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First year report card

A report on the first year of Portland Street Response was presented to City Council today. Here are a few random tidbits from the report:

  • 89% of calls to PSR required no further help from Police or Fire.
  • 65% of calls to PSR involved someone experiencing homelessness.
  • None of the calls to PSR resulted in any arrests.
  • PSR staff followed up with 44 clients, making a total of 437 visits, helping them with housing applications, benefits referrals, and shelter referrals.
  • Nine clients found permanent housing thanks to PSR.

Here is the full report at PSU’s Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative  (144 page PDF with executive summary).

Here is a video at portland.gov of the presentation to City Council (2 hours with captions for the hearing-impaired).

Coverage in local media:

 

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PSR coverage is citywide, but still only 8AM – 10PM

Starting yesterday, the city’s Portland Street Response program covers the whole city. Here’s a screen capture of the official website:

This is a significant increase from the pilot program’s coverage area (here’s a map from Mar. 8).  Thank you to all who have spoken up to get us this far. 

However there are still some limitations:

  1. The coverage hours are only 8AM to 10PM.

    Portland Fire & Rescue has requested additional money to provide round-the-clock coverage. City Council will vote on this in June, after reading the one year report on PSR, due out next month.

  2. The person in crisis must be outside, or in an indoors space that is public.

    According to OPB, this “expansion is subject to bargaining with the union representing rank-and-file police officers.”

City Council needs to hear from you on both of these points!

Here’s more news coverage:

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PSR to be city-wide by March 2022

The city’s non-police first responder program Portland Street Response will cover the whole city by March this year. However, there will still be NO round-the-clock coverage.

More information in Street Roots.

The current coverage area is mostly SE Portland, East of César E. Chávez Blvd and South of I-84. Here is the city’s lookup tool to see if an address is in the PSR coverage area. Check it again in March.

 

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Denver expands STAR program; St. Louis wants to launch their own

The city of Denver, Colorado is expanding their Support Team Assisted Response (STAR) Program after a successful pilot in 2020. More funding is budgeted to increase the number of teams, provide staffing for longer hours per day, seven days a week, and cover more of the city.

The STAR program sends teams of EMTs and Behavioral Health Clinicians to “engage individuals experiencing crises related to mental health issues, poverty, homelessness, and substance abuse.”

Last week St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones and U.S. Rep. Cori Bush visited Denver to learn more about STAR. “I wanted to see a response model that did not involve officers and see how that was set up,” Mayor Jones said.

The Denver police chief is clear about the goals for STAR:

Denver Police Chief Paul M. Pazen

Denver’s initiative … eliminates the police response to a call or having officers as backup. “The goal of the program was to get a better outcome for these calls,” Denver police Chief Paul Pazen told the [St. Louis] Post-Dispatch on Friday. “This is not a ‘defund the police’ type of program. This is an ‘and’ to police, not an ‘or.’ This is enhancing the type of responses to get a better outcomes and free up emergency services and law enforcement.“

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Congresswoman Cori Bush introduces People’s Response Act to Transform Public Safety

U.S. Representative Cori Bush (D-MO) was joined by Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) in introducing  the People’s Response Act. 

“Public safety is a public health issue. It’s time our approach reflects that,” said Rep. Cori Bush. “The People’s Response Act will transform public safety into a system of care rather than criminalization, healing rather than incarceration, and prevention rather than policing. We are safer when our communities are well funded, our people are healthy and housed, and our children have nutritious meals, excellent schools, and green spaces to play in.”

H.R. 4194 is co-sponsored by 20 Congress members so far, including Rep. Blumenauer (D-OR). It is endorsed by over 70 organizations, including the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Sunrise Movement, and others.

This is the 2nd piece of national legislation that would mandate using non-police first responders for mental health crises. Senator Wyden (D-OR) introduced the CAHOOTS Act last year. S. 4441 is co-sponsored by Sen. Merkley (D-OR) and 2 others.

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Insist that City Council funds Portland Street Response

The Mayor’s proposed budget only funds an expansion of the current Lents pilot to support an additional team. We need to see a commitment to continue to build Portland Street Response city-wide, by supporting the $4.2 budget proposed by Portland Fire and Rescue. 

