Seattle City Wire

Seattle City Councilman Andrew Lewis said he will propose legislation to create a task force designed to intervene in responding to mental health crisis so that trained therapists respond first and not the police.

“When a building is on fire we send the fire department,” Lewis said in a city council press release. “When someone has a stroke we send an ambulance. Why do we send armed police to help someone in a mental health or drug-related crisis? By the most conservative estimates one in every four people fatally shot by a police officer has a mental illness. This has to stop.”

Chair of the Council Select Committee on Homeless Strategies and Investments, Lewis said a fully-funded new mental health and substance addiction first-responder crisis force would be based on a program already up in Eugene, Oregon, called Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets (CAHOOTS).

Founded in 1989, Lewis said CAHOOTS responded to 24,000 calls or 20% of 911 calls and only had to summon police 150 times in 2019. He added the program has saved Eugene an estimated $8.5 million a year in police cost and $14 million in emergency medical responder expense, according to the press release. 

Lewis indicated most mental health issues are a result of poverty, homelessness and racial issues, not criminal acts.

“We cannot police our way out of poverty, racial inequity, homelessness and our mental health crisis,” he said in the press release. “By diverting these types of calls to CAHOOTS, Seattle has the opportunity to save money and invest in a program that adequately responds to people’s essential needs.”

Lewis said he intends to fund the new program from the budget of the Seattle Police Department. The program would be connected to the city’s 911 dispatch system.