In early July, the Ann Arbor City Council reallocated $3.5 million in federal funds intended to develop an unarmed crisis response program to other efforts. These funds were first allocated to response programs in 2022 through the American Rescue Plan Act and had to be spent by 2024. The city put out a public call for proposals for a response team, but only received one, which the City Council rejected in 2024. It is scheduled for December 2023, citing issues such as timelines and business hours. Facing a 2024 spending deadline, City Council voted to use the money for five different initiatives, including the Barton Dam Levee project and park improvements.
The City of Ann Arbor has been working for years to develop an unarmed crisis response program. The program works with local human services organizations to divert some non-crime emergency calls to trained professionals rather than police officers. In April 2021, the council adopted a resolution directing the city manager to develop an unarmed crisis response program. In January 2024, the Ann Arbor City Council re-hired a third party to help implement the program after rejecting the only proposal. In July, the council halted its search for a third-party agency to implement such a program.
Care-Based Safety is a community organization dedicated to building non-police crisis response programs. CBS was the only third party to submit an application to the city. CBS Director of Culture and Operations Liz Kennedy emphasized the community’s desire for the program in an interview with The Michigan Daily.
“The community wants it,” Kennedy said. “The community is demanding it. It’s been years, literally dozens, of organizing Black, brown, multiracial coalitions across public safety, social services, social work, public health, criminal justice reform (and) abolition. So many voices, so many hands, so many movements (and) coalitions have come together to say, “Enough is enough.” Ann Arbor has a problem with police enforcement. ”
President Kennedy also said that police crackdowns hit black people, low-income people and the mentally ill the hardest. She believes that alternatives are needed to end the brutality and criminalization of these people.
“We know that black people are overrepresented in Michigan’s prisons and jails,” Kennedy said. “We know that low-income populations are overwhelmingly low-income, and that people living with mental illness and severe substance use disorders need the rehabilitation and healing resources they need to actually recover. I also know that some people are imprisoned without receiving any compensation.”
Rackham student Linda Huber, co-chair of the Repeal of Graduate Staff Association, told the Daily that the creation of an unarmed response program also has implications for GIs, who often begin to feel unsafe when police are involved. Ta.
“In the classroom, there may be times when you need some kind of crisis service or support,” Huber said. “Especially as a GSI, the only resource we have to rely on in these situations is to call 911, call the police, and in many cases that just makes the situation even more dangerous. I can feel it.”
Kara Manners, a member of the GEO repeal executive committee and a public health student, told the Daily that she was disappointed that the city had not yet implemented a crisis response team, even though there are community groups willing to help. He said he was doing it.
“It’s very unfortunate that they decided to continue to push the envelope,” Manner said. “Especially when you have an incredibly vibrant and strong community organization like Care-Based Safety investing in this work, we want to take those commitments and efforts seriously through the RFP process and make it work in the city. We will implement a program to do so.”
Donnell Wyche, one of the founding members of the Coalition to Reimagine Safety, a coalition of organizations dedicated to building care-based safety in Washtenaw County, said in an interview with The Daily that unarmed He said there was little hope for the development of the medical system. Response programs at the city level.
“Honestly, I don’t know if I have any hope for the city because it doesn’t seem like there’s a champion…I don’t think that’s the same as sponsoring the initiative,” Wyche said. “The mayor, in his infinite wisdom, sponsored a resolution to establish an unarmed public safety program. But there were no champions at the table.”
Education graduate student Nia Hall, co-chair of the GEO Repeal Caucus, said the council’s reluctance toward unarmed crisis response programs is impacting the city and the University of Michigan’s ability to successfully launch such programs. He told the Daily that he believed that.
“It sounds like a lot of ‘wait,'” Hall said. “Wait until things get much worse. Wait until we have all these things in place to make things work if we had the money to begin with.” So about the unarmed police response and what that would look like. There has been continued backlash, and it appears to be essentially impacting the University of Michigan’s ability to conduct an unarmed police response. ”
Kennedy said he believes everyone has the right to know they can call 911 and receive appropriate care and treatment.
“Each of us will have to call 911 at some point in our lives,” President Kennedy said. “And for those of us who are Black, brown, queer, disabled, mentally ill, in recovery, etc., this shouldn’t be our last call, right? We should be greeted with compassion and support. People who keep us safe, people who keep us calm, people who empathize with what we’re going through, people who don’t mean to handcuff us, but actually hold us, give us water. You should find someone who can take you to the hospital if necessary.”
Daily Staff reporter Michelle Liao can be reached at mrliao@umich.edu.
