What's Good with Alternative Care Response

[00:00:00] What's Good Ohio? On your host James Hays and this is The What's Good Ohio Podcast. We talked to the activists, organizers, visionaries, and good trouble makers coming together to make our state better for everyone. No exceptions. Today I'm joined by Sarah Roanberg from Policy Matters Ohio.

[00:00:35] What's Good Sarah? Oh everything is good. It's finally fall and not 95 degrees in humid anymore. And my Wisconsin blood is very happy about the sides that I actually just, I was out of town all weekend for my little brothers wedding and I'm still recuperating from that.

[00:00:56] How was your weekend, James? Our weekend was it was okay. The family was sick. Felix brought some illness into the house as toddlers often do. And so I was okay but you're from most part, but everyone was down. So we're back up in our feeling better.

[00:01:20] But yeah it was a rough weekend in the Hays household. It's been with you again though. Have another conversation. Today we're talking about whats Good with Alternative Care Response Program. We're joined by Stephen David. He's also an organizer with the Columbus Safety Collective group that exists to create

[00:01:40] an anti-racist health centered non-policy emergency response program for the city of Columbus. We also have our very own brief searcher from Policy Matters Ohio. Bre Easterly joining us to talk about some of the care response work they've done in Cleveland. Welcome Steve and Bre.

[00:01:57] Thanks so much for having us. Thank you. Of course. Well let's just get right into it. You both work in creating a care response or alternative response, which is a health first approach to emergency responses.

[00:02:11] Under this model trained mental health responders are dispatched to help with person experiencing a mental health or behavioral crises instead of armed law enforcement officers. The healthcare provider then connects the person to medical care, substance use treatment, shelters, or other services.

[00:02:27] Why don't we just have both of you tell us a bit about yourselves or background and how you've got into non-policy care response advocacy or research? Steve will start with you. Awesome, thanks so much Sarah. So appreciate y'all making this space for this conversation.

[00:02:42] You know this I think I've been hearing a number of these like think pieces the past couple months about kind of like what are the implications of the the

[00:02:51] the operations of 2020 and and I think whereas like a lot of people want to you know point to the fact that you know we haven't seen like a lot of really substantive like police practice or police accountability reforms like one thing that I think we can point to really

[00:03:04] Sally is this nationwide movement to building alternative crisis response infrastructure in cities across the country. So depending on like whose report you read you'll see anywhere between like a hundred and a hundred and sixty different programs that are currently operating around the country.

[00:03:19] In various cities and so these take on like all different kinds of forms and you know from things like call diversion to call response to non-police response.

[00:03:28] But I want to say that at the jump because I think like it's an important thing like this is a place where like that movement like got you know concrete policies and programs that are making people's lives better right now.

[00:03:39] And I think it's an important thing for us to own right at the beginning. So to answer your questions there like I've been in this space for a long time like I'm a social worker by training I've kind of been around community violence and anti violence work.

[00:03:51] You know my entire career in social work and the organizing of the Columbus Safety Collective really came out of that summer of 2020 when some folks were really starting to look at how our city.

[00:04:01] And it's spending its budget and these questions around like where our money goes in the fact that one out of every three of our dollar spent the city Columbus goes to paying for police.

[00:04:10] And so those conversations have snowballed and become part of this like nationwide movement where we're trying to do some good work here in central higher around it. Amazing. Thank you so much Steve how about you, Bree.

[00:04:21] You know, I come to this work as a directly impacted individual myself and so professionally, you know, I've been in just like the social justice spaces actually. So just social activism spaces for I want to say a little over a decade now.

