What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
Los Angeles is at a turning point. We are living in a defining moment. What happens next is up to us. Over the past few years, problems and challenges have shaken this city -- and tremendous opportunities for change have presented themselves. How do we rise to this moment and emerge a better place to live? What will it take to create a more just and a more equitable community? Working together, how are we going to create a stronger, forward-thinking Los Angeles? Mike Bonin, writer, teacher, progressive activist and former City Councilmember, looks at the issues and problems facing Los Angeles, examines ideas, and talks with the people who will lead us to a brighter future.
Produced in partnership with LA Forward.
What's Next, Los Angeles? with Mike Bonin
What Will Keep Our Neighborhoods Safe?
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What will it to take to keep our neighborhoods safe?
Both progressives and conservatives agree we need an alternative to always calling the police. People usually at odds are in consensus that we need an unarmed response to non-violent emergency calls. What would that look like and how would it operate?
In Denver, they have created a tremendously successful and popular model. Denver STAR routinely and safely provides a mobile, civilian response to emergency calls about people experiencing problems related to mental health, depression, poverty, homelessness, and/or substance use issues. In this episode of What's Next, Los Angeles, Mike talks with two people deeply involved in the success of the Denver STAR program : Andrew Dameron, the director of the city's 911 system; and Chris Richardson, the associate director of clinical services for Wellpower, the region's mental health services agency.
If you'd like to learn more about the Denver STAR program, you can visit the following sites, or email Andrew or Chris directly:
City of Denver
https://www.denvergov.org/Government/Agencies-Departments-Offices/Agencies-Departments-Offices-Directory/Public-Health-Environment/Community-Behavioral-Health/Behavioral-Health-Strategies/Support-Team-Assisted-Response-STAR-Program
Wellpower
https://www.wellpower.org/star-program/
Andrew Dameron - Andrew.Dameron@denvergov.org
Chris Richardson - chris.richardson@wellpower.org
News Stories:
Study: Denver's STAR police-alternative program lowered crime and costs
How 911 dispatchers decide between mental health vs. police response
STAR Program Expanding to Meet Demand for Services
Denver STAR presentation to Los Angeles City Council (4/14/23):
What's Next, Los Angeles? is produced and hosted by Mike Bonin, in partnership with LA Forward.
How can we keep our neighborhoods safe? The default response is almost always about needing more police. But the city of Denver has found another way, a tremendously successful alternative response for nonviolent emergencies. It is called Denver Star, and we're going to talk with two of the people who run that program. And we'll also listen to the comments of Councilmember Aionis Hernandez, the loan vote against a city budget that she says invests too much in police and not enough in community. That's on this episode of What's Next, Los Angeles. Hi, everybody, and welcome. This is Mike Bonnet. After the murder of George Floyd, Los Angeles engaged in a pretty unprecedented conversation about reimagining public safety. People around the city began to ask what really are the best ways to keep our neighborhoods safe? When is it really better to not call an armed police officer and instead use a different response? They began to ask, how can we invest in public safety by preventing crime rather than merely responding to crime? While the topic quickly gets controversial on social media or on talk radio, there is actually remarkable consensus across the political spectrum and across the city. Everyone from police abolitionists with Black Lives Matter to the very conservative Los Angeles Police Union agree that police shouldn't be the agency called to deal with a whole range of stuff, including issues such as homelessness or mental health issues. On one hand, you have advocates for a care-first approach who believe that using unarmed civilians with specialized training in mental health and other fields will de-escalate problems and steer people in crisis to the help they need. They say this will cost far less than a police response, and that in turn will free up resources for further investments in people and in community, and that will break the cycles of poverty and trauma that often lead to crime in the first place. And then on the other side, you've got the police union and its supporters who say that unarmed crisis response will free up police to focus more on issues of violence and on investigating and solving crime. Two different perspectives, uh two different ways of looking at the issue, but both agree that unarmed crisis response will help address and improve public safety in Los Angeles. But despite that big consensus, there's actually been little progress made in Los Angeles in creating these alternative unarmed responses. Yeah, there are some pilot programs here and there, but nothing significant or nothing really at scale. The new city budget allocates $15 million for unarmed crisis response, and that may sound like a lot until you realize that's less than two-tenths of one percent of the budget. And it is absolutely dwarfed by the billions of billions allocated to LAPD. And this, mind you, is after three years of