Three Things To Read This Weekend
1) San Francisco’s Mission District To Get Unarmed Security Ambassadors
“We want to return the vibrancy, the beauty, the healthy feeling of the streets of the Mission, but we want to do that without criminalizing poverty… and we believe the community ambassador program is the way to do that.”
That’s a quote from San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen, announcing a new $2 million unarmed security ambassador program in San Francisco’s Mission District. As Mallory Moench reported for the SF Chronicle, the expectation is that a “local community nonprofit” will employ the ambassadors, all of whom will be “trained in mental health, with a direct line to city services to help people in need on the streets,” and given a mandate to “discourage unacceptable behavior, such as blocking sidewalks with tents, to ensure that families and seniors can walk by.”
ICYMI: After West Hollywood expanded its unarmed security ambassadors program— “a highly visible uniformed presence at the street level”— Safer Cities conducted a survey to better understand public opinion nationally on the concept of unarmed, uniformed security ambassadors. The results: 76% of voters, including robust majorities of both Democrats and Republicans, support the creation of an unarmed security ambassador unit where they live.
2) Four-In-Five Voters Support Creating Addiction Stabilization Units
Context: Florida recently announced new addiction stabilization units—speciality emergency rooms for overdose victims—in up to a dozen counties. The concept started in Palm Beach County with a mission to provide medication-assisted treatment to stabilize patients in the hours after an overdose, and then offer a one-stop shop for ongoing follow-up care.
Our Survey: In partnership with Data For Progress, Safer Cities conducted a national survey to learn whether the public supports or opposes the concept of Addiction Stabilization Units (methodology).
First, the survey provided a brief definition of addiction stabilization units:
Addiction Stabilization Units are specialized care centers inside of a hospital, such as in an emergency room, that are staffed by psychiatrists, emergency room physicians, nurses, and social workers. These units provide comprehensive medical care to patients experiencing an overdose, including treatment to manage cravings and withdrawals, developing long-term plans, and connecting patients with treatment facilities and social services such as housing.
And then the survey asked: Would you support or oppose creating an Addiction Stabilization Unit where you live?
Results: 82% of voters, including sizable majorities of Republicans and Democrats, support the creation of Addiction Stabilization Units where they live.
3) “When Mental Health Crisis Responders Reach Rural Residents”
While mobile crisis response units have proliferated in cities across the county over the past two years, there are far fewer programs in rural areas. That’s because “even though mental illness is just as prevalent” in rural America, “those areas are bigger and have fewer mental health professionals than cities do”—Tony Leys and Arielle Zionts report for Kaiser Health News in a story featuring a new mobile crisis responder effort in rural Iowa. The whole article is worth a read, but here is the key excerpt:
“Jeff White knows what can happen when 911 dispatchers receive a call about someone who feels despondent or agitated. He experienced it repeatedly: The 911 operators dispatched police, who often took him to a hospital or jail. ‘They don’t know how to handle people like me,’ said White, who struggles with depression and schizophrenia. In most of those instances, he said, what he really needed was someone to help him calm down and find follow-up care. That’s now an option, thanks to a crisis response team serving his area. Instead of calling 911, he can contact a state-run hotline and request a visit from mental health professionals. The teams are dispatched by a program that serves 18 mostly rural counties in central and northern Iowa. The service costs him nothing. The team’s goal is to stabilize people at home instead of admitting them to a crowded psychiatric unit or jailing them for behaviors stemming from mental illness.”
