Recovery-Informed Crisis Response
The right responder for the right call, with outcomes published.
Strengthen a dedicated response capability for appropriate nonviolent behavioral-health and substance-use calls, staffed in part by people with lived recovery experience, coordinated with police and fire rather than separate from them.
// the problem
The problem
A meaningful share of emergency calls in Santa Monica involve mental-health, substance-use, or homelessness situations. Those calls take enormous time, rarely resolve permanently through a law-enforcement response alone, and consume capacity needed for other emergencies.
// the concept
The concept
Route appropriate calls to trained crisis responders who can de-escalate, connect people to treatment or shelter capacity, and follow up. Include people with lived recovery experience, who in my experience are often the only ones who get through. Keep public safety fully in the loop with clear protocols for when police or fire lead.
Potential benefits
- Officers freed for calls only they can handle
- Better outcomes for people actually in crisis
- Fewer repeat calls on the same individuals
- A clearer path from street contact to treatment
How it could work
- Define call types eligible for crisis-team response with public criteria
- Staff teams with clinicians and peer specialists in recovery
- Guarantee real capacity at the other end — beds and treatment slots, not referrals into nothing
- Publish response volume, resolution and follow-up data quarterly
- Review and adjust based on outcomes, not activity counts
Challenges and open questions
- Funding and staffing a 24-hour capability
- Coordination protocols with police and fire dispatch
- Treatment and shelter capacity constraints outside city control
- Measuring long-term outcomes honestly, including failures