Safer Cities provides coverage and analysis on innovative efforts to deliver more safety for our cities and our country.

When a call for mental health service came in, Portland Street Response team takes the call, but if that person needed additional services—perhaps transport to treatment facility or a shelter—the team used to have to call in other first responders like the Portland Police Bureau, taking up additional police resources and slowing down the medical services that a person in crisis needed. But that changed this month when city officials transferred those duties to Portland Street Response—elevating the team with the capabilities that other first responders like police, fire and EMS deploy.

Momentum For Crisis Stabilization Centers Around The Country.

Nearly all of Minnesota’s 87 counties now direct mental health crisis calls to trained mental health professionals, rather than law enforcement.