[00:04:40] A lot of people and you know, just the Steve's point is like, you know, the 2020 uprisings sort of a wake-up hall, but you know, as a directly impacted individual and as a person that comes

[00:04:50] from a historic, we've marked a lot of community like the the the alarms have been sounding since before me. You know, since before I I've existed, you know, if in the sense of even like this

[00:05:06] uptake of awareness around police violence, it wasn't 2020 for me, you know, it was it was to trade by Martin, you know, it was Philando Castell, you know, it was current gaze, you know, Mike Brown like this is like 20 we're talking 20s well 2013, 2014, where you know, from my

[00:05:28] where out, you know, from my perspective and if you know from that's one of the alarms we're we're ringing then, you know, Tenea Anderson died within the dormant mental health crisis, Philo Boppellies right here, Cleveland, 47, within within two weeks of Temear Rice being

[00:05:48] gunned down just 10 minutes away from there. So from from where it's in these answers was killed. So you know, that's how I show up in this in this space, you know, as something advocating for

[00:06:01] something that when I went back again as a directly impacted, there was like, wow, I was I would have had that and I wish my community would have been able to access something like this

[00:06:10] because it would have prevented a lot of harm, it would have preserved a lot of lives. As we see they're doing so now and in the places that it has been included. Yeah, thank you so much for bringing

[00:06:26] all that into the conversation very and you Steve as well, you know, for for really grounding us and where this particular policy comes from, you know, and grounding it in the long-term work that's been going on to bring justice for our communities, particularly black communities.

[00:06:45] And I want to take us back as Steve to that summer of 2020 and you said, you know, there are a number of conversations going on that ultimately led to the creation of the Columbus Safety Collective.

[00:06:55] As far as you can tell, so what we all talked about, how did the Columbus Safety Collective Safety Collective form? What did you form to do? Yeah, thanks, James. So the genesis of the Safety Collective, I cite a single activist in Columbus that started an Instagram account called

[00:07:11] the People's Budget of Columbus. She put out a graph that had a, you know, a bar chart of the city budget and how much we spent on police first like how much we spent on some other things

[00:07:22] with the title that cities are really just police departments with some underfunded services on the side, which is a good way to describe them. I think if you're looking at like how where their money goes. But so the Columbus dispatch actually picked up this viral graph and

[00:07:36] ran a fact check of it because one of the bars in there was for education and so the dispatch said, like, okay, well, you know, Columbus City Schools has its own budget. So this is a bit of like a

[00:07:44] misnomer as far as like how is it's not like an apple's to apples. And so I saw the dispatch ran that and then I went like, I put up a graph that I made, you know, I just like I downloaded like the

[00:07:54] city's operating budget and I made a graph of all the stuff. And is true that like a third of the dollars the city spends goes to police, like two thirds go to public safety in general.

[00:08:03] And so after I put that graph again on Instagram and an organizer that I had known for a number years that I like that I met you know back in 2014 reached out to me and was like, hey,

[00:08:13] like you should be talking to these people's budget people. So it was really like it started like with that awareness that like this is fundamentally like a policy decision, right? Like how like what

[00:08:23] we're investing in and how we're spending our money. So on the discord channel that got started around, you know, the people as budget of Columbus, we started talking on one of these buckets

[00:08:33] about alternative or mental health or health first crisis response. And this is really like for me, my entrance point was like as a social worker as someone who's been around some of the work happening around Columbus Public Health and you know, just these alternative approaches to community safety

[00:08:48] that we've you know, been hearing about for years and years and years. And so I kind of brought that perspective of like being aware of some of this stuff happening and kind of like the mental health

[00:08:57] and service provider community. And then got connected with some other folks that were, you know, trying to do this work, you know, there there was an economist, you know, somebody who was like working

[00:09:05] with older adults, somebody who was working in the housing space. And but we all like saw this as something that like our city should build and quickly became aware that there's other programs operating

[00:09:14] in different forms like all across the country. So it was really kind of like this moment of like finding a group of people and opening our eyes to what was there. And then started pushing on the

[00:09:23] city Columbus to make these investments. And so we formed the safety collective just like projects and power and pretend that we were bigger than we were and since then I have been able to have

[00:09:31] a lot of great conversations with community and them and build some momentum around this issue in our city. Great, Steve. And then, Bree, you've been working with community members, advocates, elected officials and other stakeholders to establish a care response in Cleveland. How is that work

[00:09:49] being going? What's our status at this point? Yeah, so yeah, I stepped into the, like the advocacy work around care response in July of last year. And that was my intro to the work

[00:10:07] was when I was brought on through policy matters Ohio as a public safety fellow. And but prior to me being brought on, the work was already been done. There was a grass was organization

