In first full year of 24/7 service, Minneapolis behavioral crisis team responds to more than 10,000 calls

by Mohamed Ibrahim, via MinnPost, July 2024

The average number of crisis responses per month increased from the previous year, illustrating continued demand for the service.

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The Minneapolis Behavioral Crisis Response team has responded to more than 10,000 calls for service since shifting to 24/7 service a year ago, the nonprofit told a Minneapolis City Council committee on Wednesday.

At the end of June, the crisis response program, operated by Canopy Roots, completed its first full year of 24-hour service as a team of mental health responders dispatched by 911, and the increased hours led to a dramatic increase in service. During that time frame, the crisis response team responded to 10,369 incidents with zero injuries — a more than 50% increase compared to the same time period the year before.

During that time frame, the average responses per month increased from 574 responses per month between July 2022 and July 2023, to 874 responses per month between July 2023 and July 2024, illustrating a continued demand for their services after increasing their hours. Previously the team only worked weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to midnight.

Since its launch in December 2021, the program has responded to more than 20,500 calls for service, approaching each call with the aims of decreasing criminalization of mental illness and avoiding involuntary hospitalization.

“The support that we’ve gotten from the city and from every entity that is involved in the city from (council members) to the police to fire and EMS, it just shows how much we feel appreciated and valued as co-responders the same as any other response from 911 services,” Dean Zoller, a mental health responder on the crisis response team, told members of the Public Health and Safety Committee on Wednesday. “I think this can only get bigger and better, and I’ve never heard a person complain about us being around first.”

The crisis response program is made up of unarmed, trained mental health professionals who are dispatched by 911 in pairs to assist individuals experiencing mental health crises, and provide de-escalation, emotional support and connection to services. The program began two years ago as a pilot amid a desire by Minneapolis officials and residents to develop public safety responses that went beyond armed law enforcement — a desire brought on by the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer. 

“This new branch of the Minneapolis public safety system helps to increase the public safety and health of residents by ensuring they get the support that is most appropriate for their needs, reducing police contact for communities that continue to have adverse experiences with law enforcement and creating efficiencies that help ensure officers are available to respond to issues most in line with their skill set,” said Gina Obiri, contract operations manager for Canopy Roots. 

Mayor Jacob Frey in February announced an extension to the program’s contract in the 2023-2024 biennial budget, bringing the total amount to $5.9 million.

Because the program has been a success, it is likely it’ll be extended beyond its current August 2025 expiration date during the council’s upcoming budget negotiations. But also due to its success and demand, it’ll likely see an expansion of its services, requiring more investment from the city going forward.

The group asked the council on Wednesday for immediate funding to purchase another vehicle for their fleet that isn’t a van so supervisors can join responders at the scene for assistance. Longer-term asks include competitive pay increases for responders in order to attract higher quality responders and to keep up with inflation, as well as a pay equity analysis for mental health responders versus responders from traditional agencies.

Council President Elliott Payne praised the crisis response team’s work, which he said has made the success of public safety beyond policing in Minneapolis more possible.

“One of the hardest things when we were trying to start this program was people’s just disbelief that it could possibly work, these kinds of flippant comments like, ‘What are you going to do, send a social worker to a bank robbery?’ People just could not envision anything other than police being a first responder,” Payne said. “This is just the beginning of the vision, but I think that vision is now more tangible for so many more people because you’re out there in the real world everyday making that difference.”