Almost two years since Street Roots first proposed it, the program has launched. Now, there’s room for creativity to inform its development.
“When stepping into a situation, try to keep an open mind. Ask what they think would resolve the problem the best.”
— An unhoused person describing how first responders should approach street crises in our survey, “Believe Our Stories & Listen”
There’s tremendous hope invested in the launch of the Portland Street Response pilot this week. The assembled team met for the first time on Monday to begin weeks of training before it dispatches in February.
It’s worth taking a moment to celebrate this progress while steeling ourselves for the work necessary to make sure a full program succeeds.
Since Street Roots called for Portland Street Response in March of 2019, we’ve maintained that the new first responder system needs to be 1) big enough to be effective; 2) nimble enough to be responsive; and 3) entirely separate from the police.
The pilot involves one response team that consists of a medic and a social worker who will be dispatched to respond to behavioral health crises in the Lents neighborhood in place of police. The pilot also includes two community health workers who will perform follow up. But this model should not be seen as the exact blueprint for the final program as much as an opportunity to experiment.
Street Roots strongly urges the city to launch a variety of pilots for evaluation while supporting adjacent outreach work and investing in non-carceral places where people in crisis can go.
Overall, from the leadership to the infrastructure, Portland Fire & Rescue is the right hub from which to grow this program. One key reason is because it’s fully integrated into our emergency call system. While CAHOOTS, the Eugene-based program Portland Street Response is based upon, is integrated into Eugene’s emergency call system, this is an unusual situation for a grassroots organization based on decades of relationships. There’s no equivalent in Portland.
The 911 system, administered by the Bureau of Emergency Communication (BOEC), is the critical first step in getting crisis calls to the right responder. Call takers will discern when to send police and when to send the Portland Street Response. This means investing in staffing and training to shunt these calls. BOEC has taken the important step of aspirationally redesigning its call center so Portland Street Response is at the center, and police dispatchers are to the side. Clearly, in terms of budgets for the two first responder systems, this design is aspirational. But if we are to reimagine public safety, we must press toward this vision.
The city needs also to empower its residents who do not want to call 911 for fear of triggering a police response. Once the program is fully operational, it needs a specific phone number. While that line would likely be administered by the same call center as 911, it allows people to make the choice on what kind of response they are requesting. Many people feel helpless with the call options they have now.
Which brings us to nimbleness. A central conundrum of this model is how much the program is the balance between city scale and grassroots flexibility. Locating the program within Portland Fire & Rescue sets it up to be big enough to be effective, but the addition of grassroots organizations could create more nimbleness. At this pilot stage, the city should experiment with that balance, such as Portland Fire & Rescue providing medical expertise and grassroots organizations providing crisis workers from their work in outreach, and this could vary by neighborhood to be culturally specific. Fortunately, Portland has a bounty of grassroots organizations with similar concerns.
The current pilot requires that the first crisis responder come with the qualification of a licensed social worker. Additional pilots need to be developed that open up what the crisis worker position looks like, and what credentials are required. A range of experiences could qualify a person for this position, including lived experiences that informs the way a person relates. Then, it’s important that Portland Street Response develops exceptional training for the staff it hires. It’s on the right path, consulting for training with the White Bird Clinic which runs CAHOOTS, now widely sought for its expertise as more North American cities try to reimagine public safety. Ultimately, Portland Street Response could create an academy to train crises responders, developing credentials from within.
Our concern for the nimbleness of this work, as well as guarding the separation from police, is based on recent history. As our paper covered, the mental health crisis unit Project Respond evolved into a program that brings police accompaniment 70% of the time. A program that sets up too much caution and too many guardrails would be ill-matched for the everyday messiness of street crises and would continue to skew toward the status quo: police involvement. That can’t happen to Portland Street Response.
The city has more pilot funding than it can likely use this year, limited by how rapidly BOEC can staff and train call responders. But there’s room for creativity to inform a robust development of Portland Street Response. CAHOOTS excels by not only responding to calls, but also doing outreach and establishing relationships. The city could simultaneously support other organizations to develop more outreach, such as through Portland Street Medicine, which can support welfare checks based on relationships.
In order to be successful, Portland Street Response also needs places where people can go that aren’t jails and emergency rooms. The shuttering of the sobering station run by Central City Concern reduced options. The city has announced plans for an expanded replacement but with the possibility of police involvement. It is imperative that non-criminal street crises be kept separate from law enforcement at all stages for the relationship between reponse teams and people on the streets to be positive. Additionally, Multnomah County is planning a behavioral health resource center downtown, and we see its completion as paramount to these efforts.
From dispatchers receiving the first call, to boots on the ground, to safe places to steady oneself, every stage needs sufficient funding if we are to reimagine the public safety system as one that promotes well-being. Portland Fire & Rescue Chief Sara Boone summarized the ethos of Portland Street Response in her statements at the program’s launch this week:
“People are fighting to live, and we will fight with them,” she told the team of first responders. “If you can meet people where they are, even if it is fleeting, you have the power to transform somebody’s life. Even if they are at the lowest low, and suffering, you bring them hope.”
Street Roots editorials represent the opinion of the Street Roots organization and editorial board.
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