Creation of Portland Street Response as a behavioral health crisis first response team
WHEREAS,Portland Street Response (PSR) was established by unanimous Council vote on November 21, 2019, as an unarmed first response team to respond to appropriate 911 calls involving people experiencing a behavioral health crisis.
WHEREAS, a PSR Community Outreach workgroup, consisting of partners from Portland State University Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative, Street Roots, Street Books, the Mapping Action Collective, Yellow Brick Road, Right 2 Survive, and Sisters of the Road, conducted a survey of 184 people experiencing homelessness and produced the report, Believe Our Stories and Listen. This report recommended:
- Creating PSR as an unarmed response, operationally independent from police.
- PSR responders treat people experiencing homelessness humanely, listen to their needs, and be trained in mental health response.
- PSR include shuttling to services.
- PSR have the ability to distribute supplies.
- PSR should wear colored shirts distinct from other first responders and not use sirens or flashing lights.i
WHEREAS, the Portland Police Bureau remains out of compliance with a 2012 settlement agreement with the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, created due to a pattern of occurrences of excessive use of force against people experiencing a mental illness.
WHEREAS, PSR originally launched in the Lents neighborhood of Portland on February 16, 2021, operating Monday to Friday from 10 AM to 6 PM.
WHEREAS, since its inception, PSR has been dispatched by the Bureau of Emergency Communications (BOEC) to 911 calls where a person is outside and not in the street, is unarmed, is not displaying physically combative or threatening behavior, is not suicidal and: is possibly experiencing a mental health crisis, intoxicated, and/or drug affected; is outside and down and not checked; is outside and yelling; or needs a referral for services but does not have access to a phone.
WHEREAS, the Council voted unanimously to fund the 24/7 expansion of PSR on May 11, 2022, as part of the FY2022-23 Approved Budget process (see page 195).ii
Portland State University evaluation and recommendations for Portland Street Response
WHEREAS, for the first two years of its existence, PSR was regularly comprehensively evaluated by Portland State University (PSU) to determine its overall effectiveness, provide suggestions for program refinement and adaptation, and provide recommendations for scaling PSR up citywide.
WHEREAS, the original 2019 Portland State University and Street Roots report that informed PSR’s creation and implementation plan made eight recommendations for PSR to: respond separately from police; prioritize training in mental health, de-escalation, trauma, and listening, and they actively involve peers and people with lived experience in the work; make clients feel safe by responding unarmed, never running warrant checks, and providing resources and supplies; uniforms and vehicles be easily recognizable and distinct from other first responders; provide referrals to housing and health services and help transport clients to shelters, hospitals, and clinics; provide linkages between their clients and places they can go for help; help to educate community members about calling 911; and above all, they treat their clients with compassion and dignity and never lose sight of the importance of leaving people better off than they found them.iii
WHEREAS, in the October 2021 six-month evaluation completed by PSU, researchers found the program making clear progress towards its three outcome goals to: reduce the number of calls traditionally responded to by police where no crime is being committed, reduce the number of behavioral health and non-emergency calls traditionally responded to by police and fire, and reduce the number of medically non-life threatening 911 calls that are transported to the emergency department. iv
WHEREAS, in the April 2022 one-year evaluation, December 2022 year two mid-point evaluation, and final two year evaluation completed by PSU, researchers found the program continuing to make clear progress towards its three outcome goals. v
WHEREAS, the April 2022 one-year evaluation completed by PSU recommended continuing to expand PSR throughout the city at all hours of the day and to additional call types and continuing to refine and expand targeted community outreach and education. vi
WHEREAS, in the final two year evaluation in June 2023 completed by PSU, researchers found that:
- “…[T]he vast majority of calls that PSR responded to are ones that PPB would have previously been dispatched to.”
- “…[T]he vast majority of PSR calls (93.9%) required no co-response, 454 calls (6.1% of all PSR calls) involved co-response with other units (e.g., PPB, PF&R, AMR).”
- The most common outcome of PSR calls with clients was that the client was treated by PSR in the field and released (42.1% of all calls) and only 2.5% of all calls required clients to be treated by PSR then transported to the hospital by ambulance.