[00:10:22] that was founded by the land slifer and just like a coral caught reach responding with into the access to community healing. And that had really just explicitly, explicitly, intentionally created this organization to focus solely on building out a not police care response

[00:10:44] for Cleveland. They partnered with policy matters along with Niyak. It came out with this shoes, like directly impact the survey. They targeted specifically the on-house community initially to get their response and their feedback. Yeah, their voice is hard on what their

[00:11:03] interaction has been like with farce responders here in Cleveland. And after that, you know, just the momentum just kind of like grew and grew as a earlier this summer we put out what we lost

[00:11:16] the a petition, urgent city officials city council in the mayor to pump out, you know, a non-police care response pilot on by the end of 2024. Right after we launched that, we launched the care for clean campaign on which right now we have roughly 25

[00:11:42] coalition partners, majority other grassroots organizations, a couple of mental health agencies that have signed on also. And you know, we've seen a lot of positive, we've seen a lot of positive

[00:11:57] feedback from the community. I've just been a lot of progress. There was a report that came out out of another coalition's working group that we had on over this past winter that was presented to the county, Adams Board, you know, urgent, again, urgent, then to put funding behind

[00:12:19] a non-police care response pilot. So that is getting some momentum, you know, at least in theory, you know, they are slated and have come out on records to state that, you know, there will

[00:12:34] be funding behind a care response pilot in partnership with the county and the city of Cleveland. The thing that, you know, I am always mindful of and just urge other folks on who are trying

[00:12:54] to develop like this type of program in your localities to make sure that, like, there is space for the entire process to be informed by community members directly impacted and go to those that

[00:13:09] that the coordination and the collaboration with the city officials or with the folks that are funding this is transparent and seamless. But other than that, you know, there's been a lot of

[00:13:24] forward movement on this from the time that I came on board to now, you know, at any type of what you're trying to change the system or create an entire new one that essentially confronts

[00:13:40] what we know to be like the norm or like the status quo which oftentimes is harmful, there's going to be a lot of bumps in a row, there's going to be, you know, a lot of pushing

[00:13:50] pulling and, you know, you just gotta, gotta, grow with the punches and stay in the ring. So that's kind of like where our last step is right now here in Cleveland. Yeah, no, that's,

[00:14:04] that's really, really exciting to hear. And that's what makes me so excited about this issue is that there is such a willingness to have the conversation and it seems to be moving forward in different ways.

[00:14:16] And obviously, like you said, just there at the end, there's lots of impediments that we're seeing and we're running into and we're going to hear a little bit more about that. But, you know,

[00:14:25] another thing you said originated with, they're right there, Breeze, that, you know, as we're talking about changing a large system, you know, how do we turn this huge ship here? How do you turn the

[00:14:34] Titanic, you know? And, you know, it's going to be, I think through finding issues like this that are winnable, that do move us along the right path. I remember early on, I can 2014 when

[00:14:51] I got involved in doing work around policing. And we're being on some calls and people are talking about like, oh, we got some great, great demands. Let's, let's do body cameras, you know, because

[00:15:00] we don't have body cameras. And there goes a great demand and then it took about like three weeks and people are like, you know what, that's just going to put more money into other people's pockets.

[00:15:10] Somebody's pockets to actually expand the size of sort of the carceral state. And so, find these types of reforms that actually put us on the right path where we're really asking

[00:15:24] our community's a question about how are we going to provide safety? How are we going to be safe? Are we going to do it through punishment? Are we going to find other alternative means to provide

[00:15:36] safety? Right. And then, yeah, let me just say like, yeah, I mean that's what it comes down to right. Like, like, at the, at the, like, base of this right is by the all time okay and,

[00:15:48] and looking at things with like not even just a health first protocol, a restore over story of justice approach like versus community. Like, because I don't know like how many, you know,

[00:16:05] like research papers, you know, need to come out so to show that like a punitive approach is this is not conducive to, you know, addressing the issues that we're seeing in our communities and

[00:16:20] in terms of, like, like, like, like, I mean, you know, like research papers, you know, need to come out. So, the show that like a punitive approach is this is not conducive to, you know, addressing

