Okay, let's go ahead and get started to uh protect everyone's time.

Thank you all for coming today.

The time is now 2 06 p.m.

and our public safety committee is called to order.

Madam Clerk, could you please call Councilman McKee Rodriguez?

Present.

Councilmember Castillo?

Here.

Councilmember Spears.

Chair Corps?

Yes.

Okay.

So we have a few items on the agenda.

Do we have minutes to approve?

Yes.

Okay.

Let's go ahead and take a motion to approve the minutes first.

We have a motion and a second.

Any discussion?

Okay.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any aye.

Any opposed?

All right, motion carries.

We do have an item on consent.

It's our carb appointments.

And um, Maria, if you want to talk a little bit about that, is it just on consent?

Sure.

Um, so this particular item will consider appointment of individuals to the citizen advisory board for the police uh chief.

And uh we uh brought an item to this committee back in November, and uh that went to council and was approved in January.

We had additional vacancies um that the terms ended in December, so we conducted interviews, and we're recommending this individuals to fill those vacancies.

Um this item is approved, it'll go before the full council in February, and then all of our vacancies at the car will be filled.

Thanks, Maria.

I know we received the information ahead of this meeting, so would anyone like to pull the item for discussion?

Okay, can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

You have a motion, you can have a second.

There's a motion and a second.

Um, all in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right, motion.

Oh, sorry.

Um, and and we have one abstention.

So do we is two one?

Okay, all right, we're good.

Motion carries.

So you want me to wait to just for clarification because I think councilwoman Spears was walking in at the time the vote was taken.

So you want to just go back and retake it?

Yes, please.

Okay.

Um, so we're on consent, and this is for our carb appointments.

Are you um comfortable with keeping on consent?

Okay, great.

So we're gonna retake that vote.

We have a motion and a second.

Um, do you want me to take another second, Jalen?

Okay, okay.

Okay.

Um, all right, motion and a second.

All in favor, aye.

Any opposed?

Abstention?

Okay, 3.1.

Motion carries.

All right, then we have three items on individual today.

The first one is our crime statistics for January through December 2020 2025.

We're required to bring that to this committee, but we chose rather than just reading off the statistics to have them in a memo that we reviewed ahead of time, and we have some for the public in case anyone wants to review that memo.

Um, Maria's team printed them.

They're by the water bottles.

If anybody is sitting and wants to review them, um, and then we'll have some council discussion.

But Maria's gonna give us some of the big highlights from it.

Uh thank you, Chairwoman.

So um, we came to this committee in December and we provided an update on crime statistics for calendar year 2025 through the month of November, and we reported at the time that overall our crime was down in the city of San Antonio.

Uh the memo before you today adds only one more month.

Uh in December, we did an in-depth presentation of crime statistics.

So, what we what we did for this for today is we added the information for December, and the good news is that our crime continues to be down.

Overall crime for San Antonio is 12 and a half lower compared to 2024.

Included in that is our violent crime that is 7.7% lower when compared to last year in property crime is down 17 and a half percent.

Um, we also provided to the council in this memorandum the crime statistics by council district.

Um, so that is our report, Chairwoman.

Thank you, Maria.

So, like we did in December.

Uh, we're we are going to pick certain of these topics and do deep dives rather than just kind of doing the holistic summary.

So, if there's one of these areas that you want to do for a future public safety committee meeting where you want to really explore how either the police department handles it or how we're doing proactive measures to address that, um, please let me know so we can agendize that in the future.

Um, but we'll open it up for discussion in case anyone like would like to comment on the overall statistics.

Go ahead, councilman.

Thank you, Chair.

Um in terms of the reduction and seeing crime down 17.5 percent.

In terms of the reduction and seeing crime down 17.5%, it cites that motor vehicle theft robbery accounts for 17% of that.

And I see on the breakdown that motor vehicle theft has decreased by 25.6%.

A question that I have for staff.

I know there have been a number of uh campaigns in terms of public education on some of the risk with uh motor vehicle theft, um, but I'd like to hear from Petey in terms of what y'all believe has attributed to that uh drastic decrease in motor vehicle theft in particular.

Good afternoon, public safety committee.

Um yeah, so we've done a lot of awareness campaigns.

We've also done a lot of enforcement.

Uh we've solidified a lot of our efforts, and we've worked with a lot of the car companies too that were responsible, the Kia uh motors in particular, having to install some of the anti-theft devices to make their cars less um easy to steal.

So I think it was a combination of all of those things, and again, our task force uh with the with the auto vehicle theft task force is really ramped up efforts to try to address this issue because the the vehicle theft is like the mechanism for all these other crimes that are being committed.

So they will take the car and they're gonna do robberies and go do drive-by.

So it was important for us to try to get to the root cause of that and and stop the vehicle theft.

So it's really been a holistic effort of just enforcement awareness and getting the uh the owners of the car companies to take some ownership as well and fix that problem.

Thank you for that, Chief Salamay.

And then on that note with the drugs and narcotics, um, with the 21.9% increase.

I think it's important to cite that.

That means that's more people getting caught.

And I know uh within district five, there's a lot of concerns with the trap houses and just overall issues in the community.

Would it be possible offline to receive a heat map in terms of where we're seeing this increase uh in terms of of where there's action being taken?

Yes, ma'am, we'll get that to you.

Okay, those are all my questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

And maybe um, Chief, we can work on the drugs narcotics piece for the next the next public safety committee meeting to do a deep dive into that.

Yes, ma'am.

And then one quick follow-up question on what councilman said with the auto vehicle theft.

I was doing uh uh when we're doing the SANT event and I was with the officer.

They told me you guys have these new cameras on the windshields that can scan um license plates.

Is that been a helpful or is that uh attribute to to the the reduction or the reduction?

Yeah, I mean that's helpful for identifying uh the vehicles.

That would mean that crime is increasing if that if we would be catching more, right?

Yeah, it identifies these areas and it allows us to, you know, our our policy is such that if it was taken in a violent crime, then we can initiate a pursuit.

If not, then we can figure out other ways to try to track that vehicle and follow those individuals before they go commit some crimes.

Yeah, because if you're tracking more, you're holding more folks accountable, which is that could be a deterrent as well.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Okay, all right.

Thank you so much.

That's right.

Um, any of my other council member McKee Rodriguez or Councilman's okay.

All right, um, thank you for your work, and we'll uh look forward to having that discussion on drugs and narcotics next.

All right, we don't need a motion for that item, right?

Okay, all right.

Let's go to item number four, which is a super exciting um item that was based on a CCR that Councilman Castillo put forward.

So we're um looking forward to the conversation today.

Yes, uh, and chairwoman and members of the public safety committee.

So today presentation we have two presenters.

Uh first, we're gonna start with Maria Vargas, who is our director for the integrated community safety office.

She's gonna go over the CCR and then talk about models uh similar to what the CCR is requesting here in Texas.

Um, also talk about some of the initiatives that we have here in Bear County just for for your information.

Um, the second part of the presentation, we have um the president and chief executive officer of the Center for Healthcare Services, Ms.

Jelynn Jamison, and um uh the Center for Healthcare Services Board approved recently a request for proposal to do a feasibility study specifically for a diversion and recovery center here in Bear County.

Uh we the city are interested in and participated in that process.

So we asked her if she could come and present her request for proposal.

Um, when we do the recommendation of this item, part of the recommendation that uh staff is making is for us to uh financially contribute to the study uh and the tune of $30,000, and she'll go over that specific RFP and the timeline and the work that her um the Center for Healthcare Services is doing.

So with that, we're gonna start with uh Maria Vargas.

Good afternoon, Maria Vargas Yates, the director of the integrated community safety office.

As Ms.

Via Gomez said, I'll be presenting on the CCR for a centralized center for diversion and recovery.

This CCR was submitted on October 6th, 2025 by Council District 5.

It was heard by the Governance Committee in December of 2025.

The CCR makes four primary requests.

First, to begin the conversation on a potential mental health and intellectual developmental disabilities diversion center.

Second, to identify the necessary infrastructure, staffing, and procedural changes to implement the new system successfully.

Third, to review the recommendations from Dr.

Alexander Testa's Bear County Justice Intake and Assessment Annex Evaluation Studio.

And finally, to create a joint city and county ad hoc committee to establish a centralized system for diversion and recovery.

I'd like to first go over the types of centers discussed in the CCR.

So first, what is a diversion center?

Diversion centers serve as a direct alternative to incarceration for individuals with mental health conditions or intellectual and developmental disabilities, abbreviated as IDD throughout this presentation.

Some common features of our diversion center include 24-7 intake, on site assessments to identify mental health or IDD needs immediately, the facilitation of legal collaboration, especially with the district attorney's office, and to provide streamlined process for stabilization to prevent recidivism.

The other type of center mentioned in the CCR is a recovery center.

Recovery centers focus on long-term restoration and rehabilitation by providing a centralized system of care that addresses the root causes of instability.

Common features include comprehensive on site care such as medication management, psychiatric care, substance use disorder interventions, and rehabilitation services.

Recovery centers ensure continuity of care through community-based case management and permanent supportive housing.

And they may also utilize individuals with lived experience as a peer support system to assist in the stabilization and recovery process.

I'd also like to discuss the primary mechanisms of diversion.

The first being pre-arrest or pre-booking, which is often conceptualized as diversion or deflection.

The second being post-arrest or post booking, conceptualized through adjudication.

The primary mechanism for pre-arrest or pre-booking is facilitated through police drop-off either directly from the field by an officer or by transfer from the magistrate before an arrest or charges are filed.

The police drop off means that the individual is taken to a physical location where treatment begins immediately.

