Amid the destruction, this is hope
More than 100 non-police first-responder systems have taken hold across the nation since 2020
The Trump administration is sledgehammering progress made since the 2020 racial justice uprisings after the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. By institutionalizing hate and churning up discontent around diversity, equity and inclusion, Trump’s regressive, aggrieved-Billionaire-backed torrent fails to recognize that societal benefits are unevenly accessed and societal harms are unevenly inflicted. Or actually, many do recognize this, but they fight to maintain a society that benefits them.
Fortunately, plenty of communities have woken up to how dangerously ill-fitted a criminal framework is to noncriminal problems, particularly since some communities are over-policed.
Since 2020, more than 100 cities have built pilots, programs and departments to dispatch first responders more equipped to deescalate street crises than traditional police and fire departments.
This is quietly revolutionary.
911 operators across the country have, in recent years, become besieged with calls that aren’t about crimes, medical emergencies or fires. These are frequently calls reporting people as behaving in concerning ways. Sometimes, people are reporting people as “unwanted,” which is the actual call type in Portland, Oregon (According to a 2019 Willamette Week article “Unwanted Persons” calls came in every 15 minutes).
When police respond to these calls, they too often apply the wrong tools and training, resulting in dangerous outcomes. When people who are homeless or housing insecure get entangled in the legal system, they then face more barriers to housing and employment. At worst, people end up dead.
So communities across the nation have been creating a new option described variously as Alternative Crisis Response, Community Safety, Alternative 911 Emergency Response, Street Response. These are teams built of crisis workers, mental health workers and, often, medics. The fact that they are described as “alternative” conveys a transition; a system will be described as an “alternative” (in this case, to police) until it becomes, in fact, known for what it is, not what it isn’t.
I argue that building these new first responder systems across the nation will be a distinctly 21st century update to the centuries-old fire and police-focused systems that have been dangerously torqued to meet contemporary problems.
This is quietly revolutionary.
It’s happening now. Communities are engaged in constructive work despite the prevailing destruction. Below I’ll provide links for you to look at many of the programs directly, culled from both the Director of Alternative Crisis Response Programs as well as Harvard’s Kennedy Government Performance Lab. Other resources I’m drawing from to compile programs include Georgetown University’s Alternative First Response initiative under its Center for Innovations in Community Safety, the NYU Policing Project’s Reimagining Public Safety initiative, the Marshall Project and Appeal.
Ultimately, these need to be set up as co-equal branches to fire and police departments. Some cities are well on their way:
Parallel to police and fire departments: Albuquerque, New Mexico: Albuquerque Community Safety | Amherst, MA (Cress) | Durham, North Carolina: HEART | Portland, Oregon: Portland Street Response | Seattle, WA (CARE) |
Albuquerque Community Safety is perhaps the furthest among. From its origin in June 2020, it was set up to be co-equal to both police and fire departments, and it is now operating 24-7. I visited Albuquerque to learn more; look for an upcoming column.

A much smaller city, Amherst broadcasts its ambitions to be co-equal:

I’ve been working on developing Portland Street Response since the newspaper I published, Street Roots, proposed the program in 2019. Since then, I’ve been dedicated to realizing its potential, writing 30 columns about it.
I’m now working with Friends of Portland Street Response to advocate that the city expand it. The future is hopeful; five of the current city councilors signed pledges to fully realize the program and Mayor Keith Wilson has taken early steps for expansion. While it was first developed as a program of the fire department, the previous Mayor, Ted Wheeler, slid it under the Public Safety division by using a budget note, so that it’s now parallel to police and fire, although a fraction of the size of either.