[00:16:40] the issues that we're seeing in our communities and, and to piggyback off a stage, like, in terms of like, with the budget landscape looks like, and Cleveland, you know, like, yeah,

[00:16:55] you know, Cleveland has a Cleveland has a budget. I think this, it last year was like one point eight billion. This year is one point nine. And, you know, out of that, public safety gets like a third,

[00:17:12] over a third, um, into to what? And we have a mental health response advisory committee here. And they have reported that like for the two years that it was right, almost 90% of all the incidents that were responded to by Cleveland's crisis intervention team, the CIT officers involved

[00:17:38] was involved with somebody, um, with the mental mental health center. So 90% because that they were able to respond to, which even within that 90% the CIT officer just still only responding to 30% of the calls that come through and are flagged as, you know, um, as

[00:17:58] above a mental health crisis. And but for 90% of all the incidents that they respond to be somebody with mental health centers and we're still having, we're still dispatching officers to mental health crisis. It just makes no sense to me because that's not that they, they aren't police officers

[00:18:19] aren't mental health therapists. They, you know, they're, they're not social worker. So that they shouldn't be responding to those, those types of calls. Not exactly. Yeah. Actually, I went to Mike and Vince my 95 year old white grandmother of that. And that's when I knew that this

[00:18:37] argument could work for sure. Um, well, I think that's the point too. I was just going to add that like I think a lot of the cops even don't want to be answering some of them. Like that's the other

[00:18:48] part of it, too. Like it was never meant for police to be the response to every negative situation that occurs. So yeah, I think that it's one of it's a like program that literally every side should

[00:19:05] be able to get behind. And I think Sarah, like the, like the political utility of this issue right now, I think is like one of the reasons why we're seeing momentum around, right? Um, but I want to get back

[00:19:17] to, to breeze point about community input and, and community control. And I feel like that's actually like the biggest opportunity of this moment right now is that we're in this moment where like folks

[00:19:28] in our cities have like a, an issue that there's like general agreement on and are interested in building something new. And so in Columbus while we're talking about it, like one of the things that

[00:19:39] we're trying to like really hammer home right now and in every room that I'm in with folks from counselor public safety, I'm saying this piece, but like you need to build in community control right

[00:19:48] now at the beginning because we have this crisis of accountability with law enforcement. Like people know that if something bad happens, like folks will not be held accountable. And then there is

[00:19:56] not a mechanism to like get justice with those systems. What we have here is like you're talking about building something new. So let's build it where the community controls it from the beginning.

[00:20:05] And so for us, like we've been talking about like building and advisory board for this program that is representative of folks in our city, maybe pulls in some additional kind of expertise that we would want like a valuation expertise, like some of these kind of like intervention skills,

[00:20:20] and with them like higher and higher the director of it, like give them teeth to do the thing so that the community can actually own it. And I think that you know in like December of 2020,

[00:20:29] January 2021, our city council did this reimagining public safety process with these set of hearings and everything. And so you know out of that they like got some data where like 85% of people who took their surveys said they were somewhat very comfortable with like building one of these programs.

[00:20:46] But if we're actually going to do that like reimagining thing, like this isn't about just like building a like a program with like you know you have a social worker here that goes and does a thing.

[00:20:54] Like for us this is like a restructuring like let's actually reimagine it. And we do that by like giving people direct control over it. And then the the important piece of that like to me is one

[00:21:05] about like scale and budget. And I know I keep like coming back to this point, but to me like this is one of the fundamental things that I hope we have taken from this conversation is that like

[00:21:15] you know budgets are moral documents they say like what's important to you. And so what we're seeing here in Columbus is like some of our political leaders loving this talking point of alternative crisis response, but then like we're talking 7 million dollars for the suite of alternatives

[00:21:30] that the city has out of 370 million for police. And so for us like this is a fundamental thing about like putting the money behind where the need actually is and what you say that's your value.