In contrast, post-arrest, post-booking is often facilitated through judicial order.

Treatment is ordered after an individual has been booked or charged and takes place as part of the legal process over the course of weeks or months.

Due to these different mechanisms, pre-arrest or pre-booking means that charges are suspended or never filed.

No arrest record is created.

Whereas in post-arrest post-booking, the charges are filed and usually remain pending until program or treatment completion.

Some examples of pre-arrest or pre-booking diversion in San Antonio include site and release, which is facilitated by SAPD and the Bear County DA, the public sobering unit, and the crisis care center, both of which are operated by CHCS.

For post-arrest post-booking in San Antonio, we have the pretrial diversion through the Bear County DA and specialty courts, of which Bear County has approximately 14, where judges supervise treatment as a condition of probation or dismissal.

This slide visualizes the current SAPD arrest process.

It begins with arrest in the top left of this visual, where the arrestee is then taken to the arrestee administrative processing center, AAPC, also referred to as the detention center at 401 South Frio.

As part of their intake and processing, a mental health screening is conducted in which the arrestee is asked four questions.

One, have you ever been diagnosed as having a mental illness by a doctor or mental health professional?

Two, have you ever are you currently taking any medication for mental illness?

Three, have you ever tried to kill yourself?

And four, do you currently have thoughts of killing yourself?

If the arrestee answers yes to question four and they are only being charged with a Class C misdemeanor, then they are taken to the hospital for emergency detention.

If they answer yes to question four, but they are being charged with a Class B misdemeanor or higher, then they remain within the judicial framework and their processing is expedited.

So they move forward with their probable cause hearing and then are taken to the justice intake and assessment annex, abbreviated as the JIA, or also known as the Bear County Jail, where they are notified of the mental health concerns of the arrestee.

If they answer yes to questions one through three but no to question four, then once more they remain within the judicial process and their paperwork is processed and their probable cause hearing takes place, and then they are taken to the GIA.

And once more their mental health concerns are conveyed to the Bear County jail.

This slide shows current SAPD policy that relates to mentally ill persons.

At this moment, with supervisor approval, officers may conduct a warrantless emergency detention for a person with mental illness in lieu of an arrest for misdemeanors.

This excludes DWI and family violence.

For DWI and family violence, the individual must be booked on the appropriate charge.

Otherwise, once more with supervisor approval, the officer may gather the subject's information to list them as the suspected person for the offense.

They notify the victim that they have the option to pursue charges through the follow-up unit, and that arrestee, again in lieu of arrest, is taken for emergency detention.

If the individual is taken to the magistrate and gone to the central magistrate, those health concerns are conveyed to the central magistrate, the nurse, and the mental health screener, and they can then determine if an assessment is needed per Texas CCP 16.22.

Additionally, bond and special conditions do exist per Texas CCP 17.032 and may include special needs unit, CHCS treatment and follow-up, substance abuse treatment, and drug and alcohol testing.

And our chief mental health officer Jesse Higgins will provide additional details on the mental health resources and specialized units during her presentation scheduled to take place as part of today's public safety committee meeting.

This slide shows current Texas County efforts for pre-arrest diversion.

We have Dallas, Harris, Terrant, and Travis counties displayed in the table.

And the first two rows show the name of their pre-arrest diversion program or center in the year in which it was established.

The third row for facility type describes whether the county decided to build new infrastructure or simply retrofit existing infrastructure.

And as you can see, all four counties chose to retrofit existing infrastructure for their pre-arrest diversion program.

The operator road describes who is operating the pre-arrest diversion program in all counties except for Dallas, it is their local mental health authority.

And so an example for the Bear County Local Mental Health Authority, that is CHCS.

Dallas has a nonprofit partner that runs their direct pre-arrest diversion center, and that is Homeward Bound Inc.

And I will note that their retrofit for their facility was a renovation of a wing within that existing nonprofit facility, Homeward Bound Inc.

For government governance, there's a variety of structures.

Dallas has a public-private partnership.

Harris and Travis Counties have joint oversight committees, which set policies for the pre-arrest diversion program jointly.

And Tarrant County has an advisory committee comprised of county commissioners, the DA Sheriff, and their local mental health authority, MHMR, and they make recommendations to the County Commissioners Court on policy.

For funding, once again, there's a variety of approaches.

Dallas and Travis have multiple streams of funding in which city and county and mental health authority funds are set together to fund the pre-arrest diversion center.

Terrant County uses a mix of county ARPA funds and state and federal grants.

And then Harris County is the most unique in that they have state allocation, which is matched by the county general fund and housing authority vouchers.

Additionally, Harris Center has a 501c3, which raises private funds through philanthropy.

This slide shows reported outcomes for Harris County as it was listed as a specific model in the CCR.

The first table shows total clients served over fiscal years.

It shows the diversion between mental health clients and those with intellectual developmental disabilities.

And I would like to note that these clients served include all of Harris Center's different services and programs, such as outpatient clinics, schools, jail, health care settings, remote telephone and telehealth.

And in the second program year, on average, 2.14.

For those participants with psychiatric emergencies, those emergencies per month were on average reduced by 1.47 in the first year, and in the second year by 1.91.

The size of the jail booking reductions was largest amongst black participants, male participants, and homeless participants.

The size of psychiatric emergency incident reduction was largest amongst people who were homeless at the time of participation.

This slide shows again specific reported outcomes for the Judge Ed Emmett Diversion Center.

So from 2018 to August 2023, 8,835 individuals were diverted to respite rehab and re-entry center instead of Harris County jail.

The Harris Center has reported that for every $1 spent on jail diversion, Harris County reportedly avoided spending $5.54 on criminal justice costs.

And once more individuals diverted with five or more bookings were 3.1 times less likely to be booked into jail on a new offense when compared to the non-diverted group.

Of note, 89% of offenses were comprised of criminal trespass.

46.5% of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and spectrum disorder.

And 77% of the individuals were homeless.

This was specifically highlighted as a request in the CCR.

And for those recommendations that pertain to the CCR, the first one is to invest in a dedicated diversion center, and it also lists the Harris County Judge Ed Emmett Center as a model.

Second, to unify mental health and IDD services.

And third, to implement medical-based screening at intake with a highlight that those screenings should be conducted by medical personnel.

I will now introduce Jelene Jameson, president and CEO of CHCS to provide an overview on the request for proposal for feasibility study.

Thank you, Maria.

Good afternoon.

So we are really happy to be here to share with you the aspects of the request for proposal for a diversion center in Bear County.

Thanks.

So we we are using information that we gleaned from Dr.

Testa's report with his evaluation of GIA.

But we also work very closely with our sheriff's department, and we have an access to the information of the individuals that are currently being detained at our Bear County Detention Center.

So I'm referencing in 2024 there were an at there were an average of 550 inmates that were being treated for mental health needs according to university health.

And in 2024, University Health was the provider for physical and mental health when you were booked in jail.

At that time, CHCS was responsible for assessing 100% of those individuals screened by law enforcement, conducting an assessment of those individuals to determine primary diagnosis between mental health and or substance use, and then making a recommendation to the magistrate for diversion or diversion into outpatient services or through a personal recognizance bond.

And so we have data to show the activity up to September 30 of 2025.

So Maria referenced a slide, I think it was slide six that talked about referrals from the special needs unit and individuals being referred at GIA to CHCS.

That is no longer the case.

We have not provided those services since October 1 of 2025.

And I'll I'll explain further about that.

So we know also there's a monthly average of about 152 Bear County defendants that were on a wait list for a bed in a state forensic psychiatric hospital.

So for some years now, the state of Texas has used its state hospital system to house individuals out of prisons into their state hospital for long-term psychiatric care.

That state hospital system served our state for many years as the place to go for long-term psychiatric care for the general population, and that is no longer the case.

The primary population housed at our state hospital system throughout Texas are those individuals who are justice-involved forensic patients.

We have very little access for civil beds in our state hospital system.

So many communities around the state have now embraced the concept of taking care of this issue locally, and we'll discuss that before the end of the presentation.

There are additionally 300 individuals incompetent to stand trial and awaiting competency restoration at our adult detention center.

CHCS provides a jail-based competency program at Bear County jail.

We have about 80 individuals in that program.

And we work in concert with University Health as well as Bear County Sheriff's Department to identify those individuals that are eligible for this program.

We work closely with Judge Rodriguez also to identify those individuals.

The others are placed on a wait list.

But we go through criteria and identify those individuals that are eligible for jail-based.

Currently, Bear County does not have an inpatient competency restoration program.

So they are either in our jail-based program or they're sitting in jail, waiting for a bed at a state hospital.

We also know that the Bear County jail is at capacity, and our sheriff's department spends every day managing that number so that we don't exceed our compliance.

And many times they are taking individuals and placing them in Kerr and Burnett County so that we can avoid being out of compliance with our max capacity at our adult detention facility.

So in other words, our jail has become the largest hospital for mental health here in Bear County with that number of individuals under care about university health.

So as I mentioned, CHCS did provide assessment and services for 100% of individuals screened by law enforcement.

We would make recommendations for diversion.

But after the county commenced the study by Dr.

Testa, we began looking very closely at our year-over-year performance with the number of diversions requested and the number of individuals actually allowed to divert from the jail and receive services from CHCS.

So in 2025, we recommended 486 diversions.

285 of those individuals were assessed for mental health andor substance use disorders.

And 82 were referred to CHCS for that year for actual outpatient services.

279 individuals were assessed for mental health or substance use disorders.

142 were kept at Bear County Adult Detention Center, and 96 were referred to CHCS.

