Thank you, Member. Commissioner, you wanted to interject something for the record?
Interim Commissioner. I wanted to add some additional information and to address Councilwoman Gautheir's question. Kenny Solanke is going to talk a bit more about our staffing complement as a follow-up to Ms. Bey. But I also wanted to let you know, Councilwoman, that from January 2023 to January '25 we had 147,375 calls. The average call length is 7 minutes and the average call speed, what you asked for, is 11 seconds.
My name is Kenny Solanke and I'm the Senior Director of Crisis Operations. And with regards with those numbers, we have approximately -- our staffing pattern is set up to have 43 people. So we have nine supervisors, we have two program managers and the rest are crisis counselors. We have six current vacancies that we're actively working to fill, so we are adequately staffed for now. As we continue to grow the program, our expectation is as we start with chat and text and we do follow-up, we're going to see an increase in demand for staff. So the plan is to use the current vacancies. And then if we need more, obviously we're going to be speaking with our Commissioner to see if we can include that in our budget.
Wait. When you say you're adequately staffed, do you mean --
We are at 1 o'clock. I'm going to just put that on the record. Member Harrity.
I'm good. Most of mine were answered. Just the one, what type of budget number are we talking to fully fund your program?
What was the budget number to fully fund your program? You said 5 million? 6
So last 7 spring -- I don't have the most 8 updated numbers. Last spring our 9 demand at TNT was just automatic 10 doubling. That would take it 11 roughly from 10 million to 20 12 million. 13
Okay. 17 Thank you so very much for your 18 testimony. 19 Ms. Stack, where are 20 we -- is that good?
All right. Thank you. Thank you so very much. This was informative and that is the precursor to our budget so that we know how to be helpful. Thank you so very much. Ms. Stack, would you please name the individuals that want to testify.
For those who have written testimony, please allow the Sergeant-at-Arms to take it. If you can summarize that testimony, that would be helpful because we do have a hard stop, which we are already beyond. But that's all right. When you're getting good information --
Yeah, let's do a minute. And if they have it in writing, please submit it. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Thank you so much for your patience. Please be seated. And in the order the clerk said, would you state your name for the record and begin your testimony.
I wanted to start by saying really appreciated hearing all the testimony today, and I wanted to share that at Amistad Law Project where I'm the Co-Executive Director we have a documentary that follows workers from the Consortium doing their mobile crisis work. It is almost done and we would love to have members of Council screen that documentary. It's about 4 minutes. 5 I actually am here 6 today. I wanted to read the 7 testimony of a TNT member who was 8 actually going to testify back when 9 this was scheduled earlier last 10 year but wanted to have her words 11 in this space today. 12 My name is Clarice 13 McCant and I'm a resident and 14 native of Philadelphia. I'm a 15 mother, wife, help lead a nonprofit here in the city and I'm also the primary care support for my sister who was in recent years diagnosed with severe mental illness. Over the past four years since her diagnosis, I have come to learn more intimately than ever that derelict and soul-crushing conditions of Philadelphia mental health services. What we've experienced while accessing care at every single level from mobile crisis to crisis response centers, inpatient Behavioral health and outpatient care has been truly horrifying and traumatizing to my sister. Out of pure and honest desperation and rage, I started going to Treatment Not Trauma meetings wanting to understand what is going wrong. I want to give you a glimpse into what people are experiencing and implore this body to do everything in its power to make radical improvements to these programs. We need to make sure that the reality that my sister and so many others are facing is no 21 longer the norm and that people can get the care that they need without hassle or fear for their safety and their dignity intact. Public mental health care is one of the most important ways to ensure a safe and thriving community, and these services need more investment, not less and that investment needs to come with clear standards of care and improve the mental health outcomes of people who need them. There have been multiple times that my sister was in mental health crisis and I needed urgent support for her care. None of those times did who and what showed up for my sister help my sister feel safe and cared for. In October 2023, I got a call from my sister while I was at work. She had taken some pills and attempted to take her life and was now feeling lightheaded and collapsed on the floor while she was on the phone with me. My heart started pounding. I was so afraid. I did not want to call 911 but I knew she needed to get to the hospital immediately. I called 911 and asked them to send an ambulance. They said that since she was experiencing a mental health crisis, they had to also send police even though I asked them not to since she was not a threat to anyone because she was literally collapsed on the floor. She needed medical help, not police. What crime was taking place. So now, I'm zooming through traffic to get to her place before the police does because who knows what's going to happen once they get there. I arrive and they're kicking the door of the apartment trying to bust in. It's already very escalated. I asked the neighbor if he will let us up. I'm trying to answer them calmly and let them know I'm on the phone and she's not a threat. Once we get in there, they start yelling and rifling through things, and I'm just trying to keep myself calm and seeing my sister on the bed, laid out and unresponsive. Thankfully we got her to the hospital safe without incident. She survived. The police did absolutely nothing but make an already stressful situation more stressful. I think it's important to know that a few weeks before that, she was in an inpatient facility trying to become stable during a manic episode. And the experience of that city's mental health system left her traumatized, depressed and hopeless about her condition.
