Behavioral Crisis Response

This is a Minneapolis Politics Podcast, and if you want the intro, go back to the last episode, because this is part two of a conversation focused on safety programs that are currently facing budget cuts and or policy shifts.

Here in part two, we are focused on Behavioral Crisis Response, or BCR, our city's excellent mental health crisis first response program.

Okay, let's talk about behavioral crisis response, which the city wants to change.

The two things happening there simultaneously, one, which is this request for proposals timeline that I mentioned at the top of the show.

Another is this shift in scope.

decision-making.

So was this a failure of some council members to stay on top of the process? Was it differential treatment by the mayor's camp of their council allies versus opponents or both? I kind of suspect both, but it's hard to know exactly what happened behind closed doors.

One thing that came out in the second meeting that seems key to setting the level for this entire discussion canopy roots the current vendor for the behavioral crisis response program asked for more money than several other vendors that responded to that request for proposals and we have to assume that includes the selected vendor community bridges

Today, two changes on the table for safety beyond policing.

First, a proposed funding cut for violence interrupters, and also a proposal to replace the vendor that built out the Mental Health Crisis Response Program that is called Behavioral Crisis Response, or BCR.

Both of these changes that are on the table give us some reason for concern about the future of a Minneapolis public safety system and whether it will be able to meet residents' demands for preventing violence and providing appropriate, safe response to emergencies.

I am Jesse Mortenson.

It's not really a replacement.

So we're looking at a significant budget cut to a program that has been in place for a number of years here in Minneapolis, and we'll find out has had pretty good success in cities around the country.

We're also at the same time looking at a proposal that came in in the last couple of months, but really is the result of a process that started beginning of the year to reopen a request for proposals for who the vendor is that provides our behavioral crisis response program.

That's the BCR program, which is essentially like a set of bands that will respond to 911 calls when that call is coded and categorized as having the markers of a mental health crisis of some sort.

The same volume may also help explain the overtime paid to MPD patrol officers who respond to these calls.

Calls directed to the Behavioral Crisis Response Team makes up about 3% of total, 8,572 out of 266,848 over the past 12 months.

So far, the service has had only a small effect on the police and operator hours needed to provide public safety.

The city plans to change BCR vendors, moving from Canopy Roots, a local black-owned company, to Community Bridges, based in Arizona.