So we provided the service at Bear County from 2011 until 2025.

Bear County was paying for the staff to conduct the assessments, a complement of 11, I believe, to complement.

We assessed over 1,500 monthly.

It was the Dr.

Testa study where we discovered that we were not made aware of all of the individuals that were eligible for assessments.

We think that number is upwards in between 2,000 or 2,500 on a monthly basis.

So we recommended to our board based on the number that were actually being referred to CHCS for diversions, that we would no longer provide that service.

Bear County staff was also making a subsequent request to the commissioners to no longer have CHCS provide that service, but rely on university health to provide all mental health assessments, all mental health services and physical services at the jail.

And so that has been the situation since October 1.

So we we are not receiving any referrals at this time from Bear County jail.

So I mentioned the GIA assessment by the UT University of Texas Health School at Houston.

It was very informing to us about the actual efficacy and the operation of our GIA.

And it identified six major findings, improvements for sequential processes, improvements in technology, staffing so as not to back up law enforcement, waiting with individuals for processing at the GIA.

I cannot stand before you today and say that we have an update on any of those recommendations.

The second study that we rely heavily on was a study commissioned by University Health, which looked at mental health gaps in Bear County.

And the two that I'm going to focus on today, along with treatment services at CHCS that are referenced in the study, was one for a psychiatric hospital for our general population and the creation of a diversion center.

And so I'm going to focus on those two today.

So as it was mentioned earlier, a diversion center is a therapeutic alternative to jail.

Our board visited with Dr.

Testa in August to fully understand the findings around his evaluation of GIA.

And they then gave us permission to move forward with an RFP to hire a consultant to validate the data that's been uncovered so far with the population that is brought forward to GIA and to help and to develop a plan for a diversion center, helping us understand the number of beds, the low-level offenses that would be considered with these individuals, the actual workflow, how we would engage with the district attorney's office, how we would engage with law enforcement, the residential treatment protocols, as well as recommend after care.

And acknowledging that we will need to grow partnerships with all of our entities that are involved in social services because at the point at which these individuals are discharged from diversion, they will certainly need assistance with all of the social determinants of health, whether it is food or shelter.

So we know that this partnership will not only be with law enforcement and the district attorney's office, but it will certainly rely on the social continuum we have here in Bear County to make sure these individuals are housed, reconnected with family, or reconnected with the appropriate services so that they can continue a successful journey for treatment.

The RFP was posted on December 17th.

It proposes to close on January 30th.

We are here today to see if there are any other items we should consider before the we close on January 30th.

The CHCS board meets on February 10th, and we are in we hope to be in a position to recommend to them so that we can engage the consultant and start the work and engage our stakeholders and begin the validation and planning work for this diversion center.

So I won't spend too much time.

The presentation earlier did a very good job of outlining what a diversion center does.

It actually focuses on intake.

There is a focus on residential treatment.

We will need to work with the community to determine all of the eligible low-level offenses.

I will tell you from all of the data out of Harris County.

The low-level offense with the highest percentage is criminal trespassing and those individuals that are unsheltered, and unfortunately, the African American community in Harris County.

So we expect to work through our community demographic as well and work with all of the respective entities to determine the criteria for this for admit into this diversion center.

So the goal would be to minimize the time that law enforcement spends with an individual experiencing a behavioral health crisis.

Right now we are a partner with StRAC, and we are a participant in the South Texas Crisis Continuum.

We do a very good job with law enforcement navigation, helping law enforcement when they engage an individual.

We are then in a position to have law enforcement contact our Medcom.

They ask for available beds, they describe the incident with the individual, and that individual can then be taken very quickly to the right treatment at the right time, and that law enforcement individual can return to service in an appropriate amount of time.

I will say in my public service career, it was the fastest adoption of a new program I've ever seen in this community.

We started with Central Command at the police department.

Within three or four months, we rolled out to all of the districts for police SAPD, and then all of the other law enforcement entities came immediately after.

So it's been a very successful program for us.

And through that, through that collaborative, we have many other programs that we partner with StRAC to get individuals in the right treatment at the right time.

But the other goal for this diversion center would be to stabilize individuals so that we can prepare them for their treatment journey.

It proposes to provide a short-term residential program with stays up to 14 days for those individuals that are eligible.

This diversion center would help us to, it would not solve the overcrowding at the jail, but it would certainly be a contributing factor to the overcrowding that currently exists at Bear County Addition Detention Center.

It will reduce the unnecessary emergency room visits.

So I think did I go too far?

So this is a high-level workflow of a diversion center model.

We started off with law enforcement.

And I'm I'm just going to rely on the experience that we've had with the San Antonio Police Department.

Going back to the South Texas Crisis Collaborative, SAPD was very willing to join this pilot and figure out law enforcement navigation for our community.

I think with that success, we can build upon that success and work with SAPD to figure out what those low-level offenses might be and how we might get individuals to divert and come to the diversion center.

They would then be checked in, they would go through an intake assessment, comprehensive recovery services would begin, their residential treatment for up to 14 days.

The discharge planning is will be key because that is when we work with the individual to determine how ready they are, what are the social services they need, and all of that coordination will need to take place before we discharge and prepare for their aftercare services.

We are we are recommending that we definitely have aftercare.

We've seen the success model for up to 90 days before they are successfully independent to make that treatment journey.

The other opportunity that is presented to us is working with individuals who are brought to GIA.

And working with the DA's office and pretrial services at Bear County, we might be able to attract an individual who's actually going through the booking process and might be willing to accept diversion over being booked, and that would require a 24-hour desk by the DA's office.

That staffing doesn't currently exist today.

So that's an opportunity for us, and I'm once this consultant develops the plan, then we will know how to implement any this workflow or any workflow that that consultant brings forward that we find is reasonable for our community.

So with the patient outcomes, we propose that it will reduce the recidivism rates that we see with our these consumers who are patients who constantly engage with law enforcement because they are unsheltered or untreated and not able to make rational decisions.

It will also teach the skills that empower individuals to become self-sufficient and become productive members of society.

Our goal is to educate these individuals about their diagnosis and how to manage the symptoms and also begin to address the social determinants of health that they are encountering.

And as I mentioned earlier, helps to manage our jail overcrowding.

So we are using the same cost analysis that was presented to you earlier.

Harris County is the best model that we have to date.

We are we do know that Dallas County has now moved away from its deflection center.

They are working with a nonprofit called Austin Street Center to create a diversion center modeled after Harris County.

So they're in the same space that we are currently, trying to move for move forward with that model.

But the cost of our jail is at 1750 a day.

The treatment cost at the diversion center at Harris County is just over 500.

So there's a potential for us to have cost avoidance or savings to operate a diversion center versus taking care of these individuals.

Any given day, we know that we have between 80 or 100 individuals sitting in Bear County jail with a low-level offense with a mental health and or a substance use disorder.

And so there's an opportunity for us to take 80 to 100 individuals and put them in treatment at the right time.

What we hope to glean from the consultants' work is the ideal location for a diversion center.

It's going to be very important for us to know a location that law enforcement will want to engage with.

We know that that is very important for them.

We also want to make sure that this is a therapeutic location.

We want it to be a facility or a an environment where the individual feels like they can begin their treatment process.

I will say we are not looking for another nice building.

We are looking for a building that meets the need of our community.

Harris County has about 36 beds, but we're looking for this consultant to look at our overall demographics and our arrest data and help us determine how many beds we will need in this facility.

And of course, working with the district attorney to determine which low-level offenses will be acceptable to the district attorney.

So I'm going to switch briefly here and talk a little bit about the need for a psychiatric hospital.

So in the medal study that I recommended, there were specific recommendations to address the mental health gaps in Bear County.

Several of them had to do with the treatment that treatment programs that are currently funded by CHCS, but the need to increase them.

And two were our assertive community treatment program and our forensic assertive community treatment program.

Those are very care-intensive programs currently funded by CHCS, and we continue to fund those not at the enhanced level recommended in that study, but we continue to have funding for those programs.

But there were three other recommendations.

The first was to expand the hospital capacity at the Bear County Detention Center.

The second was to build a community psychiatric center for our community.

And the third was to build the diversion center.

And so the chart is representing how many beds, how many additional beds Bear County would need by the year 2025.

We would need 148 additional beds, so we're already behind the curve.

And then by 2030, we would need an additional 227.

So the inpatient psychiatric capacity currently in this community rests with the funding that CHCS receives from the state of Texas through general revenue.

We receive about 16 million a year, and that funds 52 beds.

So we have a number of hospital partners that provide anywhere from 22 to 8 beds in their facility.

We use a contract bed navigation process that we manage with our partner at Strack.

And the current occupancy rate for those beds runs anywhere from 97 to 98% annually.

So we are a community of 2.1 million.

NAMI says that one in five of us live with a mental health or substance use disorder.

That is about 20% of our population.

That's about 400,000 people.

And we have 52 beds to serve women and children in this community.

We see about 38,000 individuals a year.

So you can see where the gap is in terms of service for our mental health population here in Bear County.

So I just went over these statistics with you.

So it is at 400,000.

That happens to match the population that lives in Bear County with a substance use or mental health condition disorder.

But our Medicaid population has seen a decrease of about 15%.

So there were a number of individuals who lost their Medicaid coverage, about 2 million in the state of Texas, but in Bear County, we have approximately only 180,000 residents with Medicaid.

So you can see the majority of them will become unfunded individuals and obviously be potential patients for CHCS or in our EDs, our emergency departments, or on our streets.

So I'm available to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jillian.

And I wanted to close with a recommendation that we're making for those two items that you just heard.