Had she gotten the right kind of care then she may not have even been in that situation. So Clarice goes on and has like more stories about her sister and her experience. She didn't call mobile crisis and that situation did not actually go very well, so they waited over an hour for help. And then ended up going to a CRC. But I just wanted to share her words just because these situations are very chaotic. And so, we need the system to be as structured as possible so people who are in crisis can get the help they need without the police and so on. So that's all I want to share today. Thank you.
Thank you so much for sharing her testimony. And we shouldn't have to struggle between getting help and endangering the people needing help. And that is a difficult thing to manage and one that needs classically-trained people to be able to do it. Thank you. Next person to testify.
My name is Steven Strauss. I'm an urban policy analyst now retired having worked for cities, counties, unions and nonprofits. I'm a member of course of TNT. When people experience a behavioral health crisis, they need special care grounded in dignity and compassion. Sadly, police have become the default responders for handling the needs of people suffering under the weight of social issues from mental illness to lacking housing to substance use, domestic violence and more. Typical behaviors linked to the behavioral health struggles like loitering and minor public disturbances suck people into the system. And for some, it becomes an endless circle of trauma between jail and the streets. Police presence feeds the criminalization of social marginality. Although officers may have some de-escalation skills, their presence alone heightens tensions, especially in poor Black and Brown neighborhoods. Research points to the staggering estimates of 25% to 50% of those killed by police having histories of mental instability. When the default response is the police, it not only threatens those in need, it undermines public safety by diverting resources from violent crime. Although the PPD does not disclose 911 call data, which should be public and anonymized, national studies find that most calls sending police have nothing to do with serious crime or violence. But one sector in this depressing story that is a standout is civilian behavioral crisis response units that send care workers only. There are now more than 100 programs across the country and they're showing great promise. They rarely need police involvement and they're doing the job at lower cost and more effectively with fewer involuntary commitments and drop-offs at the ER. If there's a central driver, it's probably the focus on relationship-building, especially through staff with direct life experience. Philadelphia is very much a part of this new world, as we've heard, even if some may say or favor a carceral approach in this area. CMCRTs are clearly up and running. Yes, there are also friction points. Philadelphians are unclear about who's coming. Will it be CMCRT or police with weapons and barking orders? Clear decision criteria for triaging at 911, if it exists, have not been disclosed. CMCRT remains starved of funds and in need of structural changes, stability and community oversight. Most of its caseload is through 988. And according to DBHIDs, as we've heard, few responses require police on the scene. More clarity, however, on the police role is needed. So those are my prepared remarks. And I know it's been a long day. I was wondering if I could briefly answer Chairman Jones' question about what might you recommend. So it's really a kind of a wonky data question, in that we haven't yet really found the full universe of behavioral health crisis responses in Philadelphia. We don't know what that is because we're missing 911 data. We have reason to believe that those are the bulk of the calls, certainly more than any other single categorization, right. It's police who are answering those calls. They may be trained in some sort of intervention procedures, but we have no idea really the numbers, although we got a hint of it for I think 2021 and the numbers were quite astonishing, something like 1500 calls per week. Now, we need an update on those numbers. I'm not even positive that that was the figure, but it was astonishingly high. So to understand the mental health situation in Philadelphia, we need to figure out what those are. Thank you.
Thank you for your testimony. I heard nods of approval and appreciation of what you said. So thank you.
