Mental-health crisis teams could replace police response
San Francisco ExaminerAug 22, 2020
The six teams — four to launch this fall, and the other two by
Mayor London Breed announced earlier this month funding of nearly
But during review of the budget proposal Friday, Supervisors
The funding is contingent upon the passage of the gross receipts tax reform measure on the
"At least we will be able to say that we are trying to redirect all 21,000 of those calls," Mandelman said during the committee's hearing on the
Breed said in a statement earlier this month that "when people are experiencing a mental health crisis on our streets, we want to be able to respond in a way that is most appropriate and gets the person connected with the care and support they need."
"Often, calls to 911 or 311 about someone who appears to be having a behavioral health emergency don't actually need an armed police response," she said.
The proposal is essentially an expansion of the
Under the proposal, each three-member team would include a paramedic, either a licensed clinical social worker, a marriage/family counselor or a psychologist and a peer advocate.
Asked by Ronen if six teams would, Pang said, "if we work our butts off."
"We would have to have nine to 10 encounters every 12-hour shift," Pang said. "And that is the assumption that an encounter would take about one hour. I think that's a reasonable assumption."
Pang said law enforcement was not the best approach for mental health crisis calls. "Contact with law enforcement can be a trigger for people in crisis. It can be escalating," Pang said.
The proposed Street Crisis Response Teams are part of Mental Health SF, a program approved by the