FOLLOWUP: City’s CARE Responders set the date for West Seattle service to begin

The city’s been mentioning for a while that its CARE Community Crisis Responders would expand service to the Southwest Precinct area (West Seattle and South Park) as soon as they were staffed up; Mayor Bruce Harrell mentioned it in his State of the City speech earlier this week, too. And now they’ve set the date: As announced today, March 10th will be the first day of CARE Responders’ service here (which is a few months past the “end of 2024” the mayor announced last year). As explained in the city announcement, the responders “will assist Seattle Police Department patrol officers on 9-1-1 crisis calls that are non-violent and non-life-threatening. CCRs will be dispatched via the Seattle CARE Department 9-1-1 Communications Center, for 9-1-1 call events with a nexus to behavioral health (mental illness/substance use) and/or homelessness.” The team has been in service for about a year and a half and reports to CARE Chief Amy Barden, who also is accountable for the 911 Center, through which the Community Crisis Responders are dispatched, as are police. The city has 27 CCRs, and three are supervisors who also are Mental Health Professionals. We have a question out to the city about whether they’ll be physically based on this side of the river, in addition to responding to incidents here.

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