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Houston’s $21M Mental Health Response Includes Telehealth

City Council approved a sweeping $21 million package on Wednesday to enhance the city's response to people in mental health crises—and Mayor Sylvester Turner pledged more support in the coming weeks.

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(TNS) — City Council approved a sweeping $21 million package on Wednesday to enhance the city's response to people in mental health crises—and Mayor Sylvester Turner pledged more support in the coming weeks.

A major component of the new push is $12 million to fund a new service that allows mental health professionals to respond to certain 911 calls instead of police officers. Through a pilot program, the city currently diverts some nonviolent 911 mental health crisis calls to members of the Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD's Mobile Crisis Outreach Team ( MCOT), which are groups of mental health professionals deployed quickly to help those in crisis.

MCOT is already available directly by calling the Harris Center's Crisis Line, but the goal of the city's new MCOT program is to refer 911 calls that don't necessitate a police response.

Council members voted unanimously to permanently fund 18 teams. Turner had pledged during budget workshops in 2021 to create 20 teams—not just 18—and reemphasized his promise before council's vote Wednesday, saying he would bring a request to council for the remaining two teams "very, very shortly."

His office could not immediately provide an explanation for why the two weren't included in Wednesday's ask. This story will be updated when a response is received.

"We are going to honor that commitment," Turner said before the vote. "There won't be any need to reduce our CIRT teams, but we will add to our MCOT teams. That should be before us within a few weeks."

The police department's CIRTs, short for Crisis Intervention Response Team, is a similar approach to helping those in mental health crises. But the program has one distinction: The CIRT program pairs licensed mental health professionals with police officers who respond to some of the more dire mental health calls. A team from MCOT, for example, won't be dispatched to calls with weapons or if someone is in immediate danger. With an armed police officer by their side, CIRT clinicians can be sent to a wider swath of mental health crisis call types.

The CIRT program, which currently has 18 teams, was also expanded by six teams. Jaison Oliver, a police reform advocate who was vocal during the city's 2021 budget hearings, said he hoped the city would divert funds from CIRT teams to more MCOT teams.

"I'm glad the mayor is open to expanding MCOT," Oliver said in a text. "I also think it's important to note that if we continue expanding programs like CIRT, we reduce funds available for MCOT while also placing more responsibilities on police, who I hope we can remove from these screened mental health diversion calls altogether."

City Council Member Letitia Plummer, who often advocates for criminal justice reform, said that prioritizing diversion programs for those in mental health crises is paramount.

"I've got letters from inmates at the county jail," Plummer said before the vote. "One specific story, a gentlemen was on his roof having a mental health issue, and his mother had no one other to call than 911. He was arrested and is still incarcerated. She was just calling 911 because she didn't want her son to jump off the roof. This is so important to have people who are coming there that are licensed professionals of the healing arts and master-level clinicians and not a police officer."

On top of the MCOT and CIRT programs, council approved a new program called Clinician-Officer Remote Evaluation, which arms police officers with iPads and HIPAA-certified software that allows for instant on-site telehealth appointments with mental health professionals for those in crisis. Council members also approved expanding the city's Crisis Call Diversion program, which staffs the 911 call center with those who can divert calls to mental health professionals, to operate 2 4/7.

Currently, the Crisis Call Diversion program works during daytime hours and can only help people over the phone or send an officer for assistance. With the bolstered hours and approval of the MCOT program, the Crisis Call Diversion program will allow more people to get the help they need around the clock.

When someone calls 911 for help with a mental health crisis, the initial call-taker will determine the call type and input it into the police department's computer-assisted dispatch system. Harris Center staff at Houston's 911 call center will monitor those incoming calls and determine which would be appropriate for the MCOT or CIRT programs. MCOT members, while civilians, will be allowed to communicate with dispatch through police radio waves to receive details on the call or to request emergency assistance.

"(Police officers) don't want to be in the business of mental health response," said Wayne Young, chief executive officer of the Harris Center. "Let's let law enforcement respond to law enforcement activities, let's let firefighters respond to firefighting activity, and let's let mental health professionals respond to mental health issues. By and large, most of the officers are also very supportive of this idea. If it's safe and there's no crime, then let's not put them in this intersection of mental health and the crises that are out there."

The new measures are part of Turner's One Safe Houston pledge to "improve public safety and reduce the harms caused by violent crime" through a $44 million boost to public safety funding, made possible in part by the federal government's American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocations to the city of Houston. Nearly half of the One Safe Houston bill is dedicated to improving the city's mental health crisis response, which is funded in the coming years with ARPA dollars.

"The city of Houston is facing a public health crisis," Turner spokesperson Mary Benton said. "It will require all of us working together to overcome it."

Turner stipulated that as soon as the one-time funds dry up, council members will have to find alternate funding sources.

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