So our staff recommendation is to partner with a Center for Healthcare Services on the request for proposal previsibility study that you just heard.

Chief McMahon is his steam, myself.

We had an opportunity to meet with Jalyn.

We'll review the RFP, and we are comfortable with the work as has a RFP has been issued.

So our recommendation is that we fund about $30,000 of the eventual proposal that the Center for Healthcare Services will receive.

That will come from the police department's budget, so there's no additional appropriations that would need council approval.

In addition to that, we are recommending that we move the CCR to a B session to brief the council on what you heard today, our recommendation, and also to recommend the creation of the CD and County Ad Hot Committee that Councilwoman Castillo recommended in her CCR.

Thank you so much, Maria.

Thank you.

Oh, Jonah.

The overall budget for this work is between between 100 and 120,000.

So that would be very helpful.

We have raised other money, and university health is participating as well.

Thank you for that clarification.

We do have a couple of people signed up to speak that I'd like to give time to, but also I just want to read into the record.

We have some wonderful letters of support.

So I want to thank the county, um, Sheriff Salazar, Commissioner Rodriguez, and the University Health System for sending their letters of support.

We really appreciate it.

Um Susan Yerkes.

I say that right.

Hi, and thank you.

I'm Susan Yerkes.

I'm the chairman of the Bear Area Harm Reduction Coalition.

And uh I just wanted to say this is a really wonderful opportunity for some of the folks that we serve.

Um certainly have both substance abuse issues and clear mental mental illnesses and they're homeless on the streets.

Um we're either in or extremely near Ms.

Castillo's district.

Um we're at the corner of the Sarasamora and East Laurel.

And um so I just wanted to really emphasize that if the if the um issue is wellness here rather than incarceration, and we're all totally for it.

Um anything that our folks can learn and any kind of treatment that is lasting, it sounds as though the program will continue beyond the 14 days, would be really welcome.

Um of the main principles of harm reduction is coercion, no coercion.

Um so we're hoping that this will be something that folks who are able to make a choice can enter into if they want to go to jail, you know, fine, but it really I can't see anybody not opting for this kind of treatment.

And the follow-up is so very important to have um peer counselors to have places that these folks can go so that they don't go back on the street.

Um we thank you and hope that maybe you can include um folks that are helping uh like Corazone like us uh in the advisory capacity that that we can do.

So thank you.

Thank you, Susan.

Jorge Esteves.

Good afternoon, esteemed members of the public safety committee.

Um I want to thank you for having us speak here before you.

Special thanks to Councilwoman Terry Castillo's office who reached out to us uh from the harm reduction movement to to you know offer some perspective.

Um, and that's what I want to do today.

Uh my name is Jorge Esteves.

I am a local organizer with the harm reduction movement.

Uh the reason for this is because I am a person uh living with HIV, and I am a person in recovery from substance use.

I have worked at Corazon San Antonio as a community educator and currently volunteer and organize with the Bear Area Harm Reduction Coalition.

My work uh focuses specifically on the co-occurrences between systemic oppression, HIV, mental health, and substance use in LGBTQ communities.

Now, while I understand that we may not align on approaches to care, I am here to provide again some perspective and urge you to consider the adoption of a truly effective humane approach to diversion, one based on public health and harm reduction, not coercion.

Carceral systems to uh to address mental health do not help.

By design, they perpetuate harm and systemic oppression, especially for those of us who are the most marginalized.

The standard treatment or jail model is fundamentally flawed.

It uses the threat of incarceration to force people into programs violating the core principles of autonomy that real recovery requires.

Coercive treatment is no more effective than voluntary care, and it dramatically increases the risk of fatal overdose when tolerance drops.

At times a lack of care for people going through withdrawal can lead to long-term negative outcomes, especially for recovery and sometimes death.

Harm reduction is not the opposite of recovery.

It is the most effective pathway to get there due to the fact that addiction, like all mental health conditions, can be a complex clinical condition that merits solutions for that for that complexity.

Harm reduction meets people where they are without judgment and reduces immediate harms while building a bridge to wellness.

The data is clear.

There are meta studies that say syringe service programs lead to uh the likelihood of you know being in treatment sometimes at up to five times more than someone who does not participate.

Starting medication like Suboxin at the point of contact doubles engagement in ongoing care.

Having overdose reversal medications readily available saves lives every day.

A diversion center worthy of community must invest in non-coercive and low barrier support.

I invite you to imagine a program where instead of probation officers, a peer navigator with lived experience like myself, connect someone to a menu of real options, immediate medication for addiction, trauma-informed mental health care, housing assistance, or access to anything that improves the quality of life of the individual.

To support this kind of programming, as Susan has said, there is a great opportunity for us to work together with the folks at Corazon San Antonio and us at Bear Area Harm Reduction Coalition.

Success should be measured by the individual's health and the increase of quality of life, not by punitive measures like institutionalization or the threat of jail.

In many instances, isolation is the key reason why people are suffering from addiction and mental health.

People should recover in the communities they belong to with the support systems built by their peers.

Everything I present to you here is just a snapshot of the evidence-based, more compassionate and more effective approaches to mental health and substance use.

It respects human dignity and builds a foundation for lasting recovery.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing your story, Jorie.

All right, we'll open it up now to council discussion, given that this is a CCR from Councilman Castillo.

Give the floor to councilwoman.

Oh, I do need a motion first.

I motion to approve as recommended by staff.

In a second, we have a motion and a second.

All right, we'll open up to discussion.

Of course.

Abby of University Health.

Thank you.

Hi there.

Thank you so much for having us today and for putting this very important subject on the table.

I want to reiterate some of the things that Ms.

Jameson presented, as well as some of our community members.

And this has already been said, but I think it needs to be stressed.

So I'm Dr.

Abby Ornal Sozano from University Health.

I'm a psychiatrist.

And I think it's very important to establish that mental health issues are often chronic and long-term.

And so it's important that as we talk about these points of services, for example, at a diversion center or an inpatient psychiatric unit, these points of services should be acute treatment.

And so as they um are moving towards longer-term treatment, that also needs to be very robust.

And so what was mentioned, for example, case management, linkage to outpatient care, uh, psychiatric services, and medication management.

All those are very, very important things.

But I wanted to strengthen the facts that outpatient care is going to be very vital to these projects.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dr.

Lusano.

Uh, I wanted to thank the members of the public who gave comments, and of course, all the stakeholders who have met with my team and I to discuss this CCR and what next steps would be.

But uh ultimately, Jolyn and her team from Center for Health Care Services for all the work that y'all have done and continue to do with putting this RFP out to the community.

Whether it's Rikers Island, Cook County Jail or the LA Jail, what we know is many of these institutions do serve as the primary health mental health facility.

And here in Bear County, of course, the county jail is that facility in which many folks get that mental health care.

As stated in the data, what we know is there are a number of individuals who are deemed incompetent to stand trial and awaiting competency restoration, over 300, right?

And that's a large amount of individuals.

And District 5 is home to many county and city facilities from the magistrate office, the county jail, the Center for Health Care Services, Haven for Hope, and so many other partners where there's opportunity for us to better align to ensure that we're providing the health care and service and of course the public safety that San Antonio residents deserve.

As outlined by Maria Vargas in her presentation, many cities and counties have established a similar diversion model.

But this council consideration request was born out of a constituent services case, as well as my visit to the Harris County facility and the amount of constituents that we have coming by our field office to ask how we can help advocate for their family members to get an IDD test or medications while being incarcerated at the county jail.

So I'm grateful to see that Commissioner Justin Rodriguez, Sheriff Salazar, and University Health have submitted letters of support for the City of San Antonio to support this RFP process.

Laid out within the council consideration requests are a number of stakeholders.

I'm pleased to see many here, like Trish de Barry, we really value your work that you did over at the county.

And then, of course, tying in how investing in public safety is also economic development.

So a couple of different areas that I think there's opportunity for us to continue to hone in on as laid out in the RFP, is to continue to have that conversation and coordination with the DA and the police department in terms of what are the low-level misdemeanors that we intend to integrate into this RFP.

I'm eager to see what the consultant comes up with in terms of facilitation.

But I do believe there's value in continuing to meet with all stakeholders as laid out and of course recommended by the consultant.

I would be remiss if I didn't thank uh the police department in terms of the last presentation that we've seen, we've seen a decrease in violent crime and crime in particular.

Um the city of Davis recently put out an article in the district attorney where they've also seen a decrease uh in violent crime, and they point to that reduction to models like their jail diversion program.

And what the DA highlights is that when you have less folks, uh, when when you don't uh when you have fewer offenses, fewer offenders, that's fewer victims, right?

And ultimately that's the goal here is that we don't see uh more victims, and we're connecting folks to the treatment care and rehabilitation that they need.

Uh ultimately, right?

This is a first step for the city of San Antonio to continue to coordinate with all stakeholders and the county, but it is going to take that coordination.

And having gone to the Harris County model and uh meeting with some of the movers and shakers who helped materialize that model, uh, it's going to take a lot of conversations, a lot of debate, um, but coordination.

And I think at the core of this model, and my expectation, right, is that we continue to coordinate again with those laid out in the CCR, but I think it's important to highlight as uh Jalen has mentioned, right?

Um, how can we coordinate with the rank and file officers in terms of how can we be most successful and effective with this model?

Um so I do appreciate that that's uh at highlighted within Jalyn's presentation with the consultant is how are we including everyone?

Uh, because it's going to take that uh coordination to be uh effective and impactful.

And I I wanted to highlight the constituent services case, right?

That this was born out of.

Um it was about a year and a half ago, we had a family come in where their son wasn't receiving the care that they needed.

