Demand LA City fund unarmed crisis response services!
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Watch our Teach-in on March 25
More Context For Why We’re Taking Action
At LA Forward Institute, we’ve been organizing for the last two years around comprehensive and accessible unarmed crisis response for LA City residents across the city. While our city budget invests billions into LAPD, most Angelenos want there to be trained, compassionate, and un-armed response to situations that don’t really need armed police to show up. Our Unarmed Crisis Response working group is interested in:
Who residents can call when they are experiencing or witnessing immediate crisis
What unarmed people/services are deployed as a result of that call, and
The quality of those unarmed people/services in addressing the impetus for the call
In March 2024, the City of Los Angeles launched the Unarmed Model of Crisis Response (UMCR) pilot program. This program operates in 6 police divisions and diverts 6 types of non-violent 911 calls to unarmed mental health responders instead of traditional police. After a year of operation, this program has proved to be a success, diverting thousands of calls while resolving 96% of calls without police involvement – all with an average response time of 28 minutes, four times quicker than county programs can be deployed.
The Unarmed Model of Crisis response saves lives, saves money, saves and capacity.
Thanks to our advocacy efforts, the Mayor has allocated funds for another year!
Now, we need to ensure that City Council retains these funds as they deliberate the budget over the next month.
At this juncture, to demonstrate its commitment to unarmed crisis response, we are asking LA City Council to do:
Retain the Mayor’s Proposed Budget of $9.376 million to extend current UMCR Services through 2026
Keep this funding as a separate line item in the budget, rather than having UMCR compete for funds with other programs in an unappropriated budget
This investment of $9.376 million amounts to less than 0.1% of the City’s budget. It will not only allow this life-saving program to continue but will help increase police capacity and reduce police response time by diverting non-violent calls to an alternative response.
WHY ACTION MATTERS NOW:
The mayor just released her proposed budget and UMCR will be funded with $9.376 million dollars as a separate line item. This is a big win — our advocacy worked! Now we need to ensure that the City Council retains this funding as they debate changes to the Mayor’s budget.
Use our email tool to send a one-click email telling the City Council to:
Retain the allocated budget of $9.376 million to extend current UMCR Services through 2026
Retain this funding as a dedicated line item in the budget, rather than having UMCR compete for funds with other programs in an unappropriated budget
This investment of $9.376 million amounts to less than 0.1% of the City’s budget. It will not only allow this life-saving program to continue but will help increase police capacity and reduce police response time by diverting non-violent calls to an alternative response.