CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Since 2021, Northeast Ohio has received hundreds of millions in federal COVID-19 stimulus money through the American Rescue Plan Act.With that in mind, Stimulus Watch set out to highlight some ARPA-funded projects in Northeast Ohio that seem to be among the most promising.
For this story, we chose programs that met several criteria: They created or expanded on an innovative approach to a long-standing social issue; they provided enough money to potentially see a difference; and they are backed up by either data or success stories of similar programs elsewhere.How often do we hear about a violent interaction between police and a person experiencing a mental health crisis?It’s not just fatal shootings.
Preventing unnecessary uses of force is just one of the reasons police departments, such as Cleveland’s, have been sending mental health professionals to certain emergency calls. Cleveland’s pilot program began years ago, but in early November,of its first-responder teams tasked with responding to people having mental health crises.
The pilot program claims to have resolved 98% of “crisis intervention incidents” without an arrest and 85% of incidents without using handcuffs. In 2021, 900accepted mental health treatment or were referred to services, according to data from Cleveland’s Division of Police. While those numbers are encouraging, data indicate they could show even more results with a larger staff. The previous system paid for one crisis intervention team for each of the city’s five police districts, and they were only on the scene 10-15% of the time,The program is promising, but questions remain. For one, it’s unclear how the city will continue to fund the program – the vast majority of the costs are salaries – once the ARPA money dries up.
Unless there's actual comprehensive and follow-up reporting cleveland(dot)com doesn't deserve to be behind a paywall.