[00:21:40] And we're a long way from that still. You know this is that when it comes to abstract theory, you know this this is okay yeah everybody's on board when you had to put your money

[00:21:52] where your mouth is, yeah that's when the rubber really be some road and you find out you know where where people really stand you know where systems really stand in terms of what they see

[00:22:07] as a priority you know what they see as as important or something that they truly believe in to be able to make like the change that we we see we see it doing in other cities

[00:22:27] and so yeah definitely still shout out shout out to you for sending that because yeah I can I can make it better that is that is one of the big like the biggest hangups and not even just

[00:22:40] in care response but in anything that is you know presented that is new that you know acts as a reclamation of power in autonomy for communities like this goes beyond care response like even with like participatory budgeting here and Cleveland you know we're seeing the same

[00:23:07] you know the same type of pushback because these are things that have not been seen before have not been tried before and not only that they're really in reclamation of power to the people who have had been deemed powerless through these types of policies and

[00:23:27] in budget prioritizations yeah there's so much to dig into you know yeah I mean I feel like we could just keep going back or forth all day because yeah there's so much to dig into and you're actually

[00:23:39] right there's such a link between both of the issues you just talked about and it's interesting because you know you said they haven't been seen here but they they're seen all over the country

[00:23:50] and there's you know so that there's lots of models it's nothing particularly new in that sense but but Steve there's one thing I wanted to dig into a little bit more because I know early this year

[00:24:03] and February the Columbus City Council or did it award some money through a budget amendment I think $1.2 million for a non-police police emergency response pilot so I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about how to jall sort of accomplish that what has happened since then

[00:24:24] what has been done with that money yeah so so answer that question James has nothing's been done with it yet so since then it's been frustrating right so I guess what got us that point is like

[00:24:35] the the lead up to the release of the 20s 23 operating budget we were trying to push on i'm here again through in public safety to allocate $10 million for non-police emergency response Mayor Ginther didn't include any money for the program we've been asking for in his executive budget

[00:24:51] he did it put some more cash to the existing suite of alternatives that we had in this city so we have a call diversion program which is like social worker in the call center two follow-up mechanisms

[00:25:01] one for older adults one for overdoses and then a police social worker co-response program so he gave some more money bills other alternatives but did not allocate any money towards a non-police response program so the executive budget didn't contain any of those funds but then council

[00:25:17] president hardened allocated this $1.2 million in an amendment to the budget to stand up one of these programs was the commitment that he made and so what we've seen since then is really continues

[00:25:28] to be this lack of buy-in from the folks in public safety about the need for this program like we continue to hear it like I was in a conversation last week where we can

[00:25:37] where we continue to hear them say well like what's the problem we're trying to solve here you know like we have the we have this co-response program we have the you know the social

[00:25:46] worker in the call center like what problem are we trying to solve and and to me this gets to to breathe point about like the the problem that you're trying to solve is that you have

[00:25:53] relied on police to cure every social ill like it's like problem number one and so like we're trying to solve that and then also to give community control over their safety and so like those

[00:26:04] are the things that we're trying to do with this um so has been frustrating you know because like there's this money that council has set up and but you have like in the conversation we're having

[00:26:13] like we're still not seeing that buy-in on the public safety side so even with this issue that has like this some this political utility when it comes down to it and you like ask folks like in

[00:26:23] public safety like do you want civilian response or non police response like what everyone call it like you still get that resistance from them and they say these things about like oh well you

[00:26:31] know we would like you know it's not safe for like these folks to be doing this stuff which to like to anyone who has like ever done community work knows like you are in these neighborhoods all the time

[00:26:41] like the things I say is like social workers are in these neighborhoods every single day with a clipboard and a bedbug chair you know like they're in these communities they're talking to these people all the time

[00:26:50] you know so we're still trying to dispel those notions that like only a militarized police force who drives in you know 45 minutes from outside of the city to drive around these neighborhoods

[00:27:00] there are the only ones who can safely engage with these folks and we just know that that's not true for anyone that's like done like any kind of community facing work so there's still like

[00:27:08] obstacles for like we are like seeing momentum like around these conversations and like um we've been like trying to pursue this inside game you know like we we have some folks that have been champions

[00:27:18] of an encounter and are trying to like get them to use that cash to like we need to hire someone to hold the work and so one of the things that like is happening here is like Columbus has this sweet

[00:27:29] of alternatives you know RU MCR spark and react but nobody bottom lines that work there's not like any single person who's responsible for the alternatives and what we've seen in some other cities that have scaled their operations more is that they'll often like create an office where all

[00:27:45] these things live and so we've been like asking the city to like spend that money like hire a staff person or a consultant like bring somebody on to hold it so that then you can line up

[00:27:55] the external and external stakeholders needed to do this successfully um so we're hoping that happens and we're hoping that like we can get some more money in the coming budget um and we're planning some some events like ahead of the November release to hopefully make that happen.