Good afternoon. My name is Audrey Hausig. I live in 19143 and I've been a music therapist here in Philly for years. Been 16 extremely privileged to have 17 thousands of people tell me about 18 themselves, about their worst 19 times, about their stories. And 20 I've worked residential, outpatient 21 and inpatient. 22 And something I wanted 23 to share about inpatient is that 24 when we do our treatment groups, I can't tell you how many times that instead of talking about our goals and objectives about gaining coping skills and figuring out triggers that we're stuck on people being activated by the guilt, the shame, the fear and the trauma they experienced being handcuffed and brought into treatment in a police vehicle. So we never even get to the symptoms or what's really going on that brought them there. We spend most of the time just providing support to help people stabilize and start to work through their experience of the transport into the hospital. At the hospital when there is a psychiatric emergency, they generally don't allow security to be involved, right, because that scares people. If you think of your most fearful, awful moment, do you want flashing lights and handcuffs and someone with a gun, right, or do you want a clinician or a peer specialist who understands what you've been through. So even with my Master's degree and everything I've learned in my presence, if I came in a police vehicle with that uniform and a gun, I'm not going to be effective in de-escalating people. So I just want to implore you to increase mobile crisis so that it's available to everybody of all ages, including youth, to adults so that people can feel safe and people feel confident reaching out. Because right now a lot of folks won't call because they're afraid that police will come and they'll have more harm done than good. Thank you.
Thank you for your testimony. For those people, can we transition them to the table. And thank you again for your brevity and thank you again for your patience. We appreciate it. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
So why don't we go your left to my right I guess, yeah. State your name for the record and begin testimony.
Hi. My name is Kaitlin Orner and I'm a business owner in Germantown and a member of the Treatment Not Trauma Coalition. As a business owner on a prominent commercial corridor, I've encountered a number of public health mental health crisis situations ranging in intensity and outcomes with a variety of responses from both PPD and other providers. I got involved with TNT after a number of failed responses from PPD, most notably when I viewed on my surveillance footage a woman in crisis encountering two Philadelphia police officers. And after a few moments of dialogue between the three of them, the officers got back into their vehicle as she laid down in the intersection in front of my shop. The officers drove away as she lay in the street blocking traffic. She was struck and killed in the same position a minute and 30 seconds later. Her death could have been preventable had the officers taken the necessary precautions to assist her in that moment. Her death could have been preventable if there had been access to a timely mental health response. Her situation deserved an immediate response from specifically trained mental health professionals, not law enforcement who may have given more of a response to a fallen tree limb blocking the intersection than they did to a literal human life in the same position. High-stakes situations such as these deserve immediate response times 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, including midnight on a Saturday night in the middle of the holiday weekend. As a business owner, I continue to witness additional crisis moments and have struggled to find appropriate nonpolice responses to those situations in the moment which has sometimes led to police being just dispatched anyway or more commonly, nothing at all. Recently our business neighbors attended a small business roundtable with Councilmember Landau and they echoed the similar sentiment and its effects on small businesses. We are often the institutions interacting firsthand with community members in need of assistance on a daily basis but lack resources to provide safe alternatives to their circumstances. As we continue to see a rise in mental health crisis, I'm hopeful our city can adapt to respond to the growing need in a safe and dignified way that decreases law enforcement response and increases skilled professional interactions and nontraumatic interventions that result in fewer deaths and a more positive outcome for all. Thanks.
Good afternoon. My name is Jenny Zhang. I am a Philadelphia organizer with Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance. We're a statewide Asian American advocacy organization. I'm speaking today in support of fully funding our mobile mental mobile crisis units here in Philadelphia. Today I wanted to share the story of Christian Hall. Christian was a Chinese American teenager and he was experiencing a mental health crisis in Monroe County in Pennsylvania on December 30, 2020. He called the police because he needed help. The Pennsylvania State Police responded by shooting him seven times. Video evidence shows that Christian had his hands up when the police opened fire. A call to 988 and access to mobile crisis units would have saved his life if his mental health crisis was met with a mental health response and professionals. Christian might still be with us today. This is not the first time you all have heard his story. Last year City Council passed a resolution honoring the life of Christian Hall and advocating for full funding of 988 at the state level. So hearing everything today and knowing Christian's story, you all know how important mental health response is to mental health crisis. And mobile crisis units could have saved Christian's life. Mobile crisis units could have saved Walter Wallace's life. And mobile crisis units have saved lives already. And if fully funded can save many more lives. And especially as Council considers the budget and as we face potential federal cuts, we cannot afford to skimp on lifesaving resources and services. It is now more important than ever that we fully fund culturally-competent and linguistically-accessible mental health services that protect the health and safety of Philadelphians. We need and deserve compassionate, professional mental health response to mental health crisis. Thank you.
