What You Should Know About LA's New Unarmed Teams Responding To Mental Health Crises

A new program in Los Angeles is deploying teams of clinicians — not police officers — to respond to incidents involving people in mental health crisis, city leaders announced Wednesday.

The news comes several years after city authorities promised to develop an unarmed crisis response program in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the local uprisings that followed.

“We recognize the need for the city of Los Angeles to provide a response in moments of crisis ... that don’t often require those armed with a gun,” said Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who leads the L.A. City Council’s Public Safety committee, during a news conference at City Hall.

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

In 2023, Los Angeles police officers shot at 34 people in separate incidents, 12 of whom — about 35% — were perceived to be living with a mental illness, according to the department's own data.

Rodriguez said the city budgeted $9 million in the last fiscal year for the new unarmed crisis response program.

How the new model works

Since March 12, two-person teams made up of mental health specialists, emergency medical workers and licensed marriage and family therapists have responded to more than 300 non-violent emergency calls for service, officials said.

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

Crisis response workers have training in de-escalation techniques, mental health, substance use, conflict resolution and more, according to the latest 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 can spend more time on follow up than law enforcement can.

Since the launch of the program, crisis workers said they have interacted with people in a variety of ways: by bringing food to a woman who was crying and hungry, working with a business owner to engage with someone sleeping in a parking lot and sitting with a family for nearly three hours to help resolve a conflict involving a relative who lives with mental illness.

Naomi Novak, deputy director of Intensive Mental Health Services at Penny Lane Centers, said all of that work takes empathy.

“And really just sitting down and having a conversation with someone when they’re all alone in the world,” Novak said.

Jacob Sadowsky, a mobile crisis response therapist at Penny Lane Centers, said he and his fellow crisis workers don’t drive marked cars or wear the kind of clothing that makes most first responders recognizable when responding to calls. Polo shirts and slacks are his preferred attire.

And he said he likes demonstrating how to show up for people in the community.

“I don’t think we’re going into these situations thinking that we’re going to fix everything,” Sadowsky said. “But we are modeling some alternative approaches to supporting each person’s community, and I love that.”

‘We can no longer wait’ 

L.A.’s effort to build out crisis response comes as the city Police Department and county officials have struggled to meet the demand for behavioral health-related emergency calls.

The LAPD has its own teams made up of an armed police officer and a mental health clinician, but it has struggled to meet demand. LAPD leaders have pointed to personnel shortages on the part of the L.A. County Department of Mental Health as part of the problem.

Rodriguez said without its own dedicated behavioral health department, the city relies on L.A. County to provide mental health services — like crisis response — to residents. And those services have fallen short.

“While it would be great for the county to step up and provide these roles and services in a comprehensive manner, we can no longer wait for those services to be fully realized here for our constituents,” Rodriguez said Wednesday.