Will an LA program that diverts mental health calls to clinicians instead of police continue?

In the year since the city of Los Angeles launched a pilot program to deploy teams of clinicians to respond to incidents involving people in mental health crises, it has diverted thousands of calls away from police and kept response times under 30 minutes.

Of the more than 6,000 calls the program responded to last year, the overwhelming majority were handled without law enforcement intervention, according to program authorities.

“This is exactly the type of solution that we’re interested in,” Godfrey Plata, deputy director of progressive policy advocacy group LA Forward, told LAist.

But with the city tightening its belt on the budget, it's unclear how much longer the $14 million unarmed crisis response program will continue. The contract with local nonprofits that staff the response teams is set to expire at the end of August.

The Office of the City Administrative Officer said it submitted a budget proposal request to Mayor Karen Bass’s office to extend the program for another year.

LAist asked Bass’ office if it’s likely the request would be approved.

“The budget development process is underway, and the Mayor will release her budget proposal on April 21,” a spokesperson said in an email.

Supporters say it's a good start

People living with mental illness, their family members and activists have long called for the removal of law enforcement from mental health crisis calls. The presence of police officers or sheriff’s deputies can cause a situation to escalate — and lead to violent or deadly outcomes.

Last year, an LAist investigation found that nearly one-third of LAPD shootings since 2017 involved someone living with a mental illness and/or experiencing a mental health crisis.

According to the city, the crisis teams — whose members don’t carry weapons — responded to 6,037 calls as of last month, 96% of which were resolved without needing a response from police. It’s a fraction of the tens of thousands of mental-health related calls the Los Angeles Police Department receives each year, but supporters of the program say it’s a promising start.

L.A. City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez's office called the program a "game changer." In a statement, the office noted that thousands of Angelenos in crisis had "received care from trained professionals instead of armed officers, de-escalating conflicts, preventing unnecessary arrests, and connecting people to the support they need."

"This is what community-centered, trauma-informed care looks like in action," the statement continued.

In 2023, the LAPD received nearly 43,000 calls for service involving people living with a mental illness or experiencing a mental health crisis, according to the department’s most recent year-end use-of-force review.

The teams in the pilot program clocked an average response time of about 30 minutes, a benchmark the county’s mobile crisis response effort — which covers a larger territory with more teams — has struggled to meet. The county’s response time has gone down over the past couple of years to around two hours on average today, from a high of six hours.

How the program works

The city partnered with three nonprofit organizations — Exodus Recovery, Alcott Center and Penny Lane Centers — to provide two teams in three service areas spread across L.A. The six teams are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the Police Department’s Devonshire, Wilshire, Southeast, West LA, Olympic and West Valley divisions.

Crisis response workers are trained in de-escalation techniques, mental health, substance use, conflict resolution and more, according to a report on the program from the Office of City Administrative Officer. The teams don’t have the authority to order psychiatric holds for people in crisis, but they can work with them to find help locally, and they can spend more time on follow up than law enforcement can.

Shortly after the program started, crisis workers provided several examples of their interactions. Members of the teams took food to a woman who was crying and hungry, worked with a business owner to engage with someone sleeping in a parking lot and sat with a family for nearly three hours to help resolve a conflict involving a relative.

Hopes and fears

Some program advocates who see the pilot as a success say they are concerned about its future because they haven’t gotten firm support from City Council members so far.

“We started meeting with different council offices, and while there is general support for this work, no one is willing yet to make any commitments or to confirm that this money will be carried over to continue funding another year,” Plata said.

Jason Enright, a volunteer with LA Forward who has advocated for several years for alternatives to police in mental health crisis response, said he recalls a lot of support from council members to launch the city’s new effort after the 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“But that energy seems to be dissipating,” Enright said.

Enright has a son who lives with autism. He worries that as his son gets older, a situation could arise in which someone could call police if he is experiencing a crisis.

“As a parent, it’s like, it keeps me up at night thinking that someone could be trying to help my son and that could end up in his death,” Enright said.

Enright noted that the pilot program’s budget is relatively small compared with the city’s overall budget, and its response times are encouraging.

“Clearly something’s working. I think with the proper funding and investment, and building it out to the whole city, I think it really could make a big impact,” he said.

Multiple efforts

The city pilot is one of several efforts across the region aimed at responding to crises without armed police.

A separate program, known as the Crisis and Incident Response through Community-Led Engagement, or CIRCLE, is operated through Bass' office and focuses on mental health crises involving unhoused people.

The county partners the Department of Mental Health with local fire stations to send out field intervention teams made up of a driver, a licensed psychiatric technician and someone who has personal experience with mental illness.

Its 71 teams responded to 21,000 calls for service in 2024, the department said.