discussions, three years of debate, and three years of opportunities to make big changes with a new annual budget. Why is that? Why is there so little progress? A big part of the problem, I think, is that many people, the public and elected officials alike, they have a hard time imagining what that alternative system looks like, how it would operate, how you create it. There is a fear of creating something new and not really being able to fully imagine what it is. That would be reasonable, except it's not about creating something new. In Denver, for the past several years, since 2020, they have been implementing a very popular and a very successful unarmed crisis response program. It's called Denver Star. It's a city-funded program, a collaboration with community groups that responds to nonviolent emergency calls. It does so with a two-person team that includes an EMT and a trained mental health professional. In its three years, the program has handled thousands of calls related to mental health and depression, poverty and homelessness or substance abuse issues. The star teams are dispatched through Denver's 911 system, and the teams have never had to deal with violence and have never, never had to call police for backup. Recently, Los Angeles City Councilmember Ionisius Hernandez brought representatives from Denver Star to Los Angeles to consult with officials here about how LA can launch something similar. I had a chance to talk with a couple of those representatives last week. Here's that interview. So I'm really glad to have with me today on What's Next Los Angeles two of the people who have really helped create and grow the Denver Star program. Joining me are Andrew Dameron, he's the director of Denver's 911 system, part of the Department of Public Safety, and Chris Richardson, who's the Associate Director of Clinical Services at the Mental Health Center of Denver. Guys, welcome.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having us.
SPEAKER_03Thank you very much. Very glad to have you here. Let's just dive right in. And if you could start out and just sort of describe what Denver Star is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so uh Denver Star is a um it's it's a new way of thinking of public safety. It's how do we um increase um creative solutions to send the right response to the right situation uh of things that come across 911. And so it's a partnership of a um a clinician and a medic going to low-level 911 calls where there's no safety issue and there's no legal issue, but there's still a need for a response. There's still a crisis happening. There is still maybe it's behavioral, maybe it's mental health, maybe it's uh environment, maybe it's just a situation that pops up. Um and how do we send that response that doesn't involve um the typical police fire EMS response?
SPEAKER_03So civilian closed, unarmed uh emergency response.
SPEAKER_02That's correct. And and what I would add to what Chris said is is that uh what it represents for us in Denver is really kind of a paradigm shift of uh kind of rethinking what it means for a department of public safety like Denver's to send help to those who call 911 uh looking for assistance. Uh for close to six decades, we've had three options being a police car, a fire truck, or an ambulance. And STAR represents a fourth option, a community-based option that is able to provide uh a more specialized response when it's uh beneficial and required. And what kind of issues do the teams respond to? Typically, um it is calls for service where there is a uh a need centered around a person. So it could be a welfare check, it could be a trespass call, uh certainly calls uh dealing with folks experiencing homelessness, substance misuse, even just resource needs. There are many calls where there isn't necessarily a behavioral or mental health nexus, but where the person uh either who has dialed 911 or the person that the the caller is calling about uh just needs a little bit of help, uh, whether that's a ride somewhere, whether that's uh they're they're new to the city and they don't know their way around, where traditionally sending a police officer was really our only option. And now now we have uh uh the star van where we can send that unarmed civilian response to these lower acuity calls and uh provide them the resources that they need, whatever they may be.
SPEAKER_03And so when when a team gets there, what do they do?
SPEAKER_01Um usually what we're doing is we're engaging someone with just that basic um it's building rapport. It's saying, what can we do? What's the situation? Um, what can we do to help support uh an outcome that you're looking for? Um it's listening, it's being intentional with um letting that person be the driver of what is going to be the best solve for them. And then our role is just to see how we can help connect that individual to whatever service that might be, whether that is I'm ready to make a change and want mental health supports. Our role is then to get that person low barrier access to mental health supports. And maybe that's a drive to that location. Maybe that is doing an intake on the spot to get into services, maybe that is it's really meeting that person's need where they're at. Um, and and in most situations, it's just that that that that that touch of I'm here to listen and I'm not gonna rush you and I'm gonna put your humanity, dignity, respect at the forefront of that. And how do we make sure that we're um um meeting that person's needs? And and this launched in 2020? Sorry, yep, June 1st.
