DeLauro Commits $2M For New Crisis Response Team

Cops and an ambulance crew responded to a 911 call on the Green Tuesday afternoon after an argument ended with someone hitting a septuagenarian in the head and drawing blood.

A block away behind City Hall, government officials had just wrapped up a press conference updating plans to respond to 911 calls in new ways.

The press conference concerned the Community Crisis Response Team the Elicker administration is putting together in conjunction with Connecticut Mental Health Center to send social workers, mental-health specialists and ​“people with lived experience” rather than cops or firefighters or medics to handle some emergency calls.

The city has detailed those plans in numerous previous press events. The goal is to to make sure ​“the right support arrives for people in crisis” and no longer seek to ​“arrest our way out of problems.”

The news Tuesday afternoon was that U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro of New Haven expects that the city will receive $2 million in the next fiscal year to get the team up and running, the latest example of her ability to ​“bring home the bacon” from a newly powerful perch in Congress.

Amid lively chatter from seagulls perched above on the roof, fully masked officials gathered outside the rear entrance to City Hall to thank DeLauro for the money, though it’s not completely approved yet. It received a crucial preliminary approval. DeLauro chairs the House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee, which approved the $2 million allotment as part of the fiscal year 2022 Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies funding bill. The bill still needs to be considered and approved by the Senate, as well as the full House. DeLauro said she’s confident the $2 million will remain in the bill through that process and win final approval by year’s end.

The city’s not looking to spend the money before then. City Community Services Administrator Mehul Dalal said the city already has the dough committed to fund a pilot roll-out of the team in January. (He and Mayor Justin Elicker originally announced the pilot rollout would occur this fall. Tuesday they said some funding approvals took longer than expected, and they also want to make sure to get the protocols straight for how 911 dispatchers would handle different kinds of calls before launching.) The $2 million would help fund the citywide scale-up of the team later in 2022 after community feedback of how the pilot panned out.

“We need to make sure we do this right,” Elicker said.

Elicker and Dalal estimated that the crisis team could handle up to 10 percent of the city’s 100,000 annual 911 calls.

Would the subsequent 911 call on the Green have made the 10 percent list?

Asked that question, Dalal said he would need to learn more specifics about the incident before determining for sure. If it was just an argument, mediators or mental-health specialists might have been able to handle it. Assaults do require cops.

A passerby observing the conflict on the park bench succeeded in convincing the combatants to separate, but not before the elderly man ended up with a gash on his head.

The cops and medics who arrived on scene spoke with the man kindly as they tried to convince him to agree to go to the hospital to have his injury checked. He was reluctant. The scene remained calm and even friendly.

If the promised $2 million slab of federal bacon arrives in New Haven and the crisis team kicks into full gear, cops will continue to be called on to deploy those skills.