Um so what we did, uh Rachel on our team as she convened uh ACOG, uh, the Bear County's office, um, our our county commissioner, um, there are about 10 people in that room to assist with one constituent.

And what those stakeholders shared was a lot of disconnection and gaps that exist within the system and where there's opportunity for us to uh weave those pieces together to ensure that if you are uh individual with uh uh mental health uh needs andor mental health use or substance use rather, um, that there's opportunity and models that we can replicate here in the city of San Antonio.

Um but with that being said, I just wanted to thank Maria because for her recommendation.

Uh, this is something that I am supportive of and comfortable with, moving to a conversation to talk about how not only is this a district by problem, right?

Because oftentimes ND5, we get tasked, I get tasked with how are you going to address uh violent crime and poverty, right?

But people fail to acknowledge that no matter where you are in Bear County, if you're getting sent to community at Center for Healthcare Services, Haven for Hope, or the County Jail, these are individuals from all throughout Bear County and not just District 5.

So it's going to take all of counsel to be on the same page to identify where there's opportunity to support this concept beyond the 30,000 for the study.

So I'm eager to move this along.

And again, I ask for the commitment from my colleagues to for us to keep in mind while we're having uh budget conversations and bond conversations, how we can help uh move this along.

Um I think as highlighted by Dr.

Test and his study, uh right.

We also have uh a responsibility to address the double magistration process.

Uh, and as I alluded to earlier, right?

We D5 does have the magistrate, the county jail, uh, and there's just uh a number of opportunity for conversations.

So I'll close with, you know, as laid out in the presentation.

Um, not only is this the right thing to do in terms of ensuring that we have treatment uh and not trauma, but it's the fiscally responsible thing to do.

Uh as highlighted in the presentation, jailing costs 1,750 per day versus 510 per day for a behavioral health diversion center.

It just makes sense.

Uh, and I would be remiss if I didn't highlight that um, and I mentioned this during every budget conversation, and I know I'm going on and on.

Um, but uh when when I attend a neighborhood association meeting, and I'm sure many of my colleagues can relate to this, our safe officers get bombarded with questions and concerns regarding unhoused individuals.

And I think this will help us you know address that concern from constituents, but also remove that task from our safe officers, right?

They're asked to go tackle violent crime, they're asked to go put themselves uh literally in danger, and then we ask them to address the homeless issue, right?

Um, so I think there's an opportunity for us to really coordinate and tackle uh this issue, but it's going to be um a lot of coordination.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilwoman.

Anyone you ahead, Councilmember Spears.

Thank you, Chair.

Um I think this center will is remark remarkable because it's gonna provide a comprehensive way for us to meet the growing needs that we have for mental health health care here in San Antonio and Bear County, and it eases our overburdened public safety infrastructure at the jail and the Jaya and in Bear County and San Antonio overall, and even in all of the different the 52 or 54 counties that are SASH's is serving right now.

Um I think I know that the earlier we are able to intervene and assist in these individuals with their mental health needs, the sooner and better we are able to integrate these individuals back into society and give them a life and hope.

And that is something you you can't put a price tag on.

And but not only that, it helps reduce the strain on our jail and our justice system and the community health care costs, and it it greatly do decreases our daily costs of care as we as we learn today for mental health individuals in our jail by instead utilizing this diversion center.

My hope is that this feasibility study for the diversion center in Bear County creates a roadmap for a comprehensive program for us moving forward in all of our public and the way we approach public safety.

Uh I hope to see a tailored approach that addresses our unique community of San Antonio and Bear County, including veterans and their needs, as well as the high number of domestic violence cases, including help for both abusers and their victims, and as well as seniors and young people in different phases of life.

But it's key that we use utilize public and private stakeholders.

This is a problem we are seeing nationwide, and I am grateful to Councilwoman Castillo for bringing this to council consider this council consideration request forward.

And I do believe this is a meaningful approach to address this problem in San Antonio and Bear County.

And the only last thing I would add is I would like to see us include or engage our bondsmen as we move forward.

So thank you so much for the presentations.

Great work, everyone.

Thank you, Councilman.

Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

Thank you.

I'll be brief.

My voice is very uh strained right now.

Um but thank you so much for the presentation.

Thank you to everybody who came out to speak in support of this item.

Thank you to Councilman Casillo for the proposal.

I'm supportive of the recommendation.

I look forward to this coming before us for a B session.

Thank you.

Um, Councilman Cassieu.

Thank you, Chair.

I wanted to add in terms of something that uh Dr.

Dolzano mentioned, as well as a number of stakeholders have mentioned, is in terms of uh the aftercare component and the need to plug in uh housing.

Uh I think there would be value in uh Mark Carmona serving on the ad hoc committee, um given that he does meet with a lot of providers to talk about uh what gaps are, um what services they provide, so on and so forth.

And I think there's opportunity for us, uh in addition to that, he serves on the San Antonio Housing Trust.

Um so I think he would offer um a really good perspective and direction on the ad hoc committee.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councilwoman, and I want to echo again the sentiments that were brought up that this was a great program, and I'm glad you're taking initiative to help push the city to work closer with our partners at the county side to make sure this comes to fruition.

I'm fully supportive of this, but I just have questions because I just want to know a little bit more.

So um uh, and I'm not sure if Jalen or Maria how you guys want to tag team this, but specifically on the diversion center um kind of process slide, so like slide nine.

When you have GIA and law enforcement officers providing um the or like bringing the individual to the diversion center, do they uh who does the assessment in this situation?

Is it when they get to the center, or is it how does that process work?

So, right now, all of our law enforcement is trained to conduct the screening.

So it's those four questions that you saw in Maria's uh presentation earlier.

And so at that point, law enforcement, when they are bringing the individual forward, they say they have we did the screening, and here's what we discovered.

And so at that point, then a further assessment is taken to determine the primary diagnosis, whether it's mental health or substance use.

And so the um 2000, I'm just trying to like reconcile the numbers.

So the slide a few slides later says there's about 2,000 diversion assessments that are conducted.

Who is conducting those right now?

Uh you I'm I'm assuming UHs because we're not at GIA any longer.

And did you clarify why I know the results that came out that said there was more comprehensive need, but was there a specific reason for the pivot of pulling out of that contracted services work on y'all's end?

Uh Bear County went to Commissioner's Court and indicated they no longer wanted us to perform those services.

Okay, and did not provide any other basis other than that.

And so we met with Dr.

Testa to get an understanding of the study.

Um, and I concurred with that recommendation that UH, if they wanted the the overall recommendation from Dr.

Testa was to streamline the sequential process.

And um he didn't say someone should be removed, he just said streamline.

And so when they indicated to Commissioners Court, they no longer wanted us to provide those services.

I concurred with that recommendation to the board that we should go.

And so now UH is providing they they are the mental health and physical provider.

I don't know if they're conducting assessments.

I don't know where Dr.

Lozano went.

They are okay.

So UH is providing the mental health assessments.

Got it, but it they're still receiving treatment within the jail.

There's no specific center.

UH is the provider.

Oh, you a chance the provider.

Okay.

Okay, and then as far as the data components, um, it was helpful to be able to see the oh, one more question before you and I'll go to Marie on this.

But for um the psychiatric hospital, is that also getting a separate RFP, or is that just a need that you were sharing?

So the psychiatric hospital, while University Health is our community hospital.

I think we all own this.

Um, they cannot do it by themselves.

They are the community hospital, they do receive a dedicated property tax to provide health services for our community more over the indigent community in Bear County, but it is going to take the city, the county, the LMHA, CHCS, and UH to work together to come up with a solution for a psychiatric hospital.

It is a need in this community.

Um they should certainly be the leader.

They are the expertise we have on physical and mental health inpatient capacity, but they don't own it themselves.

We we will all need to come together for a recommendation.

So we the CHCS, the local mental health authority, does not presently have an RFP for that.

Um we would my opinion, I would we would need to work with Ed Banos, the CEO at University Health, for further steps.

I did present to their board of managers in December, I believe it was, and ask them to reprioritize the metal study recommending a psychiatric center.

And so the total number of beds that you mentioned, the 734 exists in the hospital in UHS right now.

Or is that kind of all over?

Is it the total number of beds?

So we have contracts with several hospitals.

So we have contracts with Laurel Ridge, San Antonio Behavioral Health, Clarity for Children's Beds, Cedar Hills, a new behavioral health hospital.

We do not have contract beds with University Health.

Okay.

If it's acceptable to Councilman Castillo, I think the ad hoc committee could potentially also discuss this as well in terms of like how we continue to support because if folks do get treatment, we don't want them to have to get arrested again to get additional treatment, right?

We want to be able to have long-term support, and I think that the hospital would be helpful for that.

You know, Dr.

Lozano mentioned the need for outpatient services, and that and that is the mission of CHCS.

We are the local mental health authority providing outpatient services for adult and children here in San Antonio.

And so that's our mission, and we will continue to fulfill that mission.

Did you want to comment on that, Councilman Cassio?

It's important we don't dilute the diversion.

There is a need for aftercare, but I think we would need the consultant to consult with Mark Carmona in terms of what that long-term care looks like.

Okay, that would be great.

Maybe we can add that to the RFP if possible to see if they could consider what that would look like so that we're not shifting resources.

Sure.

I'm not sure I heard adding Mark Homona and So adding Mark Mona to the specific ad hoc community, but also working to see whether or not what kind of additional aftercare.

Oh, absolutely.

Okay, yeah, services.

We have already begun to talk to our partners at Corazon and Sam to talk about what that aftercare looks like because when they are discharged, they could it could be shelter, it could be food, it could be any of the above.