SPEAKER_03And you started in in downtown Denver, which I understand is about 9% of the city, and you've now expanded to the entire city?
SPEAKER_02That's correct. We've got uh five vans operating now, and we just procured three more. So they are going through the the retrofit process now to get uh uh various other um bits and bobs added to them, including like a wheelchair ramp or or lift. Uh and those should be available and on the street in August. So at that point, we'll have eight bands operating citywide.
SPEAKER_03And you're 16 hours a day now, but you're you're looking to go to 24-7?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. The the thing that we identified fairly early on was that we wanted data to really drive the expansion and growth of the program, but we also didn't want to just look at the data, right? So the data shows us that the vast majority of calls that we get where star is the best response are happening between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. when star is operating. But we are also hearing from our community partners uh that they they want this to be 24-7. We're also hearing it from city council. Uh, we've got a mayoral election that's going on, and and uh I believe most, if not all, of the mayoral candidates agreed that it needed to be a 24-7 program. And we agree uh we we will get to 24-7 um probably sooner rather than later. We're just trying to be deliberate about it so that we're not uh disadvantaging the time of day when there is a real need uh just so that we can say we have 24-7 coverage. So we're we're we're trying to kind of walk that line, but be be uh intentional about it.
SPEAKER_03So three years in, you've got some data, you've got lots of anecdotal experience. Uh I know Stanford did a a study that sort of evaluated how you were doing. What are the what are you seeing as results? Impact on crime, cost, uh, number of calls.
SPEAKER_01I think that's gonna be the uh million-dollar question, hopefully a little bit more than a million dollars. Um we have Urban Institute that we've actually uh contracted with to actually to do a um yearly study specifically on what does cost savings look like? What is the you know uh the time saved for not having police available? Um how do you associate that with the possibility of a reduction in a jail type call? Um all the stuff that's associated with that, courts, all that. Um, and they should be able to report most of that. Um, I think early 2023 best case or 2024 best case scenario. Um, but we're really trying to show that there's an impact. We're always seeing from the data that we are we are showing an impact just from our ability to go to these calls to be able to be there on our own, to not have to call for backup, to not have to include uh other crisis response teams. So I think we're showing that there's efficiency with having a civilian-based unit. Um, it's just putting the numbers and data attached with it that actually um, you know adds the financial component of like cost savings.
SPEAKER_03So tell me, I I'd like to talk through actually how this works. Uh I'm a resident. Uh I see uh someone in my neighborhood, uh either a homeless person who looks like they're they're they're passed out or not moving on the street, or someone uh uh suffering what appears to be a mental health crisis. I call 911. How does that call get routed to STAR?
SPEAKER_02So the 911 call takers of Denver 911 are all trained uh specifically to triage every call that comes in. And when we started working on the STAR program, we were very deliberate to try to avoid making a separate triage process for star calls versus other calls. So the call taker will follow the same uh questions. That means the first thing they want to know is where are you? Um also to back up a little bit, 911 works differently depending on where you are. And so there are a lot of places in the United States when when you dial 911, the first question you will get is do you need police, fire, and EMS? And that is because the call taker, then, depending on your answer, has to transfer you somewhere else because the dispatch functions for each of those pillars of public safety reside in different comm centers, uh different teams, or what have you. So in Denver, we are a consolidated dispatch center, which means police, fire, NEMS, and STAR are all dispatched out of the same room by the same teams. So when our call takers answer the call, they don't, they'll they'll figure out what it is that you need. They just need to know where you are and then tell me what's going on. Tell me exactly what happened. And they will get that snapshot built and they'll ask questions about are any weapons involved? Uh, is anybody making any threats? Is anyone injured? Right? All of these questions to try and hone in what kind of response do you need as a 911 caller? Uh, if there is a behavioral health, mental health nexus, but somebody has a weapon, uh, then it may not be appropriate for star to go. Well, I won't equivocate, it would not be appropriate for star to go. So then we would dispatch uh the co-responders. Uh, if somebody actually has an injury, while we have paramedics on the star van, the star vans are not equipped for uh ALS or BLS uh or advanced life support or basic life support. Um, and so we would dispatch an ambulance instead. So they go through that call triage process. If it falls within a category that is star eligible, meaning there is behavioral health, mental health, homelessness, substance misuse, resource need, um, or even just the possibility of one of those. For example, uh someone calling from a 7-Eleven asking for a homeless person to be removed. Um, we don't know that that homeless person is experiencing uh a behavioral health issue, but we have a resource now that's better than sending police necessarily. So as long as those scene safety concerns are answered, then uh the call taker will essentially flag the call in our computer-aided dispatch software. And that lets the dispatcher know hey, I have gone through these questions and this would be a good call to send star on. The dispatcher then is working the police radios. Uh the star bands are also on the police radio channels. So then they just hop on their radio channel and they ask for star and ask them to respond uh to whatever the location is.
