On September 22, California Assemblymember Sydney Kamlager held a virtual press conference to call for passage of AB 2054 – also known as the CRISES Act — which would establish a statewide pilot to have community-based organizations serve as first responders to mental health crises instead of the police.
In late August, the bill, which was co-sponsored by 13 organizations and includes input from family members of individuals killed by police as well as experts in non-police responses to crises, passed both houses of the state legislature with bipartisan support. It still awaits the signature of Governor Gavin Newsom.
During the press conference, Assemblymember Kamlager pointed to a program that’s quickly found demand: MH First, which sends trained volunteers to respond to people having psychiatric emergencies or problems with substance use. MH First started as a pilot in Sacramento this January and expanded to Oakland by August. It’s run by Anti Police Terror Project (APTP), a coalition that has called for removing policing from mental health crises since its 2014 founding.
The idea behind MH First was to give an individual going through a crisis a phone number to connect to a support network. “All MH First is is a framework based on community members taking care of each other, specifically in times of crisis,” she says.
Boykin says the MH First model is “adaptable to the conditions,” which has kept it going during COVID-19 and possible to quickly scale. And as questions intensify about the use of force against people with mental illness, she and Brooks have not only engaged state legislators but also city officials across California about expanding MH First chapters.
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