- PSR responded to 7,418 calls with no injuries to PSR team members. Of the 7,418 calls only one (a co-response with police) resulted in an arrest by police. In contrast, during this same period, there were 371 arrests associated with police responses to welfare checks and unwanted persons calls during PSR’s operating hours.
- Most PPB interviews noted positive examples of collaboration between PSR and PPB in the field; appreciation for PSR’s greater availability to take calls from police that are more appropriate for PSR; and general belief in the value of the program.
- Staffing shortages and turnover remained a considerable challenge and barrier to the program’s success, and recommended that efforts to address staffing issues be sustained, including providing staff with more structure and support, sufficient staffing to prevent burnout, and time for clinic supervisionvii
WHEREAS, in the final two year evaluation in June 2023 completed by PSU, researchers recommended:
- Continuing to refine call criteria and call types that PSR responds to as staffing increases to meet the demand. Also in June 2023, Portland’s Community Safety Division (CSD) completed Phase I of a Call Allocation Study that provided recommendations for additional calls that could be diverted to PSR.viii
- Continuing to prioritize communication, outreach, and engagement with community members, fellow first responders, and 911 dispatchers, and prioritizing education to correct the misconception that PSR’s primary purpose is to end homelessness, and thus the suggestion that the continued presence of visible homelessness is a failing of PSR.
- Adhering to the original mission of PSR and resisting scope creep. Researchers recommended that PSR should never be used to carry out sweeps of unhoused people, enforce camping bans, or require individuals to engage in shelter or service use; finding it counter to the central tenet of the program to not operate as an enforcement unit or use enforcement strategies in their work.
- Convening of a community advisory board of both people with lived or professional experience in this work, as well as general community members, to help provide community oversight of PSR’s work and serve as a critical point of consultation before any major programmatic decisions or changes are made.
- That PSR operate 24/7, citywide as a multidisciplinary team, noting “the presence of both mental health and medical experts within the same team is a strength of PSR’s model, and something that sets it apart from other first response and mobile crisis programs.”
- Considering the ideal organizational and reporting structure for PSR, including being properly supported within the Public Safety Service Area, or existing as a standalone Bureau. ix
Portland Street Response lagging behind national progress
WHEREAS, while PSR was one of the first unarmed response teams of the modern era that built off of the innovative Eugene CAHOOTS model, alternative unarmed response has been recognized as a component of public safety by many leading institutions, including Harvard’s Government Performance Lab (GPL). Harvard GPL has led Alternative 911 Emergency Response Cohorts of cities across the U.S. since 2021, and Portland participated in the 2023-2024 cohort with cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Baltimore.
WHEREAS, many of the now more than 100 unarmed response programs and pilots nationwide have developed further than PSR. Ten other cities have developed 24/7 unarmed response operations, and three other cities have established unarmed response as a co-equal first responder branch.
WHEREAS, Albuquerque, New Mexico, launched its Community Safety department as a co-equal branch to its police and fire departments in June 2020, dispatching three non-police teams through its 911 system; Durham, North Carolina launched its Community Safety department alongside police and fire in June 2022, dispatching its HEART team through its 911 system; and Seattle, Washington, launched its Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) department in October 2023, establishing a third public safety branch for unarmed crisis response.
WHEREAS, a 2024-25 budget note moved PSR “out of Portland Fire & Rescue and under the Office of the Public Safety Deputy City Administrator.” By placing PSR alongside rather than under other first responder bureaus, Portland inched closer to realizing a co-equal branch as Albuquerque, Durham, and Seattle have done, short of right-sizing the program for 24/7 operations.
