Bellingham could soon see unarmed 911 response for mental health concerns
Bellingham and Whatcom County officials are moving ahead with an unarmed emergency response program for those in mental health crisis, a service that was a key concern during the 2020 social justice movement and also for voters who rejected a 2017 ballot measure to fund a new jail.
Funding for a test run of an Alternate Response Team (ART) is being shared among the city of Bellingham and the county, along with $2 million in state funds championed by state Rep. Alicia Rule in the recent legislative session.
Exact startup costs weren’t immediately available, because many details are still being worked out — including staffing, vehicles and office space.
“I want people to know that we are committed,” Whatcom County Executive Satpal Sidhu told The Bellingham Herald.
“I think that we have moved very fast, including the city of Bellingham,” SIdhu said, adding that efforts accelerated after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
Sidhu said that a new division of the Whatcom County Health Department will administer the ART program, but he hopes that it will eventually be run by a nonprofit agency.
“This is so important that we don’t want to push it back to the police department. If you look back 25, 30 years, this was never a police job,” he said.
ART could start in late summer or early fall, said Malora Christensen, Response Systems Division manager for the Whatcom County Health Department.
“ART will provide a behavioral health response to 911 calls not needing police intervention,” Christensen said in a memo to the County Council.
It was uncertain how long the trial period would last, but the program was discussed in a March 29 meeting of the Whatcom County County Council, acting in its dual capacity as the Health Board.
That meeting included a presentation where Christensen outlined countywide services designed as jail-diversion programs for people who suffer from mental illness — including GRACE and LEAD:
▪ GRACE, or Ground-level Response and Coordinated Engagement, has resulted in 97% fewer EMS contacts, 67% fewer emergency room visits, and 84% fewer jail bookings among people enrolled in the program since it started in 2018.
▪ LEAD, or Law-Enforcement Assisted Diversion, reduced jail bookings by 97% among people enrolled in the program since it started in 2020.
“This team will be housed within the new division as complementary service to the work of GRACE and LEAD,” Christensen said.
ART will be dispatched by specially trained What-Comm dispatchers in cooperation with the Bellingham Police and Fire departments, said Dean Wight, a Health Department program specialist.
“We’re looking at cases for example that would be fairly low-risk from a physical violence standpoint, and those that do not involve a medical crisis,” Wight said.
Field units will consist of two teams of two people, including one mental health professional, and another with medical training, possibly a nurse.
ART will operate 10 hours a day seven days a week, he said.
Those units would have dedicated radio channels to talk to police officers, firefighters and dispatchers.
Initially, it will operate in Bellingham, but plans are to eventually expand it county-wide, Sidhu told The Herald.
That could happen within two to three years, and it has the support of mayors who represent the county’s smaller cities, Sidhu said.
This story was originally published April 3, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
