PRESS RELEASE

Long Beach, CA – The City of Long Beach invites the community to participate in the development of the City’s Alternate Crisis Response Program, a new public health program that will use specially trained civilian employees to respond to non-violent, non-emergency and non-medical calls for service related to mental health crises.

“Not every emergency call requires a police unit and in fact many calls for service need mental health professionals on scene to assist, especially with people experiencing homelessness,” said Mayor Robert Garcia. “This new program will also free up our police officers to focus on serious crime rather than these non-violent mental health incidents.”

Residents can provide feedback about the proposed Alternate Crisis Response program by attending one of two community workshops. Both virtual and in-person options are available and will offer interpretation in Spanish, Khmer and Tagalog.

• Virtual Workshop, Wednesday, March 23, 6 to 8 p.m.
  • Register here: https://longbeach-gov.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwtcOuopjovGNV-rM9JKvoVLdcg3mXRuTzP
  • Please use the registration link to request interpretation
• In-person Workshop, Saturday, April 2, 9 to 11 a.m.
  • • California Recreation Community Center at Ernest McBride Park, 1550 Martin Luther King, Jr. Ave.
    • Register here: https://forms.office.com/g/hZat4A1nim
    • Please use the registration link to request interpretation

The development of the Alternate Crisis Response Program is a collaborative, multi-department effort involving the City’s Department of Health and Human Services (Health Department), Disaster Preparedness, Library, Police Department and Fire Department. The Health Department will oversee the program with assistance from other City Departments and community partners. Recommendations received at the community workshops will help shape the design of the program, including how the response teams will operate.

The Alternate Crisis Response Program was outlined as a potential action in goal three of the Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative, "create non-police, civilian emergency response teams to respond to respond to non-violent calls for service.” After community feedback is received, the proposed program will be presented to the Long Beach City Council. It is anticipated the program will be implemented later this year.

This program is made possible by the Long Beach Recovery Act (LB Recovery Act), a plan to fund economic and public health initiatives for residents, workers and businesses critically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of $3.6 million has been allocated from the Recovery Act to support the City’s violence prevention and safe cities programs. Additional information about the Long Beach Recovery Act is available at www.longbeach.gov/recovery.