Committee approves making unarmed crisis-response pilot permanent; officials outline expansion, procurement and metrics

The committee voted to formalize the city’s unarmed crisis-response pilot as a permanent program and heard a data-driven update on the program’s operations, coverage and next steps for procurement and evaluation.

Councilmember Hernández and other committee members supported the move to institutionalize UMCR within the Department of Community Safety, saying pilot results show it reduces police involvement and is cost-effective. The committee took a roll-call vote and the motion passed 4–0.

Vanessa Willis, a member of the Office of the City Administrative Officer, presented performance metrics for the pilot. Willis said average dispatch-to-response times are about 27 minutes with on-scene worker time averaging about 19 minutes; roughly 3.8% of calls handled by the pilot so far have required redirection to police. Between September and February the fire department diverted 240 calls to the pilot for handling,…