The winners and the losers emerging from this week’s moderate-leaning Seattle election results agree: Seattle policing needs to change. Like his opponent Lorena González, likely victor Bruce Harrell campaigned on a platform including calls to “reimagine” the Seattle Police Department and “revisit where a gun and badge shouldn’t go.”

A proposed amendment to the city’s 2022 budget would create a much needed resource in reducing Seattle’s dependence on gun and badge responses.

Northwest Seattle Councilmember Dan Strauss, along with Councilmember Lisa Herbold and Councilmember Andrew Lewis have proposed spending $13.9 million next year to expand the city’s existing Mobile Crisis Team and to boost behavioral health programs to establish a 24/7 citywide mental health crisis first response system in the city.

“Seattle is at a critical juncture and we cannot afford to wait any longer for solutions. We don’t need to create new programs, we need to expand the proven programs we already have to meet the full scale of the crisis on our streets,” Strauss said in a statement on the proposal. “An effective public safety system sends the appropriate first responder to respond to emergencies right away. When someone is experiencing a crisis the right first responder is the Mobile Crisis Team who provides a meaningful intervention. My proposal will expand the Mobile Crisis Team and provide city-wide coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

The spending proposal would include $3.9 million to double the size of the Mobile Crisis Team “and greatly enhance its capacity to respond quickly to crisis events across the city.”

Seattle’s Mobile Crisis Team is a program operated by the Downtown Emergency Service Center “made up of teams of mental health professionals who are deployed upon the request of another first responder, Crisis Connections, or Designated Crisis Responders,” according to the city.

The largest investment in the proposal would create an $8.5 million “voluntary crisis stabilization center” similar to the Crisis Solutions Center currently operated by DESC.

The plan also includes $1.5 million to expand the team responsible for following up with individuals involved with the programs.

The Seattle Police Department also currently staffs a Crisis Response Team consisting of five full-time officers and five licensed mental health professionals “dedicated to helping people experiencing behavioral health issues.”

“The CRT both responds to 911 calls for service and are responsible for following up with people in crisis, connecting them with valuable community-based services,” SPD’s information page about the role reads. “This holistic, non-traditional, approach is a unique and important way for law enforcement to help our community’s most vulnerable residents.”

Expanding the Mobile Crisis Team outside of SPD and bolstering services could join other recent Seattle investments in emergency response beyond policing. This year, Seattle Fire’s Health One added a second unit dedicated to providing aid for homelessness, substance abuse, and mental health issues across downtown Seattle and Capitol Hill.

The proposed crisis team budget amendment is among dozens being considered by the Seattle City Council as it works to finalize Mayor Jenny Durkan’s final spending plan before leaving office. Publicola reports that the $13.9 million crisis team proposal could help address the lack of significant alternatives to “traditional police response” in Durkan’s plan:

Durkan has proposed creating a new “Triage One” mobile unit to respond to about 7,000 annual non-emergency calls about people sleeping or unconscious in public places, but that still “leaves more than 30,000 calls that will default to police response without an alternative funded at scale,” Herbold said. After a review of SPD’s emergency responses by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform earlier this year suggested moving half of the department’s call volume to other responders, Durkan endorsed a less-ambitious plan to divert another 40,000 calls to non-police responders each year—though her budget proposal didn’t create a plan for how to divert most of those calls.

Next week, budget chair and newly reelected Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda will present the council’s balancing package and amendments with a final vote on the 2022 budget slated for November 22nd.

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