So absolutely.

Sounds like they would like to add that to the current RFP.

More consideration for consideration.

If they feel like it's out of the scope, but just to, you know, we we understand.

But let me go back and I I think there is a reference, but if we need to beef it up, that's fine.

Okay.

We can issue an addendum to take care of that.

It's not fun.

We still have time.

Yeah.

Thank you.

And one more addition that I was thinking of is in terms of like the need when they're analyzing the need, and is there a way?

Like I know Maria started with some really great data, but it would be great to be able to beef that up even more.

Is there a way they can show result additional data points from other areas?

Is um I so some of the things and Maria, you if you want to comment on this, but I was thinking of like the number of people that don't have multiple, like the decrease in multiple offenses for folks, and then um I know Harris County was presented, but I don't know if there is data on the others as well.

Um Harris, Harris County is certainly putting out the most robust reported outcomes at this point compared to the other counties.

Um, for example, I believe Tarrant was a pilot, and so we're still waiting for some reported outcomes from them.

Um I can certainly look and provide some additional reported outcomes from any other comparison counties.

But Harris Center's been doing it for a while, um, and they have the most uh analytic cool data that we could use.

And they this is the stuff that they were self-reporting, right?

Basically, like this is what the just going back to that slide, I think it's slide eight.

Um, the those were total clients served across all of the institutions, right?

Not just their diversion center.

Right.

That first long table with the fiscal years, that's for all of the services and programs they have, not just the judge at Emmett Diversion Center, correct?

It compares to the 38,000 we serve.

Yeah, so we we're both we both have pretty comparable programs.

Got it, but obviously Harris Counter Council is larger.

Yeah, so maybe for beat the B session presentation, if there's any way to either just before in briefing or in backup slides to send to us a little bit more in depth on the specific diversion program, and it's I don't know if that's publicly released, but the number of of folks that have gone through the program, and I I know you presented jail uh the decrease in jail bookings, but maybe is there have they seen a change in um like I mentioned multiple uh like not having going back for another offense or in addition, just if there's any other uh like um a group that is a control group that we could analyze it with to be able to compare a little better.

Yes, we'll look at everything that they have published and we can present that.

That would be awesome.

Thank you so much.

Um the last question, sorry, Jalen.

Want uh to make you just stand up one more.

The last question that I just had is specifically, can you just for the community share why it's such a different cost between um the Bear County costs for jailing versus providing mental health support?

I am not a jail expert, but just having uh visited the facilities, so much is required for security purposes.

So those individuals are trained, um, and they it's expensive, the individuals that they hire to maintain the security and safety of the individuals that are retained or detained in those facilities.

While we would have security at an outpatient facility or residential facility like this, it would be significantly lower than you would find at your jail because your jail houses everyone from low-level offenses to your highest felony's and crimes.

So that's one major difference.

Uh, the number of beds.

So our jail is 5,000, uh, has a capacity for a little more than 5,000.

We don't know the number of beds.

Harris County has 36.

So we could have 20 or 50, whatever the number of beds are recommendated recommended.

So that per bed cost or per cell cost would be very different for detention versus the the diversion center.

Great.

Okay, thank you for that clarity.

The last thing, Maria, if when we come back to V session, it would be good to we talked a lot in Councilman Castillo mentioned at the very end that our unhoused population needs long-term solutions, and this is I think a part of one, including housing.

And so it would be great to know just as maybe a slide that presents how much we've spent on uh encampment cleanup and things like that, like in the homeless department or new HSS budget in the last five years, and what would it look like if we allocated a portion of that?

Um, and maybe it's just a some kind of way to see how much money that's been spent there.

And I don't know if we can even Maria probably can come up with this because she's a data whiz, but something to like forecast, right?

What it could be long-term savings, like how much if we put in X amount to help X number of people, what could our potential long term savings be?

It could be a part of the dashboard that she's working on if there's a way to incorporate that.

Okay, I'm I think that's all the comments that I have.

Is there anything else from any of my colleagues?

All right.

Um, we have I'm sorry.

Oh, yes.

Do we have a date for a B session?

We do, and I'm going off the top of my head.

Um it's in February.

Um, I think it's at the beginning.

Do you remember Ashley?

She's pulling it up.

Okay.

While she's pulling that up, I just want to say that the new the new CCR process.

Congrats to all of you guys that worked on it because this CCR was put in October.

And look, it's already through committee and going to uh B session in four months.

That's like record pace.

So I think that's great.

Policy making is working.

I'm sorry.

Okay, so it'll be a B session February 11th.

All right, so we have a motion and a second.

Um let's go ahead and take vote.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

Okay, motion carries.

All right, congratulations.

Um, we're gonna move on to item number five.

Yes, uh, chairwoman.

This item is an update on our essay core uh program.

This is our mental health multidisciplinary team, and uh we have uh the two partners that work with us uh outside the city here present.

Uh, you heard from uh Jillyn, and she provides the clinicians that um help us with the actual response in the follow-up, which is very critical.

And I also would like to introduce um Eric Ipley.

He is the executive director for the Southwest uh Texas Regional Advisory Council for Trauma or Strike.

And um, one of the as we were preparing for this presentation, one question that has come out of this committee is is there an opportunity for us to add an option to the 911 system for a mental health call?

So uh working with um our partners, we are you're gonna hear in the presentation, and that's one of the reasons why uh Eric Epley is here today.

One idea uh that we will be exploring is using existing technology, um, not to add an option to the 911 system, but a way to be able to address uh mental health calls that are low uh acuity at the 911 floor.

So we want to introduce the concept.

We still have a lot of work to do, um, but if there's specific questions related to that, uh Eric Epley is here to um uh help us address those those questions.

So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Jesse Higgins, our mental health uh officer for San Antonio.

Hello, everyone, thank you, Maria, and good afternoon, Chair and members of the public safety committee.

I'm Jesse Higgins, the chief mental health officer, and I'm happy to be here this afternoon to give you an update on the San Antonio community outreach and resiliency effort or essay core program.

Today we'll talk about 911 mental health calls, we'll do an overview of the fiscal year 25 essay core outcomes, and we'll also look about look into older adult mental health.

Before jumping into specific programs, I want us to look at the bigger picture of what the city's police and fire departments are doing in the realm of mental health.

You can see SAPD's mental health unit, which is everything in blue on this slide, and SAFD's mobile integrated health care paramedics, which is everything in red.

Both the police and fire departments have a history of working in the mental health arena independently with each other and with partners like StRAC and CHCS.

On this slide, we'll look at the mental health unit, then MIH, and then where they are working together.

Starting on the left in blue, SAPD's mental health unit has one lieutenant, six sergeants, four detectives, and 33 officers.

To get in to get individuals in a mental health crisis to the right care at the right time since 2017, SAPD participates in law enforcement navigation by calling Strax Medcom line and getting navigated to hospitals with behavioral health capacity.

When there are escalated mental health calls, SAPD has a protocol to support patrol with the mental health unit officers.

If there's an ED with a weapon, officers may seize the weapon, and the person must get an order from the judge to release it.

And the multi-agency partner for stabilization or maps team is a team with mental health unit officers and CHCS clinicians that connects persons of concern to services.

If you go to the right side of the slide, you see the breakdown of programs for SAFD's mobile integrated health care paramedics.

MIH has a new chief position.

I'd like to introduce you to Chief Sean Beatric.

He's here today with us.

Two lieutenants, eight full-time paramedics, four detailed paramedics, 15 engineers that are dedicated to SA CORE, and 200 trained alternates.

MIH works with EMS 911 high volume utilizers in their HVU program.

They provide hospice services to contracted patients.

They work directly with Molina managed care patients.

They staff the acute care station at Haven for Hope, which is able to address physical health concerns on site and prevents unnecessary ambulance transports to hospitals.

The opioid substance overdose prevention crisis response treats patients experiencing withdrawals from opioids and connects them with to follow-up services.

And they have a dedicated MIH mental health navigator who assists with complex patients and high volume utilizers.

In the middle, you can see the city's public safety multidisciplinary approach to mental health.

In behavioral and public safety threat assessment groups, the Fusion Center brings together key partners to identify public safety threats.

SAPD and SAFD teach crisis intervention training and SAPD's new CIT 2.0 training to their cadets, in-service, dispatch, and outside law enforcement agencies.

The program for intensive care coordination or PIC team details officers, medics, and CHCS clinicians to connect individuals with high emergency detentions to services.

On the impact team, officers and medics collaborate to work with MIH high volume utilizers, the SA Core program, which we're looking at today, and we're all very active in StRAC's Southwest Texas Crisis Collaborative Behavioral Health Committee and Subcommittees, which work to continually improve crisis mental health services in our community.

This slide shows SAPD's mental health 911 calls from 2019 to 2025.

Through the pandemic, we had a pretty significant increase in 911 mental health calls, and as we continue to destigmatize mental health needs and offer a response like SA CORE, we will continue to have high call volume.

This stabilizing and now decreasing annual number shows that our community is finding a new baseline and that people are perhaps becoming more aware of programs that can help them in a crisis.

I'd like to point out that there's many different ways to show data like this, and this is pure call volume, which shows the weight on our 911 call center.

This does not show call volume compared to the population increase that we've seen over the last few years.

With a population increase in mind, these numbers would show a steeper decrease.

As you saw on the last slide, in calendar year 2025, we had 28,800 911 mental health calls come into SAPD.

When call takers receive a call with a mental health nexus, they look to send SA core first and then the mental health unit.

Sometimes patrol is closer and readily available, and patrol handled 54% of these 911 calls.

