Guest columnist Piet van Lier is a senior researcher for Policy Matters Ohio, focused in part on public safety and policing. He represents Policy Matters in the #CareforCLE coalition. He lives in Cleveland and serves on the Community Police Commission.
It’s 10 a.m. on a Friday in Shaker Heights. As she starts her shift, social worker Annette Amistadi scans recent emergency calls to the fire department.
She notes one from a resident of an assisted living facility the previous day -- it was his 122nd call to 911 this year. He struggles with schizophrenia and tries to use first responders as a taxi service, Amistadi says.
We head out in her unmarked car, complete with police scanner and two-way radio.
This is the start of a typical day for Amistadi, who is embedded with Shaker police and EMTs as a “co-responder,” providing a different kind of response for non-violent 911 calls.
She is also increasingly responding on her own, modeling an approach to emergencies that doesn’t involve police -- especially calls involving mental and behavioral health, locally known as “care response.”
The goal is to provide caring, compassionate support rather than criminalizing health issues.
Amistadi and the city recently received a $400,000 federal grant to launch care response in five suburban Cleveland communities -- Shaker, Cleveland Heights, University Heights, South Euclid and Richmond Heights -- that already share public safety infrastructure and are part of the same 911 call center.
Amistadi’s plan is to pilot three teams, each including a social worker and trained peer responder, that can be dispatched to certain types of 911 calls.
Regional progress on non-police response is promising, as the City of Cleveland and the Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services (ADAMHS) Board of Cuyahoga County are planning to start up non-police response in parts of Cleveland next year.
The ADAMHS Board is in the process of approving $2.5 million in funding for a program run through FrontLine Service, which currently helps staff the Cleveland Division of Police’s co-responder program.
Over the past three years, Policy Matters Ohio has been working in a broad coalition, now known as #CareforCLE, to research and advocate for this kind of program, to take police out of the response for people experiencing crisis.
Local efforts and the #CareforCLE coalition’s advocacy for care response are inspired by successful programs in other cities, including Cincinnati, Dayton, Baltimore and St. Petersburg, Fla.
During the first six months of this year, Amistadi logged 451 calls, 35 percent of which were related to mental or behavioral health and 27 percent to interpersonal conflict. Other categories included intellectual disability and physical health concerns.
In 28 percent of the calls, Amistadi provided mental health services. She also linked callers to services or current care providers.
Amistadi’s experiences with Shaker residents are similar to the findings of recent research in the City of Cleveland. With our partners REACH (Responding with Empathy, Access and Community Healing) and the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, last year Policy Matters released a survey of nearly 200 Clevelanders, many of whom have experienced housing instability, about their experiences with first responders.
They reported feeling more positive and safer when they received a police response for a threat against their safety, a firefighter response for a fire and a healthcare response for a healthcare need.
A majority reported that their calls to 911 were driven by health needs, either physical or behavioral.
As local officials embark on new approaches to making sure all our neighbors can be safe, protected and cared for, we must listen to what our community needs and make sure all parts of the system are working together.
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