Thank you. I remember that resolution 17 and the sadness in which we submitted it. I think we have two other people to testify; is that right, Ms. Stack?
Thank you so much for your patience. Please be seated. State your name for the record and begin your testimony. (Witnesses approached Witness table.)
Hi. My name is Max Osborn. I am Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Villanova University. I'm also a member of Treatment Not Trauma, and I also am a resident of the 19143 zip code in Southwest Philadelphia, which as we've already discussed, is the zip code that is currently utilizing mobile crisis services at the highest rates. So I'll be brief and I don't want to recap too much of what people have already said, but I'm also asking that the City invest further in CMCRT as the most effective commonsense solutions to crisis response. We know again that about a quarter of all police shootings involve civilians with mental health conditions and that about two-thirds of police shootings of people in crisis are fatal. We also know that these harms are not distributed equally and that people who are disproportionately likely to be killed or harmed by police include Black and Brown people, disabled people and queer and transgender people. These disparate impacts mean that comprehensive nonpolice response options are especially important for protecting our most vulnerable community members. I also know from my own research, which deals with service access and crisis response for marginalized populations, that when people have negative experiences accessing these services, it really deters them from accessing them in the future. I have spoken with people who have had nonconsensual police involvement in response to crisis situations, who have had involuntary hospitalization experiences and who have told me point blank, I am never going to feel comfortable asking for help again, like I am never calling a service, I'm not calling a hotline, I'm not calling 911, I'm not calling 988, I do not feel comfortable because the experience that I had was so traumatizing. And so, I do want to just note that this is a compounded problem, right. It's not just the response in the moment. What its message is sending to people about what is likely to happen to them if they ask for help from these services. When I've asked people in research interviews what would you in an ideal world imagine happening to you in a crisis situation, what resources do you want to be available. The number one most consistent response that I have heard is that people want some sort of middle ground between calling 911 and doing nothing, right. They want help. They want services, but they also want to be assured that police are not going to show up unexpectedly because people are very, very concerned about that. And people who are experiencing crisis themselves or witnessing someone else in crisis are forced, as other people have mentioned, to decide between potentially calling 988 or 911 and having police show up and harm their loved one or doing nothing and having the loved one harm themselves or someone else. So it is really an impossible choice, and too many people are forced into that situation. So as other folks have said, CMCRT seems to be the best tool that we currently have to support people in times of crisis without involving police, without involving coercive responses that cause people further trauma and victimization. So I like the other Treatment Not Trauma members, I am asking that you commit to protecting our most vulnerable community members by expanding and fully funding CMCRT. Thank you.
Thank you for your testimony. And I sense that this process is evolving, that with your testimony, with other testimony today, we're hearing it and seeing how we can tweak it for the better. So thank you for your testimony.
They weren't here, oh, okay. Well, I'll tell you this, and thank you, members, for sticking it out. I do appreciate it. But what we heard was encouraging. What we heard was and imagine this because I've been around a minute, actual public policy that is actually improving things. That is refreshing to me to see that, no, it is not perfect but, yes, it is moving us in the right direction. And with that input that we received today, we might be able to tweak it, make it better, whether it's how we compensate those individuals, those highly-trained individuals that provide this service to designating them as first responders, to being able to increase the amount of responsiveness, meaning cutting it down to 30-minute response as opposed to what is 50-minute response. All those are worthwhile goals. And the only reason we know these things is because we listened to the people who have to do it. So I applaud you all for caring. And with that my, Co-Chair, would you like to say something or anyone else?
I just wanted to thank Councilmember Curtis Jones. This is a joint hearing, but he's the impetus for this so I'm very grateful to him for bringing all of you here so we could learn from you, we could see what the progress has been made and where we need to improve. And I know there's going to be more follow-up and follow-through. I want to thank all colleagues here who are members of either both or one of the committees. And as Councilmember Jones said, if we don't do this, if we don't listen, we're not really serving our constituents. And this is why this is so valuable and worth sitting through it. And thank you all for coming and participating.
Okay. With that, this concludes the business of the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Health and Human Services to review Resolution No. 8 240703. Thank you all for attending.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. (Joint Committees on Public Safety and Public Health and Human Services concluded at 1:34 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. __________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL