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Durham expands Community Safety department: more HEART teams, new homeless services and pilot survivor‑care office
Summary
City proposes expanding Community Safety from programs launched in 2021 to a department of roughly 75 FTEs and a $11.2 million budget, adding crisis response teams, co‑response capacity and street outreach while moving homeless services and reentry programs under the new department.
Durham proposed a major expansion of its Community Safety department that would add crisis response capacity, move homeless services and reentry work into the department and launch a three‑year pilot of an Office of Survivor Care.
What was proposed: Community Safety Director Ryan Smith presented a budget and organizational plan that would expand the office created in 2021 from about 13 FTEs to roughly 75 FTEs under the manager’s reorganization and the proposed budget. The department’s total appropriations would increase from about $7.3 million to $11.2 million in the next fiscal year.
Core elements of the proposal - HEART expansion: The city proposes adding four new Community Response Team (CRT) units to expand daytime coverage and three positions to sustain co‑response teams that are currently funded through a three‑year Department of Justice grant. Smith said the additional CRT units would increase the number of HEART‑eligible calls the city can field; he said roughly 20,000 HEART‑eligible calls were not reached within current hours over the past 12 months. - Co‑response and crisis call diversion: The proposed budget would maintain co‑response capacity (six units total) and preserve crisis call diversion staffing that operates inside 9‑1‑1 during the day. Smith said HEART responders invoke police backup less than half of one percent of the time and that the programs free up law enforcement hours; he said HEART responses saved an estimated 8,000 law enforcement hours this fiscal year. - Homeless services and street outreach: The budget would move the city’s homeless services team (six staff) into Community Safety and add five staff for a city‑run street outreach function previously provided by a nonprofit. Smith told council the change aims to avoid service interruption when the Housing for New Hope contract ends and to coordinate outreach with CRT units. - Office of Survivor Care: Council previously set aside funding for a pilot victim‑support office. Smith said the Office of Survivor Care would begin as a three‑year pilot with bridge therapy, help accessing victim compensation and a coordinating function. The pilot is funded at $220,000 in the current year and staff say the office will be staffed and launched in June. - Reentry/Welcome Home: The Welcome Home reentry pilot (two full time and two part time peer support staff) will move from the Office of Economic and Workforce Development to Community Safety; Smith said the city plans to pair the program with a guaranteed‑income element funded from a $1 million allocation carried forward from the current fiscal year.
Evidence and outcomes cited Smith cited emerging evidence that non‑police crisis response can change where people are transported and reduce arrests. He said HEART responses lead to significantly higher transports to the Durham Recovery and Response Center and lower arrest rates for eligible calls than law‑enforcement‑led responses. He also read survey and evaluator quotations describing growing law enforcement support for HEART as a complement to police work.
Council questions and staff responses Councilors asked about staffing feasibility for co‑response units, how the homeless services transition will affect coordinated entry and how the city will measure program impacts. Smith said maintaining six co‑response units is funded in the proposed budget and that the three positions in the plan were intended to sustain co‑response capacity when a federal grant ends. He said the department will produce a homeless‑services strategic plan as an early priority after the transfer of staff and funds from the Community Development Department.
Ending: The presentation framed the changes as an attempt to put crisis response, outreach, reentry and survivor services under a single coordinated department to improve cross‑program coordination. "We respond and are able to resolve on scene or transport without any assistance from other agencies over 80% of the time," Smith said of CRT outcomes, and he urged the council to monitor metrics as the program grows.