Its early development under the fire department was akin to grafting it onto a strong branch until it was ready to be grow on its own. Many cities, in fact, have set up these responders under fire departments and emergency services:
Emergency services: Austin-Travis County, TX (CHP) | Cincinnati, OH (ARP) | Clear Creek County, CO (CHHAT-CART) | Honolulu (CORE) Emergency Services Department | Ramsey County, MN (Appropriate Response) | San Francisco (Street Crisis Team) |
Fire departments: Alameda, CA (CARE) | Anchorage, AK (Mobile Crisis Team) | Asheville, NC (Community Responders) | Billings, MT (CRU) | Colorado Springs, CO (ART & CRT) | Honolulu, HI (CORE) | Las Cruces, CA (L.I.G.H.T.) |Los Angeles County, CA (TTR) | Madison, WI: CARES | New York City (B-HEARD) | Oakland, CA (MACRO) | Philadephia, PA (AR-3) | Phoenix, AZ (Community Assistant Program) | Round Rock, TX (CRU) | Saint Paul, MN (CARES) | Salt Lake City, UT (CHAT) | San Luis Obispo, CA (MCU) | Santa Fe, NM (Alternative Response Unit) | Santa Monica, CA (CRU) | Tacoma, WA (HOPE) | Tulsa, OK (ART) | Winston-Salem, NC (BEAR) |
Others have situated response programs under health departments and similar government entities:
Health departments: Arlington County, VA (MOST) | Harris County, TX (HART)| Long Beach, CA (Crisis Response Team) | Northampton, MA (Division of Community Care) | Chicago, IL (CARE) |
Sometimes they are run by non-government community contractors, the way the grandparent program, CAHOOTS of Eugene, Oregon, is run by White Bird Clinic:
Non-governmental community organization contractors: Alameda County, CA (CATT) | Anaheim, CA (CCRT) | Athens-Clarke County, GA (ART) | Aurora, CO (AMRT) | Austin, TX (EMCOT) | Dayton, OH (MRU) | Denver, CO (STAR) | Eugene, OR (CAHOOTS) | Fairbanks, AK (MCT) | | Gallatin County, MT (Connections) | Garden Grove, CA (Be Well OC Mobile Response) | Half Moon Bay, CA (CARES) | Hartford, CT (HEARTeam) | Hayward, CA (HEART) | Huntington Beach, CA (Be Well) | San Francisco: Street Crisis Team | Los Angeles, CA (UMCR) | Nashville, TN (REACH) | New Haven, CT (Compass) | New Orleans, LA (MCIU) | Newport Beach, CA (Be Well) | Petaluma & Rohnert Park, CA (SAFE) | San Rafael, CA (Alternative Response Team) | Sonoma State University, CA (SAFE) | Worcester, MA (Crisis Response Team) (including contractors that report to the police): non-governmental + police: Antioch, CA (AQCRT) | Ames, IA (Arch) | Eureka, CA (CARE) | Irvine, California (Be Well) | Orlando, FL (CRT); or fire departments: Flagstaff, AZ(CARE)
Others are created across government jurisdictions, including a multi-city effort in California’s San Gabriel Valley.
multiple jurisdictions band together to run a program: San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments composed of the California cities of Arcadia, San Marino, South Pasadena, Montebello, La Verne and Monrovia (SGV CARE) | Bellingham, WA (ART) |
Finally, some operate under police departments as non-police programs:
police departments: Albany County, NY (Accord) | Bangor, ME (BCAT) | Brooklyn Park, MN (ART) | | Burlington, VT (CAIP) | Chapel Hill, NC (CARE) | Charlotte, NC (CARES) | Des Moines, IA (CARE)| Englewood, CO (MRU) | Houston, TX (MCOT-RR) | Los Angeles | (UMCR) | Louisville, KY (CCDP) | Modesto, CA (CHAT) | Olympia, WA (CRU) | Saint Petersburg, FL (CALL) | Vallejo, CA (iHART) |
What these first responder efforts have in common is that they are dispatched by 911, and are separate from the police, as opposed to co-responder programs. If I’ve missed a program that fits these criteria, please drop me a note.
They don’t rely on guns, handcuffs or bars; or fire hoses and emergency gurneys. The biggest tool is deescalation: listening, helping someone calm down and, ideally, meeting their needs. Eugene, Ore.-based CAHOOTS medic Manning Walker described it to me this way: the responder needs to listen to the story beneath the story. Trust is another important tool: people need to know that the interaction won’t suddenly go badly wrong, resulting in their arrest or violence.
This column launches the first of a series of columns on this topic from a national perspective (here’s the archive of columns I’ve written about l Street Response and CAHOOTS). Amid the destruction at the federal level, this is a story of how local communities are building a humane vision.
Last updated 23 April 2025
Thank you, Kaia, for working to expand Friends of Portland Street Response (FPSR).
FPSR is a healthy antidote to the fears of being unwanted. If you feel frightened, your brain reacts with fear. If you feel safe, your brain and body communicate better with others.
We all have a responsibility to help the unwanted feel safe. As a nurse, I often cannot take away the way a person feels. But I can be quiet and breathe slowly with them as they tell their story. The person who is scared then knows I am on their side willing to help them.
St. Frances de Sales: Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength.
Kaia, this is so inspiring, especially in the context of the current national catastrophe. As I now live in South Pasadena, I was deeply moved to learn that my new community is engaged in this program. Thank you, for all that you have done, and are doing, to advocate for positive, and proactive alternatives to cruel, and archaic, systems that exacerbate social injustice, and further traumatize those who suffer at its hands. These alternative approaches, gaining traction, do indeed offer hope for a more, much more, just and equitable future. You are a star. Shine on!