Demonstrated effectiveness of crisis response programs
WHEREAS, a Safer Cities report found that crisis response programs across the country have successfully diverted calls originally directed to police, reducing the likelihood of use-of-force incidents, decreasing emergency room visits, strengthening connections to community-based services, and demonstrating greater cost-effectiveness as a crisis response model. x
WHEREAS, the direct costs of the alternative response model are four times lower than police-only responses, according to research by Stanford University scholars Thomas Dee and Jaymes Pyne, who studied Denver’s Support Team Assistance Response (STAR). xi
Public support for expanding Portland Street Response
WHEREAS, PSR is extremely popular with Portland’s business community, with 70% of respondents to a March 2023 Portland Business Journal Poll supporting the 24/7 expansion of Portland Street Response. xii
WHEREAS,the people of Portland have demonstrated strong support for Portland Street Response, including a petition that gathered over 10,000 signatures in a week in July 2023 that asked the Portland City Council to restore and expand Portland Street Response.xiii
WHEREAS, the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing (PCCEP) in April 2024 recommended that the City "Fund, Stabilize, and Expand Portland Street Response," and former Mayor Ted Wheeler responded favorably in June 2024, noting PCCEP and broader public support for its expansion.xiv
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the City Council agrees that Portland Street Response:
- Should remain an unarmed de-escalation program operationally independent from police response that is dispatched through the 911 system and fully authorized to respond to 911 calls independently.
- Should not be required to take part in sweeps and other enforcement activities, to avoid departing from its original mission and avoid undermining trust with the populations it serves. PSR shall remain committed to its original mission of addressing mental and behavioral health crises, rather than serving as a program for general outreach to unhoused individuals.
- Should be adequately staffed by individuals with the experience and credentials needed to provide mental health and peer support to people in crisis.
- Should maintain and increase access to all life-saving supplies in line with de-escalation best practices; including naloxone, blankets, water bottles, food, and clothing.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the City Council urges the Mayorto:
- Maintain and expand PSR’s shuttling capacity for clients who need voluntary transportation to appropriate services. PSR should not be called upon to shuttle individuals who are not PSR clients.
- Reestablish PSR’s communication funding and materials, including culturally responsive and multilingual community outreach.
- Direct the Deputy City Administrator for Public Safety to support Councilors, including the Community and Public Safety, as Council drafts amendments to Portland City Code to include PSR as a co-equal first response branch of the City's emergency response system (anticipated by August 2025).
- Direct the Bureau of Human Resources to explore designating PSR staff as First Responders, along with the benefits afforded to other First Responders, and provide recommendations to Council through the Community and Public Safety Committee by August 2025.
- Immediately launch a nationwide search for a new permanent Program Manager of PSR, with community representation on the search community, and seek input from the City Council as well as the Portland Street Response Committee into this selection.
- Prioritize hiring and comprehensive onboarding and training (including safety training) for PSR staff until it is fully staffed for 24/7 citywide response and provide quarterly reports to the Council on PSR hiring and training through the Community & Public Safety Committee.
- Review the results of the 2022 Call Allocation Study and continue to prioritize the Public Safety Call Restructuring project and report back to Council, through the Community & Public Safety Committee, on call types that could be diverted to PSR by August 2025.
- Continue consultation with the original PSU evaluators and report back to Council through the Community and Public Safety Committee by August 2025 on ongoing efforts to re-establish an independent program evaluation for PSR.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the City Council:
- Establishes, pursuant to Portland City Charter Section 2-103 para. 1, the Portland Street Response Committee, to provide recommendations on PSR’s future. This committee shall be created in accordance with Exhibit A and shall sunset by December 31, 2025, unless created and defined in City Code through a subsequent Ordinance.
- Strongly urges the Mayor, through the Office of Civic and Community Life, to create a selection process for the Portland Street Response Committee in a manner substantially similar to Exhibit B, such that applications may be opened at latest by July 1, 2025.
Sources:
i Street Roots, 2019, Believe our stories and listen, Portland Street Response Survey Report, BelieveOurStories_PortlandStreetResponseSurveyReport.pdf.
ii City of Portland, Adopted Budget, Vol. 1, City Summaries & Bureau Budgets Fiscal Year 2022-23, Portland Citywide Summaries and Bureau Budgets (Adopted).pdf. (p. 195)
iii Street Roots, 2019, Believe our stories and listen, Portland Street Response Survey Report, BelieveOurStories_PortlandStreetResponseSurveyReport.pdf.
iv Portland State University, 2021, Portland Street Response: Six-Month Evaluation, Microsoft Word - PSU Portland Street Response Six-Month Evaluation.docx.
