New Haven to spend $100,000 on ‘crisis team’

NEW HAVEN — The city has cleared the first hurdle as it looks to put in place a mobile crisis response team that would answer emergency calls for problems best solved by social workers, rather than by police.

Dr. Mehul Dalal, head of the Community Services Administration, said the team would respond to lower-acuity situations with an emphasize on “de-escalation, harm reduction and a rapid connection to services.”

Dalal said they will study the lessons learned from other cities that have implemented such programs and see how they answer New Haven’s needs.

The administrator said data from the city’s call center in calendar 2019 indicated that up to 11,000 calls, or 10 percent of the total requests for service, likely could have been screened and sent to the crisis response team.

Part of the call from residents protesting police brutality — a national phenomena — is to use social services rather than law enforcement in answer to some emergency calls.

The Finance Committee approved the allocation of $100,000 to help it put together a program tailored for New Haven.

Dalal said the overall goal is to have a more “holistic approach” to first-response situations by deploying a qualified staff to address non-criminal issues, such as homelessness, mental health crises and intoxication, leaving police to answer calls dealing with criminal behavior.

Carlos Sosa-Lombardo, the Fresh Start director in the CSA office, is overseeing implementation of a crisis response team.

He said they want to hire a qualified service provider that will lead a six-month planning process and implement multiple phases of the effort leading to a 24/7 response program.

He said this service provider also would help put in place protocols and identify opportunities for diversion from the criminal justice system, as well as establish sites that have programs in place.

Sosa-Lombardo said the crisis response team model would build in an independent evaluator as to how it is progressing and formalize partnerships with key service providers and a strategic plan that gradually would scale up operations.

Dalal said an important facet is to have valid community input and to build on existing systems, rather than starting from scratch. This would mean formalizing agreements with service providers already in New Haven rather than announcing yet another program in its own silo.

“We have learned the lessons of the LEAD program where you can’t just take a program off the shelf that another city (used) and plop it down in New Haven and expect it to work,” Dalal said.

Dalal said they would spend most of the $100,000 in finding a qualified contractor with experience in this field. Sosa-Lombardo said some funds would be used to visit other sites and for training and to secure technical assistance.

Dalal said the city would put out a request for proposals for a contractor the city would like to use to oversee a pilot so they have the investment to make sure all the planning pieces are right.

“To me the most important work product out of a planning phase is a feasible operational plan,” he said.

Dalal said he, for instance, envisions the contractor will take a “deep dive” into the city’s 911 system and see “how exactly are they going determine whether the call is low-acuity enough to warrant triage over to a mobile crisis team.”

He said it means coordinating the various legal, liability and labor considerations in implementing the program.

“Having that standard operating plan at that planning period would really demonstrate to us that this looks very feasible and we can run with this,” Dalal said.

Alder Jeanette Morrison, D-22, said she wanted to know what other departments are going to weigh in; Dalal said they already are talking with police, fire and the public safety communication departments.

“They are critical partners,” he said.

Other than that, Dalal said the office working with the homeless and housing would be involved. The Health Department’s harm reduction work underway on opioid addiction would be incorporated.

He said external agencies with experience in dealing with the mentally ill, such as Clifford Beers and the Connecticut Mental Health Center, would be part of the planning process, as well as state agencies the city would look to for help with funding.

Sosa-Lombardo said the contractor would be expected to get community input and he is envisioning having an alder sit on the review panel.

Morrison said everything is political and she advised Sosa-Lombardo to be in touch with ward leaders.

Dalal estimated up to $80,000 would be needed for the contractor putting together the plan. He said they don’t have the capacity to develop this plan within CSA.

In answer to a question from Aldermanic President Tyisha Walker-Myers, D-23, he said they have access to the analysis of the LEAD program and while there may be aspects of it that may be useful, it was a different model in its involvement with law enforcement.

“This one flips that concept on its head,” Dalal said, as law enforcement is out of the picture, in many cases.

Aldermanic Majority Leader Richard Furlow, D-27, pointed to the need for a workshop on the team.

Chief Administrative Officer Scott Jackson said the emergency medical operation, police, fire and the 911 center all have been on the internal Zoom meetings on the proposed crisis response team and have been supportive of moving in this direction.

But at this point, he said there still is a lot of work that needs to be done to determine whether this is what the community wants and how it fits into the collective bargaining agreement and other parameters.

Furlow said the proposal seems to be more of a response to a “public outcry, rather than having something done systematically, just to try to get something done quickly because this is what the people want. As elected officials of course we need to represent the people, but we need to move cautiously and make sure we are making the best use of city funds.”

Alder Evelyn Rodrigues, D-4, said Furlow surfaced some sensitive issues and “I’m going to leave it at that.”