PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Portland Street Response, the city’s unarmed crisis response team, is set to expand city-wide for the first time.
The program started last year as a way to respond to non-emergency and mental health crisis calls with unarmed personnel.
Now, the program will cover all 145 square miles of the city, with 20 staff members to start, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day.
In October, a study by Portland State University that evaluated the program’s effectiveness said it should be expanded to respond round-the-clock citywide.
One month later, Portland Street Response expanded its area of operations from 13 square miles centered on the Lents neighborhood to 36 square miles of Northeast Portland.
Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who is overseeing the pilot program, called it “a rethinking of our entire first response system.”
Portland Street Response plans to ask the city to almost double its budget to provide 24/7 services by October.
About 65% of calls to the program in the first year involved homeless clients.