New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s plan to have social workers respond to 911 calls instead of police has already been operating for four years in some city neighborhoods, with a recent audit casting “serious doubts” on the program’s effectiveness.
The Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division (B-HEARD) pilot program was launched in 2021, but a city comptroller report from May found that more than 60% of calls were deemed ineligible for a B-HEARD response.
Meanwhile, 35% of calls deemed eligible did not receive program services for reasons unknown because the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health — which administers the program — does not track that information.
Those results could throw a wrench in Mamdani’s plan to absorb B-HEARD into a proposed $1.1 billion Department of Community Safety (DCS), which his campaign website touts as an agency meant to “fill the gaps of our programs and services.”
“Its mission will be to prevent violence before it happens by taking a public health approach to safety,” Mamdani’s proposal reads.
“Of the 96,291 mental health calls from within the pilot areas and hours of operation between FY22-24, 59,178 calls (over 60%) were considered ‘ineligible’ for a B-HEARD response because calls were considered potentially dangerous, were ineligible because a mental health professional was already at the scene, or were unable to be triaged because FDNY EMS did not take the call or all necessary information could not be collected about the person in distress,” the comptroller’s office said in a news release at the time.
“Some calls deemed ineligible for B-HEARD might have been eligible calls,” the release noted. “Of the remaining 37,113 calls assessed as eligible for a B-HEARD response, 24,071 (65%) resulted in 911 dispatching a B-HEARD team, but over 13,000 calls did not result in a dispatched B-HEARD team.”
B-HEARD currently operates 18 teams in the Bronx, Upper Manhattan, central Brooklyn, and a northwest section of Queens. To be able to respond citywide, DCS would likely need a massive increase in staffing and resources.
The pilot program’s uneven results were a bad sign for Mamdani’s planned DCS, experts told the New York Post.
“The devil is in the details, and here the detail is implementation,” Richard Aborn, president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City, said.
“The fact that the program is not reaching people does not tell me it’s unsuccessful; that is a matter of resources.”
“But there are fundamental questions,” he added, noting there are concerns about when it is appropriate to dispatch mental health professionals instead of law enforcement to 911 calls.
Hank Sheinkopf, a political strategist, poured cold water on the idea of an entirely new city department.
“Exactly what New York doesn’t need: another government agency with an unmanageable bureaucracy,” Sheinkopf told the outlet.
“Domestic dispute calls can get violent,” he continued.
“That’s the time when you need a social worker? He must be kidding.”
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