Mayor Announces Response Team To Address Overdoses On City Streets sfgate.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sfgate.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Overdose deaths in San Francisco are at an all-time high ktvu.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ktvu.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Breed s proposed budget for 2021-2023, which she will submit to the Board of Supervisors on June 1, will include $9.6 million for five SWRT teams over two years.
If the funding is approved, which could happen at the end of July, the SWRT will deploy at least one team by January 2022, and build five teams by April 2022. Many calls to 911 or 311 about someone who appears to need help on our streets don t require an armed police response, and often the services and care people need would be best provided by a paramedic or outreach worker instead of a police officer, Breed said.
Mayor proposes street team to respond to wellness checks instead of police
This proposal is part the City’s effort to “implement alternatives to police responses to non-violent calls.”
One of the highest number of calls San Francisco police officers respond to are “well-being checks,” according to the city’s data close to 18,000 calls in 2019.
“The law enforcement officer would find out that they actually need medical care or they are experiencing a behavioral emergency,” said Lieutenant Jonathan Baxter with the San Francisco Fire department.
Monday, Mayor London Breed announced a proposal for a wellness response team that would work alongside the current street crisis response unit. This team will focus only on wellness checks.