In the last year, more than 14,000 calls were dispatched to the CIRCLE teams. Mayor Karen Bass says the program frees up armed police officers, allowing them to focus on fighting crime.
A program using mental health workers to respond to non-violent 911 calls focusing on issues with the homeless is expanding through Los Angeles, focusing on areas where the need is the greatest. The Crisis and Incident Response through Community-led Engagement program, launched in 2022, dispatches mental health workers and individuals with lived experience, instead of armed police officers, to provide help and assistance for the homeless.
'If you can address a person who is having a mental health crisis early, you can prevent that person and that crisis from deteriorating to the point where you have to have police because that individual has become violent, or that individual has hurt someone,' Bass said. CIRCLE's mental health director, Latoya Stevenson, said decompression centers are essential to the program, and one has yet been established on the Westside.
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