[00:28:08] Bree, after listening to the challenges that Steve is facing Columbus have you experience like similar obstacles in Cleveland like the lack of buy-in from people who seemingly should be buying in? Yeah I mean well you know our biggest hangout has been something that is

[00:28:29] highly like critical into like like developing something like a care of the care of smart which is dispatched data. Right we have not been able to get our hands on dispatched data. It's been uh yeah that's that's another um that's that's been another like huge barrier

[00:28:52] of trying to acquire the data that you know is needed to see like with you know what are the neighborhood um like hotspots you know where we're seeing like a uptick and

[00:29:08] and you know right like as a as an organizer and as a person from the city like I mean I could feel you know I don't need the the the data perspective but you know when you have to

[00:29:22] you know go through certain processes and procedures in order to like have this like you know publicly funded or like funded by like government dollars you know there's just like certain

[00:29:34] whoops you have to jump through to be able to you know show show that evidence show the work and data is inter-interprotein and that has been like one of the biggest hangups and then you

[00:29:46] know like from a macro since you know like outside of the intricacies of you know like oh this needs to be done and this we need buying from this or whatever like okay

[00:29:58] you know like first up like the overarching thing is like people don't want to accept admit or like really confront the fact that we criminalize mental health okay like that like that is like if we really cared about like decriminalizing mental health then the people

[00:30:19] and the institutions that are at the front door of the carceral system pipeline should be taking out of it right that and and nobody wants to call a thing a thing because that's what that that's what's going on here like nobody wants to reckon with

[00:30:47] how this how we address behavioral health crisis right crises right now is perpetuated the criminalization of of mental health and I know one thing that I have done a decent amount of research

[00:31:03] on in written papers about is you know we can lead a lot of our problems back to Ronald Reagan and this is one of them of closing half of all men's which were also you know terrible a lot of these

[00:31:15] facilities were not being oversaw or like not great places to be but we also just closed half of them said we were going to switch to a community response model and then just decided nope and

[00:31:30] moved on so yeah that is the criminalization and then also just like you know we've de-stigmatized mental health as much as I did air quotes there I realized this is a podcast um de-stigmatized with air quotes

[00:31:44] in the sense of like oh if you're a little sad sometimes or if you're a little anxious sometimes like that is we are talking about you know people experience serious mental health issues and yeah absolutely

[00:31:57] yeah and like that's another thing too right so it's all back to like what the things that we have been advocating for in our in our model uh how we envision our model here in Cleveland is to um really be intentional and lean into what community based

[00:32:21] mental health crisis response looks like and by incorporating a peer support you know a person with lead experience to be a responder along with a mental health professional because oftentimes the person with the lead experience is going to be the the the the the most impactful

[00:32:46] person there to at least be able to de-sticate and resonate with and empathize with the individual that's in crisis yeah so I really appreciate your point about a de-institutionalization right like we

[00:33:02] we want to like resist like carceral system like you know like we don't want to or like of another name you know like we don't want to just be like like in carcenities people but like the

[00:33:11] whereas resources were supposed to float a community supports the place where they where they float was the criminal legal system and law enforcement like that's what we invested in so again like comes back like where your priorities like how do you want to deal with problems and you

[00:33:22] you can deal with them through like the support in community or you can deal with it through criminalizing community and like and that's a choice you make when you pass your budget

[00:33:30] one of the other the things that I want to like point you here though is we're never talking about non-pleased response as just like for people with documented mental health issues like

[00:33:41] for one reason that runs into this really sticky territory of like well if you have a DSM5 diagnosis then you don't deserve to be brutalized by the police and everybody else will it's

