CINCINNATI — The City of Cincinnati's Alternative Response to Crisis team is set to expand next year.
Right now, it's made up of two people — a behavioral health specialist and a paramedic — who work 40 hours a week, responding to low-risk crisis situations.
“Police have kind of been our default responder, but are not always best equipped for some of the types of things that we’ve sent them to and are also very busy," said Bill Vedra, Cincinnati Emergency Communications Center Director.
City data shows the most common type of call is for trespassing.
“A lot of times these might be individuals who are either spending time or are maybe experiencing homelessness and they’re in a place that for whatever reason the individual or property owner are not wanting them to be there," said Tara Immele, one of the behavioral health specialists who works on the ARC team.
ARC said many of their calls involve connecting people with services and resources and sometimes, it's not a call they're responding to, but someone they see out in the community who needs some help.
"Whether that’s related to mental health, related to housing or food assistance needs or just kind of shelter in the moment,” Vedra said.
Immele said sometimes, they'll be able to drive the person to the support services they need.
“Some of our biggest successes have been specifically with some substance abuse programming," she said.
The City of Cincinnati is allocating $615,000to ARC for the next fiscal year.
Vedra said this will allow the program to expand from one team to two. He said they plan to start hiring the second team at the beginning of next year.
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