If SA Core or the Mental Health Unit is available, one of those teams is sent to these calls.

34 of these calls were addressed either, or 34%, excuse me, of these calls were addressed either by SA COR or the Mental Health Unit.

And 12% of these calls overall were either canceled or duplicated.

As we're talking about the 28,800 911 calls with a mental health nexus, we think it's helpful to be sure that people understand and know the best way to describe what's going on to a 911 call taker.

If you're calling 911 for yourself or someone else, you'll want to give details of a mental health diagnosis, symptoms, or medication.

Call takers listen for words like crisis or episode or breakdown, and you can always ask for the mental health unit or for the SA core team.

It's important to understand, however, that dispatchers will send you the best and fastest resource available in a crisis.

And if these specialized teams are not available because they're on another call, they will be sending patrol.

Jumping into the FY25 SA Core outcomes, it's hard to believe that we are now just about to begin the fourth year of this program.

This program started in April of 2022, and we ran a six months of a pilot, which was one team at 16 hours for a total of 806 responses.

For FY23, this was a full year of one team at 16 hours, and we had total responses of 1,326.

FY24 had two phases of expansion.

We started the fiscal year in October with one team.

On January 1st, we went to three teams at 16 hours, and then on July 1st, we went to three teams for 24 hours, and we ended that fiscal year with 3,211 responses.

And for FY25, we had all three teams running at 24 hours, and they had a total of 5,567 responses.

Each of the three teams that work in these three geographical areas are made up of a mental health unit officer, a mobile integrated health care paramedic, and a mental health clinician from CHCS.

The objectives of SA CORE are to first of all respond to 911 mental health calls to assist people experiencing behavioral health crises using the least restrictive approach with the clinical team at the forefront.

You can see that across all three teams, the majority of the 5,567 calls are resolved on scene, which was 1,367 calls, taken to a hospital by emergency detention, which is 1,268 calls, or transported to address another need, 667 of those calls.

The second objective is to reduce unnecessary arrests by routing people to the correct level of care.

You can see that only one person was arrested by the SA core team in 2025, in fiscal year 2025.

And the third objective is to increase access to outpatient services through follow-up clinicians.

Most of these individuals are being engaged by follow-up clinicians.

Of the 5,567 responses, the ones that are emergency detained, resolved on scene, transported anywhere by the team or to EM or to hospital by EMS, resolved by phone, or if the team assists another unit, are all referred to follow-up.

3,156 of these responses met that criteria and were referred to follow-up.

2,757 individuals engaged with the follow-up clinician in some way.

Follow-up clinicians engage people at 24 hours, 7 days, 14 days, 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days after that initial response.

804 individuals received CHCS appointments with the case manager, therapist, or psychiatric provider over this time.

This number of 804 individuals with appointments is 25% of those that were referred to follow-up.

This is a great outcome and also does not capture those with appointments elsewhere with private providers, pediatricians, private therapists, those types of places.

One thing I want to be sure that you understand is that this team is dedicated to continuous improvement for the frontline staff, but most importantly for the people who will receive this response.

We're meeting every other week to look at barriers and make things better because we know that these are life-saving services, and every person is deserving of a compassionate and coordinated response.

So what's next?

This year we're taking on exploring a mental health option for people calling into 911.

As Maria stated, we're working with our partners at StRAC and CHCS to explore a pilot to answer and address low acuity mental health 911 calls that may not need an emergency response.

We're looking at leveraging existing technological resources, and we're focusing on collaborative models that we're seeing working in our community and other communities.

Since we're talking about public safety and mental health, and this committee has created a subcommittee to address concerns impacting senior adults, we also want to brief you on older adult mental health.

There are myriad issues that affect the mental health of older adults.

Life changes, chronic conditions and serious illnesses, grief that comes from losing loved ones, end of life planning and family stress, and social isolation and loneliness can all be factors that disproportionately affect older adults.

I do want to highlight that mental health diagnoses like depression and anxiety are treatable, just like physical health diagnoses, and not something that needs to be weathered alone.

Because of the changes that older adults experience and stigma associated with mental health disorders, older adults can feel like these diagnoses are unavoidable.

But in actuality, older adults usually have more access to health care through Medicare and their existing engagement with practitioners.

So we want to encourage senior adults to seek medical attention if they are feeling persistently sad, anxious, lethargic, or hopeless.

These are not issues that are to be expected and to be weathered alone in an isolation.

There are underlying physical health indicators that present as mental health symptoms as well.

When EMS is working with people in a medical crisis, they are looking closely at symptoms of intoxication or medication side effects, infections, liver or kidney failure, diabetic ketoacidosis, hypoglycemia or dehydration, and dementia to determine if the medical episode is physical or behavioral.

This helps people get to the right emergency services that they need at that time.

Diagnoses like Alzheimer's and dementia might have symptoms that overload with overlap with mental health symptoms, but would not be treated by first responders or the medical system in the same way.

All city first responders are trained to identify abuse, neglect, and exploitation of children, older adults, and people living with disabilities.

If there's any evidence of abuse, neglect, and exploitation, first responders follow protocols to include reporting to the Department of Family Protective Services and even a criminal investigation.

The city does offer resources to address the need for social connection and mental well-being of older adults.

Of course, we have senior centers.

At senior centers, WellMed offers caregiver SOS programs to better support caregivers of older adults.

We also have financial counselors and benefits navigators at Bear County's Senior Justice Assessment Center.

There is a San Antonio OASIS Silver Connect chat line, which the number is 210, 756, 5551, and can be accessed Monday through Friday from 5 p.m.

to 9 p.m.

and Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m.

to 9 p.m.

Through delegate agency funding, we support Meals on Wheels friendly visitor program.

And I always want to be sure that people are aware of the mental health portal on sacred.org.

This is where anyone, regardless of age or insurance, can find sliding scale and no cost mental health services.

Thank you for this opportunity to present to you today.

We have folks from the police, fire and human services departments, Strack, CHCS, and myself here to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you so much for the presentation, Jesse.

We don't have anyone signed up to speak, so we'll go ahead and go into council discussion in this.

Any of my colleagues like to go first.

Good.

Councilmember Spears.

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks, Jesse, for that presentation is really good.

I remember when I toured stack toured Strack at the county and learned so much about how we integrate our services, and y'all are doing an amazing job, and we're really thankful.

I had a couple of questions about essay core.

How many do you have an idea of how many more teams would be helpful or a break-even point where we're meeting that need overall, or are we good with three?

That's a great question.

So one of the things that's that always comes up, and we always want to pay attention to that.

Um, one of the things I want to highlight is that the geographic distribution sometimes has to do a little bit with how people are able to navigate the city, get through traffic.

You can see that the regions are pretty large.

Um, and so we're always looking at how do we cut down the response time so that people so that SA core is able to get there faster.

Um we think about expansion, we also want to look at call volumes during times of day.

Um you might think that we would have more calls overnight or things like that, but actually, only about 20% of or 27% of our volume came in overnight.

Um, people do sleep and people are in bed, or maybe even the calls are more acute and they're handled quickly by EMS if it's an overdose or by patrol because they are able to get there faster.

And so when we look at expansion, um I think we're interested in this stepping into the dispatch and into the 911 call center so that we can better understand at the front end of the call who's the right resource to send.

And so before we look at more teams, even though we have lots of data and we want to look at the geography, we want to look at times of day.

This 911 call center part is really important for us to look at first so that we can better understand who we're sending at the front end of the call.

So that's not a perfect answer, but we do think that this is the next step and how we get to that answer if we need more teams.

So that was part of my second question and and asking too are we tracking beyond the volume of calls with regard to rip repeat calls or um avoided detentions and just the outcomes that we can see there?

So repeat calls are also kind of difficult.

Um 911 calls come in geolocated to an address, not necessarily to a person.

And so we are looking at address based calls, we are looking at phone number as well as of repeat phone numbers that call in.

And of course, there are some repeats, some of those repeats are facilities or um facilities or organizations in our community that have a high volume of people there throughout the day or evening, and so there are repeats, but it's not always that easy for us to identify.

I can see that, I can see that.

Okay.

Um have you already looked at what the piloting of that initiative would cost us with regard like staffing, technology or operational costs?

So we're starting to look at that.

Um we also have great partners.

Um, I think Houston and Austin are both having clinicians that work in their public safety um call centers.

We're looking at if we can use other models, if we can house people in a in the Peace app, house people at Strack and Medcom, if we can use existing positions that are not filled, and so to get a pilot, we're we're trying to look at the lowest cost as we can for the pilot, and then building out what it would take to fully staff that okay, and just I wanted to emphasize I I really appreciate the information about the special needs unique to older adults, and that there's often that physical um piece to it that that is the underlying issue or the main issue really often and the isolation piece.

Um because I go to my senior center at least a couple of times a week, and even I at this you know notice when someone's gone for a while, but I mean getting to them is the challenge, and really it is the um medical teams that or their their physicians that they see that are gonna be best able to help us when it comes to the isolation piece and then identifying the dementia and all those things.

So I appreciate you you neglect you focusing on that, and it's um it's such a sad state of affairs in our country and in San Antonio the way we neglect our older population.

So I'm super focused on how we can better serve them.

So thank you for that.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you for bringing uh that up and asking us to present on that.

It feeling the effects of isolation and loneliness isn't something that anyone should have to endure alone.

And so, because older adults do have Medicare oftentimes and do have access, we want to just make sure that they understand that that's not just a normal phase of life, it's something that they can address with their treatment teams and then in their like in the community services that we have.

We're just one sliver of those providers as well.

So thank you for that.