[00:33:48] still okay for that to happen so for us this is like is never just about like mental health concerns and you know so Dayton has a non-pleased program right now that's run through their date

[00:33:59] mediation center and and so that's everything from like you know someone who is like on housing intoxicated and like needs a assistance or like a neighbor dispute over a barking dog

[00:34:09] and so I think like the place where I want us to be thinking about like like what these programs can do is like everything that doesn't require the toolkit of like gun handcuffs and taser

[00:34:22] you should have that other option available to get some help on scene that does not involve law enforcement and so really taking a broad conception of this issue and who it can serve so we're not like just

[00:34:33] talking about like people with documented mental health concerns like what are all the times where you may have needed some help in your community like needed somebody to come and like provide some assistance but it really doesn't matter if it's like mental health or alcohol and drug related

[00:34:47] but like how can we provide that in a way that doesn't place people at additional risk and brings an attitude of benevolent intent and service to our neighborhoods rather than like a militarized police force coming to provide those services exactly because you know what

[00:35:02] because that's the thing like and you know in this space as we're talking about care response how I describe it is that like this is just the slower like this is not the same so this should be this standard in the door to exploring other ways to

[00:35:27] exploring other ways that things can be addressed without the presence of police and that goes into it isn't exclusive for people with diagnos mental health issues and it's important to say that specifically black communities for queer communities for communities that meet at the intersection of

[00:35:45] that that has such a barrier to accessing healthcare to even get the diagnosis and even if you do have the access to the healthcare because of the the the the systemic racism that goes on in the institution to be misdiagnosed right as something else they're like no

[00:36:06] you know this cannot be exclusive to people that fit into that specific group this doesn't we're not even just talking about like decriminalizing mental health we're talking about decriminalizing poverty okay like care response can be used to to respond to a

[00:36:23] trespassing call just because somebody's annoyed that a person is unhoused and sleeping on on on the street or in front of a building you know this this can be used to address what what society may deem as abnormal behavior but it's just somebody that's neurodivergent like

[00:36:42] you know like the like all the ways that different groups of people that don't fit it's you know what our society deems as normal should be able to be address with with with empathy and care without any type of militarization or likelihood of being arrested jail or

[00:37:09] kill and I'll also add that living with marginalized identities of brace gender class all of these things are inherently disabling and mentally disabling and traumatizing and trauma can lead to mental illness and it's just the cycle it's a you know chicken and egg situation of just

[00:37:31] and obviously for many individuals there it's all different parts of it you know the marginalization cause the trauma or the in vice versa so yeah absolutely that we need air horns handle and we need to ask an air horns breathe when you said your

[00:37:46] decriminalism poverty I just wanted to do that forever forever because there we really need to to hammer that point home and this issue is it is a door for way as you say it's sort of

[00:38:00] into a much broader conversation that we need to have and we see you know how the world is going and how militarism the mindset that leads us to over policing what it can bring us you know

[00:38:17] some of the different instances you know Steve I know that there's another budget season coming up the local level in Columbus so I was just wondering especially after hearing you talk about how you know nothing really has happened since the 1.2 million was awarded in the last budget

[00:38:34] you know like what is what is the ways of the Columbus safety collective is thinking about approaching this next budget season what are some of your plans to continue to work in planning

[00:38:44] and not please response and program in Columbus yeah absolutely so I would say like follow us like at C bus safety collective because when we're gonna be putting out the call for folks to come

[00:38:54] out ahead of the budget process and our ask to the folks who set the budget in our city as largely the same as last time we have a plan and like where is yours like last year we presented this city

[00:39:08] a blueprint for what we were calling the crisis intervention and voluntary linkage program or civil and we asked for $10 million to fund that we had a line out of budget in an orc chart of how

[00:39:18] we think that should be done and we think that they should invest in it this is the time people are asking for it and like we were waiting for that to happen one of the things that you know our city

[00:39:27] two weeks ago just had another hearing and council chambers on the state of the city's alternative of response programs and we continue just like not here a vision from public safety leadership

