modifications to it, or accept it, he said. Hammill said he acknowledged that we are in the middle of a global pandemic, that revenues are short and all departments have to figure out internally how to manage their budgets appropriately.
Hammill said it’s the council’s job to provide direction, but it’s up to city administration to determine how a co-responder program can be funded and what the structure would look like.
Hammill said he wouldn’t support a budget unless it has a “meaningful amount of funds for a program like this.”
Operational costs for the co-responder program are expected to come during next year’s budget cycle, as providing operational funding now would be premature, Hammill said.
Hammill said he’s hoping the program will be operating within the next year.
“I’m not interested in waiting for years for the program to be developed,” Hammill said. “We have families and individuals who need help now. We should be going with deliberate speed toward this program.”
In a statement provided Friday to The Herald, Bellingham Mayor Seth Fleetwood said “We recognize the need for a variety of response options, including unarmed response. We are working with Council and others to scope what it might look like, how to ensure it meets Bellingham’s needs, and how it can complement our other programs, such as GRACE (Ground-Level Response and Coordinated Engagement) and community paramedic. We are committed to evolving and expanding these efforts. It will take time and resources to do so thoughtfully.”
Fleetwood did not provide an answer to questions about how much money might be included in the budget for the program or where that money would come from.
Councilmember Michael Lilliquist said at Monday’s meeting that the community is sending the wrong people to help with behavioral health calls and this program will address that problem. Lilliquist said the program ties into the work being done over the past several years to decriminalize behavioral health issues but is also a more immediate response to calls to re-imagine and redirect resources related to community safety.
“I think this is a very timely and appropriate motion,” Lilliquist said. “So the question is are we sending the wrong person, and could we, should we develop alternate response teams — not the police, not necessarily paramedics, and develop a third choice? I say yes.”
Lilliquist said throughout the past four or five years, Whatcom County has continued to evolve in how it responds to people in trouble, in crisis or in need, but none of the programs, facilities or personnel are a 24/7 emergency response program. He said this is what Hammill’s motion is asking to create.
Lilliquist said he fully supported the motion, and hopes that Whatcom County could be a partner in the program.
“It’s time for us to move to the next level. … This will be one more issue where Bellingham may lead, but I think Whatcom County is going to see just as much sense in this,” Lilliquist said.
Working together
Hammill said response to behavioral health issues or behavioral health-related 911 calls is one of the biggest gaps in Bellingham. Community members and their families are suffering, and it needs to end, he said.
“I want the community to know I take this very seriously. This is a community health issue. This is a social justice issue. This often can affect disproportionately people who live in poverty and other marginalized communities,” Hammill said.
Hammill said he hopes that Bellingham can create and implement a 911 behavioral health response program that works with current social service and crisis programs that are in place, such as the Homeless Outreach Team, the GRACE program, the mobile crisis outreach team, the community paramedics, the behavioral health officer and others. It’s important to take the programs already in place into consideration when building the structure for the response team and to make sure they work together, Hammill said.
“It’s not good to reduce the efficacy of one program just to support another,” he said.
Hammill said he hopes the Bellingham program will be as effective as the CAHOOTS program out of Eugene, Oregon, which has been operating for three decades and sends mobile response teams to 911 calls that are not appropriate for law enforcement. The program handled roughly 18% of Eugene’s 911 calls in 2019. It also has saved an average of $8.5 million annually on public safety costs from 2014-2017, and saved $14 million on ambulance and ER treatment costs in 2019, according to information previously provided to the council.
Hammill said he’s most interested in the crisis response program that Portland, Oregon is developing. With that program, one van responds initially to the 911 call where they are able to triage the situation. Then a second van responds that has a community health worker. The health worker can stay behind and work with the patient on resolving the current issue, but also create a care plan for long-term solutions, Hammill said.
The council previously had presentations about various crisis response models across the United States, including the Portland model, at a committee meeting in late August.
Hammill said he and others are working closely with people who helped create the structure for Whatcom’s GRACE program and others who have expressed interest in developing a crisis response or co-responder model locally.
“I’m confident that within our community there are experts in this field that can help us create an excellent, robust program that will provide meaningful responses to individuals,” Hamill said.
This story was originally published September 20, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