SPEAKER_03And then a van rolls out with two people on it? Yep.
unknownCorrect.
SPEAKER_03What what does the van look like? Does it have a logo and and how are the the two people dressed?
SPEAKER_01We are getting close to a logo. Um work in that with our community, um, uh basically our community saying, what does this need to look like? How do we present it? How do we get our van wrapped around that? So hopefully mid-summer, late summer, we'll have something that's more official. Um and we're just showing up in in jeans, button-down, t-shirt, plucky attitude. I mean, we're pretty casual. Um, you know, we do have the radio that kind of identifies us, but it really is how do we approach people where it doesn't look like you're um, I don't want to say the man, but you're like you're just approachable. You're just a person that can connect with someone on any level. Um, and usually just having a jeans and t-shirt is pretty approachable for most people.
SPEAKER_03And it's an EMT, which I think everybody understands what an EMT is, and a behavioral health clinician. What exactly is a behavioral health clinician?
SPEAKER_01Uh those are clinicians that have a master's in um social work, uh licensed professional counseling, um, any one of the psychology-based fields, social work-based fields, and have um have history working with individuals in a more assertive community treatment model. Um it's meeting people where they're at, it's going into homes, it's going into shelters, it's going into alleys, it's working with organizations and um really have that experience of what it means to meet people um in the community. And so um they are the ones that we are intentionally seeking out and trying to make sure that uh the right fit for the clinician role really fits the role of star.
SPEAKER_03Every time when I was in office, I would mention a model like this. A common reaction I would get from people in the community is, oh, you can't do this. These guys are gonna get they're gonna get hurt. Uh, they're gonna be put in really difficult situations. Uh let's let's put a very fine point on it. Uh, how many times have one of the star teams uh had to call police for backup?
SPEAKER_01Uh none. For safety concerns, none. Um, you know, I think that's the common misconception about sending civilians is that we, you know, we can't read situations. We don't know what we're getting ourselves into, difficult things, you know, make us cower in a corner. And those just aren't true. We we are doing this work on a daily basis um without um 911 kind of seeing us two different places, um, without police present. This is this is what community work looks like and what people are doing uh in Denver and LA and Chicago. I mean, there's there's there's so many organizations doing this work already. Um we're just formalizing it and partnering with 911 to say instead of the front door of our organization giving us a new client, 911, you're giving us a new client. What's going on and how can we go and help them?
SPEAKER_03So it's it's people are doing the work that they've always been doing. You've just found a different way for them, for people in need to get access to them.
SPEAKER_01Uh 100%.
SPEAKER_03And um here in Los Angeles, one of the struggles I think that that we've had uh in homeless outreach teams, uh in in hiring mental health professionals to go out to people who are living on the streets is people suffer burnout really quick, um, and we have a hard time hiring people. How have you worked around that in Denver?
