Reduce Police Footprint in delivering mental health crises and other services.
Berkeley has granted $4.5 million to Bonita House Inc. (an Alameda County provider of mental health and housing services ) to operate Creating a Specialized Care Unit. The SCU was a key and important part recommendation of the Reimaging Public Safety Task Force. The City hired Resource Development Associates to produce reports about all aspects of an SCU and work with a steering committee pulled together by Dr. Lisa Warhuus. ,Director of Health Housing and Community Development.
This sub-committee with representatives from BCSC, BMHC city staff, and other subject area experts including the people who will be served have been at work for 2 years with RDA to get to a final design and its fit in Berkeley.
Bonita House a Berkley non profit which works countywide providing mental health and housing won the contract. Initially $7 million was set aside by the City Council. As time passed the need to have bridging services while SCU was being designed and developed was expressed by many. Some of the $7 million was spent on six nonprofits to increase services while SCU was in the development phase.
Berkeley’s excitement was based on researching many such services. A successful model in Eugene Oregon called CAHOOTS caught everyone’s attention as a model to start with and to inspire a Berkeley-appropriate pilot. When it launches this summer, Dr. Warhuus said, “there will be numerous learning moments between SCU and law enforcement, between SCU and people in a mental health crisis.” There will be other teams on the ground, adding to the need for this coordination , partnership and cross systems care,responding to multiple calls at the same time. To prepare, some protocols have been developed and reviewed.
Three people will staff each ten hour shift: a mental health/substance use specialist, a medic, and a peer. It is hoped that a unique phone number will be created in the future for the community to call the SCU.
The SCU describes itself as an alternative to police, a model based on using de-escalatory stabilizing tools and techniques. The clinician on the team will be authorized to write 5150 referrals for a 72-hour psychiatric hold.
Community members have expressed the need for an independent oversight body to work with Bonita House. BPD is our largest responder to mental health and substance use calls. The paradigm shift of calls from our call center (Dispatch) which now go to BPD to shift to SCU will take time. A major effort will have to be made to secure sustainable funding to continue after the pilot.
In a pilot program with a 2 year contract period, Year one1 is all about setting up the mobile van, taking the kinks out, hiring and training staff, a massive shift of calls which come into BPD, putting protocols in place for all who will be providing direct services, signing partner agreements and setting up the program and administrative infrastructure.
We are following this exciting development and will do a fuller story in the next issue.