[00:39:38] about where they want these programs to go like so the the mobile crisis response program is our co-responder like police and social or co-response program um they keep talking about it like

[00:39:49] oh it's this pilot we're assessing it like this this program has been here for five years like at some point they need to get serious about these things and so just just recently in our city

[00:40:00] a man who was having a um was having an actual like mental health episode his sister tried to calling it access to one of these alternative programs um and the police ended up uh showing up

[00:40:13] kicking in Michael Freyrson's door and shooting him um and so there's a piece about like just the the vision of like making sure that like these aren't just talking points in everyone in our city

[00:40:22] actually has access to even the services that exist you know so we don't have the the most important thing that we need which is like the in-person non-place emergency response but then the other

[00:40:31] pieces like the call diversion and the follow-up mechanisms like also need to be scaled so we're really gonna like keep pushing on this this issue like are you serious about it like we're hearing it mentioned

[00:40:42] like in the campaign ads that are airing right now um we want to see it like them buying more than just talking points and making sure that folks have actually access to these services um um

[00:40:52] now it makes a lot of sense as uh and as you're moving forward and I really like how you're thinking about concretely pushing uh forward through this budget process look forward to hearing how that

[00:41:04] goes seeing how that develops and I know that y'all will be continuing to push those seeing when next steps come you know through the budget process um however it shakes out and you see you

[00:41:16] shared a little bit of how how folks can sort of get involved and keep paying attention um so the work that you're doing here in Columbus, Brea uh how can folks stay plugged in so the work that

[00:41:26] that they y'all are doing in Cleveland? Yeah um so uh we have um reach has um social media account uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh website reach in the old org i believe that the care

[00:41:45] for cleat.com uh to to stay updated on what's going on with coalition who the partners are uh and how to get involved uh uh policy matters um we're our enclosed partnership

[00:41:58] with reach so and we're on uh also uh social as well as well i think policy matters a high of tick-tock uh Sarah I don't know if it's policy matters a high or if it's just uh policy matters

[00:42:14] policy matters a h if i- Thank you okay and then and then and Twitter uh policy matters a high i also has a Twitter account um yeah so those uh yeah those are ways you just stay tapped in

[00:42:25] and you and for ways to get involved though um i would definitely uh uh plug on reach website in the uh carecareforclean.com on does the tab for uh anybody to fill out their contact information

[00:42:39] if they want to be uh more involved or learn more about what's going on. Perfect and i lied it is policy matters a high-o for the tick-tock but perfect. Uh perfect thank you so thank you again Steve and Bri for joining us uh to talk

[00:42:56] about uh the care response work that you're doing uh Cleveland and Columbus we know there's a lot of the exciting work happening um around the country and that y'all are leading the efforts here

[00:43:07] locally in Ohio and thank you both for bringing such you know your perspectives uh the history of the work that you've been doing um we had a really rich conversation with touching a lot of

[00:43:17] different things um and it was i really enjoyed it really appreciate getting to know you Bri a little bit more and Steve really good to see you again um and we will be following along as

[00:43:29] y'all continue uh your work and hopefully we'll have y'all back on sometime in the future to talk about uh you know what it feels like to win um after y'all have uh i've got some of these programs

[00:43:41] up and running and we can talk about you know of course once we get it then you actually have to run it make sure it is run runs well so um that's all know there well well cross that version

[00:43:52] we get there so uh and looking forward to it um yes thank you so much for uh helping all of us yeah thank you thank y'all thanks James thanks Sarah thanks Steve uh for allowing me to be a part

[00:44:07] of this uh really rich conversation um James I'll just stop in a set in the tone uh just i feel like it it flowed organically so happy to be a part of it on look forward to to to hear him oh yeah you're

[00:44:21] gonna be i've done a dozen of these podcasts so i think somebody's gonna be haha our so let's see about that don't put that on me yeah looking forward to the winning

[00:44:32] conversation hopefully the air horns will be up and running by that time so uh yeah i need us need a sound board over here okay. visit what's good oh hio dot com for show notes and links to learn how you can support non

[00:44:46] police care response subscribe to what's good oh hio wherever you get your podcasts and we'll see you next time to keep talking about what's good here in Ohio