Make your voices heard! Here are three steps to take:

1.) Sign-up by Tuesday, May 4, at 4 p.m. to testify before the hearing for the Mayor’s proposed budget Wednesday evening 

2.) Submit written testimony to City Council for the the Mayor’s proposed budget 

3.) Write council members 

Mayor Ted Wheeler
503-823-4120
mayorwheeler@portlandoregon.gov

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty
503-823-4151
JoAnn@portlandoregon.gov

Commissioner Mingus Mapps
503-823-4682
MappsOffice@portlandoregon.gov

Commissioner Carmen Rubio
503-823-3008
Comm.Rubio@portlandoregon.gov

Commissioner Dan Ryan
503-823-3589
CommissionerRyanOffice@portlandoregon.gov

Suggested email text:

Subject: Please fund Portland Street Response to expand city-wide 

The Mayor’s proposed budget only funds an expansion of the current Lent’s pilot to support an additional team. We need to see a commitment to continue to build Portland Street Response city-wide, by supporting the $4.2 budget proposed by Portland Fire and Rescue. 

 

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San Francisco has a new initiative to take police out of the homelessness response

Excerpts from The Guardian, Thu 29 Apr 2021 11.00 EDT:

Community leaders developed a proposal that would reroute all calls regarding homeless issues to the Compassionate Alternate Response Team (CART), highly trained civilians tasked with de-escalation and conflict resolution through each situation.

Proponents of CART estimate that the team would cost San Francisco $6.8m a year. The Board of Supervisors has already approved $2m. The other $4.8m would come from the police department’s budget.

Read the full article here.

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Demand that the police union release its grip on Portland Street Response

Write city council members and the Portland Police Association (PPA) demanding that PPA cede any claims on Portland Street Response labor. This is not police work.

We need to make these demands because the pilot program for Portland Street Response only launched after the police union allowed it, declaring last year that it “retains its collective bargaining rights over any implementation of the Portland Street Response program beyond the pilot program.”

Send letters or make calls to make these demands clear. Please let both PPA and City Council know that our community overwhelmingly supports the Portland Street Response approach, and that our community’s well-being should never be a bargaining chip. Now the PPA is in contract negotiations, the city must hold firm to its authority over the future of PSR.

Additionally, Portland Street Response must not be used as another bargaining chip for PPA. Unite Oregon is helping lead a campaign to ensure other items favored by the community, such as the new system for oversight that voters approved, are not negotiated away. Read about it here.

Contact information for the police union:

Portland Police Association
503.225.9760
manager@ppavigil.org

Contact information for City Council:

Mayor Ted Wheeler
503-823-4120
mayorwheeler@portlandoregon.gov

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty
503-823-4151
joann@portlandoregon.gov

Commissioner Mingus Mapps
503-823-4682
MappsOffice@portlandoregon.gov

Commissioner Carmen Rubio
503-823-3008
Comm.Rubio@portlandoregon.gov

Commissioner Dan Ryan
503-823-3589
CommissionerRyanOffice@portlandoregon.gov

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Survey of Portland voters shows stunning support for non-police first responders to street crises

Street Roots commissioned a survey with McKelvey Consulting to assess the public perceptions around crises response in the Portland metro area. More than 400 random registered Portland voters consented to the survey via a text-enabled phone number. The survey was conducted March 9 and 10, with a 67% response rate. Of the respondents, more than 10% identified as a person of color. Respondents were asked a series of questions on their preferences between police and non-police responses, and who were best equipped to respond to situations of crisis.

Here are some questions and responses, which show an overwhelming support for programs like Portland Street Response:

87% think non-police 1st responders are better trained to deal with street crises
86.4% think non-police 1st responders are better trained to deal with a wellness check
80.4% do NOT think Portland Police are the best equipped to deal with people having a mental health crisis
61.1% do NOT think Portland Police have a positive impact on homelessness in their neighborhood

The city launched the Portland Street Response program on February 16. It is in a pilot phase, limited to the Lents neighborhood. We want to see the pilot completed, and the program expanded.

If you are looking for the City of Portland's official Street Response program click here