v Portland State University, 2022, Portland Street Response: Year One Evaluation, Microsoft Word - HRAC Portland Street Response One-Year Evaluation_for public release.docx; Portland State University, 2022, Portland Street Response: Year Two Mid-Point Evaluation, PSR Year Two Mid-Point Evaluation Report_Executive Summary for public release; Portland State University, 2023, Portland Street Response: Year Two Program Evaluation, Portland Street Response: Year Two Program Evaluation.
vi Portland State University, 2022, Portland Street Response: Year One Evaluation, Microsoft Word - HRAC Portland Street Response One-Year Evaluation_for public release.docx.
vii Portland State University, 2023, Portland Street Response: Year Two Program Evaluation, Portland Street Response: Year Two Program Evaluation.
viii City of Portland, 2023, City of Portland completes call allocation study to improve public safety system, City of Portland completes call allocation study to improve public safety system | Portland.gov.
ix Portland State University, 2023, Portland Street Response: Year Two Program Evaluation, Portland Street Response: Year Two Program Evaluation.
x Safer Cities, 2025, 2. Santa Rosa Mobile Crisis Diverted 3,568 Away From Police Last Year, Three Things To Read This Week — Safer Cities.
xi Stanford University, 2022, A new Stanford study shows benefits to dispatching mental health specialists in nonviolent 911 emergencies, Stanford study shows benefits to reinventing 911 responses | Stanford Report.
xii Portland Business Journal, 2023, Advancing Portland: Portland Street Response looks to go 24/7, Portland Street Response to operate 24/7 - Portland Business Journal.
xiii Friends of PSR, 2023, Save Portland Street Response, Petition – Save Portland Street Response!.
xiv PCCEP, 2024, Recommendation to Fund, Stabilize, and Expand Portland Street Response, https://www.portland.gov/pccep/documents/pccep-recommendation-fund-stabilize-and-expand-portland-street-response-approved/download ; and Office of Mayor Ted Wheeler, Letter to PCCEP in response to recommendations regarding Portland Street Response (PSR), https://www.portland.gov/pccep/documents/mayor-wheelers-response-pccep-portland-street-response-recommendation-0/download
Exhibits and Attachments
Impact Statement
Purpose of Proposed Legislation and Background Information
The purpose of this legislation is to declare the City Council’s position and petition the Mayor to support and expand Portland Street Response (PSR) as an unarmed first response team to respond to appropriate 911 calls.
Financial and Budgetary Impacts
Expanding Portland Street Response is intended to divert appropriate calls from traditional police response, reduce the likelihood of use-of-force incidents, decrease emergency room services, and strengthen connections to community-based resources. This model has demonstrated greater cost-effectiveness as a crisis response approach. Recent studies indicate that the direct costs associated with alternative response models are approximately four times lower than those of police-only responses.
Economic and Real Estate Development Impacts
Not applicable.
Community Impacts and Community Involvement
Community input gathered through petitions, surveys, and other engagement efforts demonstrates public support for the expansion and enhancement of Portland Street Response. The City has conducted several public forums in which Portland Street Response has been a primary topic of community input, including the Portland Committee on Community-Engaged Policing (PCCEP) town hall on PSR on March 27, 2024. PCCEP recommended the funding, stabilization, and expansion of Portland Street Response on April 22, 2024, and former Mayor Ted Wheeler responded on June 20, 2024 committing to several portions of this recommendation.
The creation of a Portland Street Response Committee will bring community members into the process of determining PSR's future through ongoing engagement both with the community members who serve on the committee, and with their networks and the broader community.
Strengthening the program is expected to improve public safety by diverting appropriate 911 calls away from police response to specialized, unarmed crisis teams. This approach aims to reduce the likelihood of use-of-force incidents and enhance connections to community-based support services. This approach will also free up police resources for 911 calls that police is the most appropriate responder for.
100% Renewable Goal
Not applicable.
Financial and Budget Analysis
Analysis provided by City Budget Office
Economic and Real Estate Development Analysis
Analysis provided by Prosper Portland
An Economic and Real Estate Development Impact Analysis was not submitted for this proposed action. Pursuant to City Council Resolution 37664, Prosper Portland staff has reviewed the action and agree that it does not require an Economic and Real Estate Development Impact Analysis.
Document History
Document number: 2025-175
President's referral: Community and Public Safety Committee