SPEAKER_01I think we've been really intentional with how we've um set up a wellness culture just within the team, um, our philosophy, um, and also setting up those intangibles with work schedules. Um, this is hard work. So we have our people do 13-hour days, uh, three 13-hour days, and then they get four days off to kind of take care of their own mental health. Um, those weeks tend to flex too, because we want to work weekends. We want to be able to serve people that are experiencing crisis on weekends, but hiring someone just to work weekends isn't sometimes the most ideal. So we have everybody on the team just kind of alternate weekends um so that they don't feel like they are burdened to only take care of weekend shifts while everyone else gets to be on the day shift. So we've been pretty intentional with like the perks of the job that can really be mindful, uh really be helpful for keeping people around. Um, we do try to make sure that we are paying them um what their value and worth is, uh, because our field has historically maybe not done the best that we could. So we wanted to make sure that this was a desirable job to want to be part of. Um and then, like Andrew said, it's part of a um it's a it's a culture shift and a philosophy shift. It's that our partners are 911 and that when we go up to 911 to meet the dispatchers, that they're part of the team too, and that it's not so siloed and isolated where you're the only person in a van for 12 hours by yourself, that there are people that are part of your team at every access point. It's just making sure that we're intentional to bring all the partners together and know that they're they're not alone, that this is this is tough work and everyone's in it together to do it together.
SPEAKER_02And and a part of that partnership with Denver 911, we've also been able to leverage um existing contracts that we have uh with a local psychiatrist's office uh that specializes in kind of first responder trauma. And so, like our 911 call takers, after a particularly difficult call, if they need to have a critical incident debrief with a psychiatrist, they can go do that. And we've been able to kind of bring the clinicians and the paramedics on the star van into that uh that process so that they again have that additional uh uh touch point, right? These are clinicians, these are people who are typically the ones helping people work through crisis. Um and so I think you could easily argue that they need the same supports uh just as much as everybody else.
SPEAKER_03Sure, absolutely. It's it's difficult, difficult work. Um when the team goes out, they respond to that 911 call that's been routed to them. Uh, someone in a mental health distress or or something. Somebody passed out on the street, what do they actually do? What happens?
SPEAKER_01We're having a conversation with that person to say, hey, here's what came to our attention. Um, you know, is that what you're experiencing? Is that what's going on? Tell us what's going on. And then letting that person direct what that might be. And so it might just be as simple as here's water, here's a snack. Is that all? And and some people are just like, that's all I really need. No, it's not a crisis anymore. I'm okay. I'm gonna walk away, I'm gonna leave. Um, some people are like, hey, I actually don't feel great if you left right now. Um, I'd love to get, I need to get to a shelter because I know it's gonna rain tonight, or I need to get to a walk-in crisis center because I need a little bit more uh than just staying on my own, but I don't need a hospital. Um, and that's when we are able to transport people in the van to kind of whatever location seems to fit the need for them and that what they're asking for. And it's realistic to be able to access uh them. And that's where community organizations um have become more and more familiar with STAR, have been more and more invested in trying to support the people that we're connecting with. So when we drop someone off there, we're already talking to that individual in crisis. Here's what this entity is able to help with, here's what their primary goal is, and I'm gonna connect you, warm hand you off to that entity to help you get that next level of service.
SPEAKER_02So, kind of touching on what Chris was saying, this second portion of STAR, the kind of the second phase of what we've been developing in partnership with a lot of community-based organizations in Denver is creating that tapestry of support uh within community. Right? There was a study that I'm struggling, it might have been New York University did not that long ago, that was highlighting the difference of kind of the concept of what public safety means when you talk to municipal employees, traditional, you know, police fire, EMS, 911, and members of community. And as municipal employees, we tend to think of public safety as something that we provide to our citizens, right? It is the government's responsibility to ensure public safety. And increasingly, community voices are telling us no, public safety is something that we can and want to provide for ourselves. We just need support in order to do that. And so what we're trying to do is create the infrastructure to uh kind of pay homage to both mindsets so that STAR is something that we can provide as an on-scene response to a 911 call, but then we have those existing community partners to whom we can uh hand off these individuals and hopefully set them up for long-term success. So these this kind of coalition and tapestry, to use that word again, of CBOs represent uh cultural, linguistic, religious needs uh that allow us to connect that person with the with the right resources.
SPEAKER_03Uh what are some examples of come of the some of the community-based organizations?
SPEAKER_01Uh our our main partners Servicio de la Raza. Um they were the ones that came out to LA with us, uh Nita Gonzalez and um Maria Martin. Um and they've subcontracted with uh Struggle for Love, which is a local Montbello uh-based community, um, uh Muslim Family Services, um, Asian Pacific Center. And what services do they provide? Uh the the range. Um so some of them are more um grassroots, uh social connection, social support. Um some are mental health specific to their population, some are substance use, some are co-occurring. Um it really is the the benefit of that tapestry of um cohesion with this coalition is about the right no wrong door, that someone is going to go to the right place of the place uh for what their need is. Um, and they're building that coalition out to make sure that there isn't those gaps. Um I think some of the other ones are Dasher. Um, I think there's a gain reduction. I can't remember what Grass stands for, Andrew.
SPEAKER_03So it sounds like not only did you create a different gateway for people to get into the first level of triage service that you do, but you're also creating more pathways and more pipelines for people to get into a broader network of services.
SPEAKER_01Correct. And I will 100% put all the ownerness of like uh the owner? The amazing work that Servicio has done with the community coalition. I mean, that is that that is a difficult task in its own right. And I think they've done a fantastic job with mobilizing, with getting the word out, trying to get individual organizations that may be more small within our community, um, but do great work to the table to say we want to support the idea and the effort of this philosophy around um alternative response. They've done a great job.
SPEAKER_03It sounds like it's really part of the secret sauce there. How have you continued to engage the community in uh oversight or in management or the continued shaping of the program?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so we have a uh um a community advisory council of folks that are the the council is designed to be representative of each of the city council districts, the the various parts of the city, that meets on a monthly basis uh to kind of talk through the continued evolution of the program. Um we also have kind of open lines of communication, so they will often hear um issues, concerns, confusion about how and why star was uh was dispatched or maybe why star wasn't. And so we try to address those uh, you know, kind of in onesie twosies, uh, but then also identify the patterns that we see and address those holistically so that the program is continuing to evolve uh as responsively as possible to those community voices that, as Chris said, were so instrumental in getting this project uh going uh to begin with.
SPEAKER_03So you guys had an opportunity to come out to Los Angeles. Uh you were here for, I guess, almost a week. You met with a lot of our community-based organizations, uh uh talked to PD 911, uh Councilmember Aonisi Hernandez uh uh sort of uh showed you around town. Uh what was your impression of uh the the current ecosystem in Los Angeles and and and how well we are primed to grow into a system like Denver Star?
SPEAKER_02Well, so uh the the thing that struck me most uh was well, first the complexity, right? The when you when you look at the complexity between uh Denver and Los Angeles, you know, you all have uh uh a very different um kind of tapestry that you're or or uh what's the word I'm looking for, canvas that you're trying to paint on. Um but even so, you have a lot of very passionate people who are trying to make something happen, right? You've got Los Angeles Fire, you've got the Los Angeles Police Department, you've got some of these community groups, um, the mayor's office, all who have identified this need and taken steps to try and meet that need. I think what the councilwoman's uh point was was that, you know, with all of these disparate programs, there's a lack of cohesion to bring them together. And that's certainly a challenge that I think Los Angeles will have to tackle. But what I don't think you all lack is uh will and a desire to kind of solve this problem. And and you know, a couple of things that really uh crystallized for me while we were out there was that first, uh the the complexity did keep coming up, right? Like we we actually heard responses from some of the public safety folks, some of the community organizations saying, well, okay, it's easy for you to say you did this in Denver, but Denver is not Los Angeles. And that's 100% true. But we copied star from Cahoots in Eugene. And when you look at the size of the city and the population, Denver's about a quarter of the size of Los Angeles. Eugene is about a quarter of the size of Denver. So we were able to take everything that worked there and scale it up for our needs. And I have every faith that the people of Los Angeles can do the exact same thing there.
SPEAKER_03Chris, what were your takeaways or impressions?
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, I think piggybacking on Andrew, I think the will is there. I think that you have buy-in from police, you have buy-in from the police union, you have the uh city council members that are bought in, you have the community bought in. I mean, that is the biggest hurdle to overcome is getting people to the table saying we need to do this. Um yeah, Mike, you may have realized LA's a little big. Um that's but it's also like Denver didn't take on Star as saying we're taking all of Denver on. We were really thoughtful and intentional to say the will's there, let's start something from a um, you know, let's go experiment. And I think you guys have enough already existing things that you could almost just build onto that as a um, I don't know if it's redefinition. Like I know that there wasn't a desire to really want to start a new pilot for something, but maybe there's an opportunity to just start something with existing um resources to be able to build build an idea of, hey, this could work if we scale this up to two options and three options and four, and that's where Denver is. We're just slowly building from one van to 10 vans to 16, and then next year another, however many. Um, we didn't take a bite of the apple all at once. It was really thoughtful and intentional. And I think that's what LA um, you know, I I think the overwhelmingness of the city to me, I was just like, I don't know how you kick this off all at once, but you could probably start it pretty small in one area just to get a test test pilot going of how this could work. And I think the every single person we met, from minute one to the second we left, the Uber driver we were leaving, we're all bought into this concept. And it had a very real vibe from when we went to Eugene that everyone there was like all about it. Um, very rarely do you have that where everyone from mayor city council to the Uber driver taking us to the airport, we're like, yeah, that's a great idea. We should be doing this. Um, that's the hurdle to overcome that most communities haven't quite got to. And LA's there. So I think it's just um taking sometimes that unknown leap out the plane. Knowing Denver, we created the plane when we were jumping. So it worked.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you you guys took the leap and it's it's it's worked pretty successfully. And you started, as we said earlier, nine percent of the city and and grew from there. So it's a model LA can could can definitely do well to learn from and and and repeat. Um for anybody who's listening, if they want to learn more about STAR, uh, where can they go?
SPEAKER_02Uh well, so if you visit uh the city's website, uh there is a uh page all about the STAR program. It's within our Department of Public Health and Environment. You can find information there. Um and I, you know, I'll speak for Chris that when it comes to uh specific questions, one of the things that we love doing, uh obviously, is talking about the program, uh sharing the successes, and uh trying to pop problem solve with like-minded people around the country. So um, you know, maybe you can provide uh our email in your show notes and and folks can can reach out. Um and I I I think I can safely speak for our community partners as well, that they have a wealth of knowledge and experience on this program and would would love the opportunity to uh to provide that voice as well.
SPEAKER_03I will provide all that info in in in the show notes, and I know that there will be many people in Los Angeles who are interested in continuing this conversation uh and finding out a lot more. Uh Andrew Dameron and Chris Richardson, thanks for joining me on What's Next Los Angeles. Thank you for having us. Thank you very much. A few days after I spoke with Chris and Andrew, the city council voted on a $13 billion budget for the next fiscal year. One member of the council voted no because she said it was starving programs that take care of communities and prevent crime, and because she said it was overfunding police. That council member is Aionysius Hernandez, who brought the STAR team to LA and who is trying to create a similar program here. Following her vote, she addressed the council to explain her reasoning. It's a few minutes long, but it is well worth a listen. Here it is.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, Council President. Uh, colleagues, I voted no on the budget today, and I want to share with you my analysis and reasons why, even though I know everybody was expecting it, if you had been following me from the beginning. I want to first acknowledge that there are some important investments reflected in this year's budget, including an unprecedented investment in addressing homelessness, ULA, and many other things that I'm really excited about. And I want to thank the mayor and my colleagues on the Budget and Finance Committee for their many hours of hard work. I know that many of you are excited about this budget and are celebrating the new investments that have been made and we should, but we are celebrating moving pennies around while we put a quarter of our entire city budget into just one department. I want to be very clear about my position. We're the second largest city in the country. We have a budget of over $13 billion that is meant to serve our over more than 4 million residents. And every year the city goes through this budgeting process, and every year, including this year, we see very similar outcome. This proposal allocates $3.2 billion to the LAPD, and that is about a quarter of our entire city budget. And that is more than 33 departments and bureaus combined. 33. I do not believe that it is responsible budgeting to allocate the lion's share of our budget to a single department. I don't believe that the budget in front of us reflects the needs of our constituents or the values that I hear this body speak about every day. What is before us today and what we voted on is a budget that overwhelmingly underinvests in our city, in our constituents, and in the services that we need that they need us to provide. This budget leaves us unable to fix our streetlights, fill our potholes, and clean our streets at the pace that our constituents need and deserve, and that they call us every single day. This budget leaves us without enough crossing guards to help our young people from home to school safely. It leaves us unable to build infrastructure that will prevent tragedies like the one we just saw a few weeks ago when a mother and her child were run over on their way to school. The same week there was a similar tragedy in my district in front of Brendan Middle School. It doesn't allow us to permanently house people in the very neighborhoods that they were displaced from. It doesn't provide nearly enough resources to preserve affordable housing, to keep families housed and prevent them from falling into homelessness in the first place. We have the resources if we wanted to move it. My reasons for voting no are not just about what we are investing in. It's just as much about what we are not investing in. When we allow one department to operate from a surplus mindset to absorb 25% of our entire budget, then we put every other department in a scarcity mode. And then throughout the year, we bring them in and we ask them why can't you do the job efficiently? Why can't you do it quick enough? Every year. We are asking our department to serve our young people, our elders, who fix our streets and build our bridges, who respond to our constituents' needs, and who are also very critical to our public safety to fight over scraps. And that is unacceptable. I hear from young people every day, including many who called in and submitted public comment, who tell us that there aren't enough safe places for you to go, and this budget, this budget doesn't address that need. We lost three people who were killed to gun violence in one neighborhood in a span of a month and a half. It's unacceptable that we haven't invested the resources to try to stop that. It shouldn't take us seven years to fix a sidewalk. It shouldn't take us three and a half, three to five years to put a handicapped parking space. Our speedup hump application program is open for just one day every year because we cannot accommodate the volume of requests that we receive. And that is unacceptable for a city with over four million residents. We all heard the pain and outrage and outrage after we lost Keenan Anderson, Oscar Sanchez, and Tekar Smith in the first week of this year to police shootings. And the community heard us say that we're going to invest in life-affirming alternatives to crisis response. And this budget contains $15 million for unarmed crisis response. And while that is more than has ever been allocated before, I want to remind you that it is only one-tenth of one percent. One tenth of one percent of our entire city budget. Are we honoring our commitment to do better for Angelinos? Are we doing better, especially for those who are serving on our streets right now and in our homes with mental health needs? And we heard statement after statement pledging to bring forward a true citywide language justice program, one that centers our communities who have been left behind, especially our indigenous communities, and yet despite those statements and despite the enormous harm caused to those communities by people who sit on this very council, we see no real investment in that program. A program that would make our government more accessible to these communities. That our streets are not clean, that they're not getting swept regularly enough. And we could be making those investments. It doesn't fund the services that we all desperately need to meet to make sure that the quarter million people that each of us represent have the services that they need. And I ran for this seat because I believe our communities deserve care. They need care first, not last. They need us to prevent harm and violence, not just respond to it. And let me be clear, I'm not opposed to compromise. I came into this process really optimistic, and I had countless conversations with my colleagues on the Budget and Finance Committee, with the mayor, with departments, with communities. We talked over and over about how we can uplift and fund these desperately needed programs and services because we wanted to create something that reflected the needs of a very and needs and priorities of a very diverse city. And I have to say that I'm I'm disappointed with the outcome of this process when we have a budget that has 25% of our money going to policing. We are not creating a budget that is reflective of our values and the demands that we get every day from our constituents.
SPEAKER_03That was Councilmember Aunisius Hernandez, the lone vote against the city budget. And that is it for this episode of What's Next Los Angeles. Thank you so much for listening today, and my thank you to Brian Holmes for editing and producing this podcast. Please do me a favor, if you get a chance, follow this podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts or wherever you listen to this kind of stuff. And if you have any ideas for future episodes or guests, do not hesitate to email me at what's nextlosangeless at gmail.com. Again, that is it for this episode. Thank you so much. Until next time, peace and good care.