Thank you, councilman.

Councilman Casil.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Jesse, for the presentation.

Uh, I'm pleased to see under the continuation of work the mental health option for 911.

Uh, when can we anticipate the implementation of a mental health option?

Um, councilwoman, we just started the conversations, so I don't have an answer for that.

However, we can once we start getting more into the details, we can bring an update or or send a follow-up memo just to kind of give you an idea.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate that.

I know I know this is something that's uh been coming up over the last few years, and I just uh want to help support uh that move along.

Can you walk us through in terms of exploring a pilot to answer and address low QED mental health calls?

Like what do you all envision in terms of of that pilot program?

Sure.

If I can ask Eric Ibly maybe to help us with that, he's okay being working more in depth.

Sounds good.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Uh so there's several models we're looking at.

Um one of them uh leverages some of the software that we're already using in some of the uh dispatch centers called Good SAM.

There's some other uh uh softwares like uh Pulsara and other things that uh fire and s agencies and law enforcement are using today.

Um one of the things we're we're gonna look at specifically, um you know, Strack has Medcom, it's a 24-7 communications center that been talked about already where the law enforcement navigation is occurring.

And it dawns on us, one of the biggest challenges we have is the number of licensed clinicians, mental health clinicians that are available.

Like we struggle sort of today with the core team and with um all the other teams we have with these clinicians, and so one I think uh Kelly uh Burnham is here with me, she's our director for uh for the crisis collaborative.

And so one of the things that Kelly and I worry about looking at the whole system is uh I think we have third 13 PSAPs in Bear County.

I mean if you imagine having to staff those 24-7 with clinicians, because as soon as one has it, another one's gonna want to, you know, the the me to effect.

And so um a concept that we're looking to and want to explore some is uh maybe having that centralized, and then it would lower costs for everybody, and it would lower the impact of the clinicians so you could actually transfer that call and have them hop on or what they call barge um onto those calls so that the mental health person's on with a PSAP uh call taker, which would help every public safety answering point in town, not just um SAP D SAFD.

Um that that's one idea that might work.

I don't know if it'll work yet or not.

We're really just in the very early beginnings of this.

Um, another big advantage that uh we just uh finally executed today is an agreement with Corey Run.

So Strack Medcom will also be co-locating at Corey Run, which is where PD and FIRE currently are co-located at that site, and we will be there a little bit like FIRE and PD do now, where they go out on maybe the weekends or certain schedules, but they maintain both sites, which gives us redundancy.

One of the big values of going to Corey Run, though, is we're gonna now be on the Vesta phone system, which will make all of this navigation really simple and and the ways they currently transfer calls.

I don't know if you know, but a lot of 911 calls could be in Animal Heights, like on one side of Broadway versus the other.

And so having a system that very much mimics the way we do 911 calls handoff now, the fact that Medcom will be moving over to the VESTA call system, and we're already on CAD, right?

We're already on the regional CAD.

So there's there's some real good uh ideas there that you could true up at the end of the month and pay what you used, but not have to fund the entire, you know.

It's much more important to me about the clinician availability than it is.

Um, for us all to duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate, if that's a word.

And the the clinicians that are brought on board, are they contracted or are they with a specific entity?

They so all of our clinicians are through the center.

We think that's the safest way so we can connect them back into services.

It's an integrated process, so yes.

And then with the conversation about the shortage, I'm assuming there have been conversations with the the UT School of Nursing on creating a track.

Yep, uh, we already have a track, and we have been working with the center for many years.

In fact, they've created an entire job description called Crisis Crisis Response Clinicians.

So, you know, many times mental health clinicians thought they were gonna be working in a you know counseling environment, and you know, it's 72 degrees, and uh it's nice and you know, they fluffy house slippers there, it's very comfortable.

We're talking about going out on the front porch of a 911 call.

And that's really a different shift for a mental health clinician.

So finding those people that are interested in practicing mental health uh in in a more public safety-ish type mindset uh has been um the the ones that do it love it.

Uh it's a percentage of you know the sum of clinicians available, and so we really spent a lot of time trying to make sure we get the most bang out of the buck out of every single clinician.

All right, thank you so much for painting that picture.

It's helpful.

I I did have a question in terms of uh, I think this may be for PD, thank you.

Uh, regarding when an individual calls 911 and requests SA core, if the SA core unit is not available, uh, is PD tracking uh that core is is or is not available to respond to that call.

So those would be the ones answered.

All right, council member.

I we're not currently tracking that.

Okay, and and I think there would be value to help us council understand in terms of where we should be allocating funding.

I know there's been an instance in which we had a constituent share their experience, and um it was an individual that did have mental health issues, and when they saw someone in regular uniform, it caused them to react in a specific way.

Also they called our team to share that experience.

So I think that can help in terms of a budget process about where we should be providing support to the SA core team.

Um so that's something that I'd like to see tracked.

Uh and then a last question that I have is would it fall under the SA core response?

Or if there's a 911 call for a potential suicide, and SA core is not responding to that suicide, how is that coded, whether it's with PD or EMS in terms of of the response time?

Um typically the person is detained, right?

Emergency detained if it's a suicide.

Yeah, so when the call comes in, I'll speak for the PD side.

Um that's going to be dispatched, uh, likely as a suicide in progress.

So that's gonna be the nearest and closest available units to make the scene.

Now, if they get out to the scene and they're trying to talk somebody off of off of I 10, then we will dispatch either SA core or the hostage negotiator if time permits, and and you know, we'll marshal up all the resources we can get.

So I don't know if that answers your question on the PD side.

Thank you, Chief.

Yeah, thank you, Chair.

Thank you, councilwoman.

I want to echo some of the um comments and have a couple of additional questions on data.

I know y'all are shocked by that.

Um so on the specific call slide that you just had up, this one actually, excuse me.

The 54% that are addressed by patrol.

Can you tell me a little bit about how that occurs?

Like how uh is that prior to is like essay core attempted and then they're not available, and so that's why it's taken to patrol.

Like, what's the order of operations, I guess?

Sure.

So when we have uh mental health calls that come into 911, we have three main um call types and their mental health routine routine, mental health and progress, and mental health disturbance.

And they all have different types, they have different acuities, um, and they could also have to do if they're like a duplicate call or have been called multiple times.

And so the first thing a call taker is gonna look at or sends it to dispatch, the first thing a dispatcher is gonna do is they're gonna look and see if SA core is available, is the mental health unit available, if SA core is not available, and then um to to Chief Salome's point, if it's something acute, emergent, I mean like a suicide in progress, then we need to get the closest resource no matter what there, as as close as possible.

And so that's how you get a difference in the 34% answered by the specialized teams of mental health unit or SA core and the 54% that were answered by patrol.

Um patrol is oftentimes um, well, we have three SA core teams working at the same time 24-7, right?

But only three, right?

And so if patrol is closer, um available, um, if SA core is already on a call, um, then we're gonna send patrol to those.

And then sometimes um these routine mental health calls, um, are you know our officers are all crisis intervention trained, they're all going through the crisis intervention 2.0 training if it's that time, and so they're also able to address these perform an emergency detention, which takes people to a hospital instead of to jail or anywhere else, and get the people to the to the treatment they need at the right time.

For sure, and just like the reason why we're asking that, right, is like to councilman Castillo's point, these calls are being addressed by someone, right?

So if we can take we want them to be addressed by the individuals that are most prepared and best supported to answer them and are gonna help the constituents and the data on it, I I remember seeing this slide, the slide eight during budget, and is incredible, right?

Like this is there's no arguing the um how uh successful the program has been.

And so I think if maybe what one thing might help is if you give us comparison data.

So if you can show us that this similar slide for the mental health unit and also for those other 54% of calls, and then maybe asterisk on the bottom that says these are the types of calls or something broken out because I understand something that's more acute is gonna have a little bit of a different results.

So if you can show us like these are the different that maybe breaking down the types of responses or the types of like calls and doing this style of response for each of those three units, so we can really have cross if maybe we can set that up in a follow-up memo so we can compare.

Uh, because I think at least from what we've heard is the sentiment, and we talked about this.

Council member Spears mentioned the older adults component, and I don't know the level of support that um I'm for certain that the SA core folks are trained on like how to recognize dementia and things like that, and so making sure that they're getting they have the opportunity to answer calls with older adults is important too.

So all of that to say, I think it would be helpful for us as we go into budget discussions this summer to be able to see.

And we talk about the need for additional support at SAPD.

And if we have additional SA core teams that can go out and address these mental call mental health calls, they're better suited for that, and it also free up resources for SAPD to go address the violent crimes and the other additional crimes like the drugs and narcotics things that we just were talking about.

So I guess that would be my request for follow-up.

Other than that, I mean I want to thank this.

I want to give a shout-out to Councilmember Caveo Javarda because she really pushed this program.

And again, you can see how much it's grown in just three years.

And so I wanted to give her a shout-out for her for starting it or helping to push it.

Any other oh, Councilmember McCudre, as you stepped out, would you like to make any comments?

No, just thank you for the presentation.

Councilman Cassidy.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to highlight an intersection.

Uh, last week or a couple weeks ago, my team and I met with Dr.

Lozano and a couple of folks from University Health, and what they highlighted was the trend of individuals at the county jail that are experiencing uh early onset dementia or have dementia.

Uh, and I think this overlaps with that work and the need to establish that diversion center because we are seeing uh that increase.

And I think about one of our constituents who uh has um uh early onset dementia, and he often gets into uh back and forth with his landlord, right?

And he'll come to our office, but uh oftentimes he finds himself a bit agitated, uh, and we're always having to find relocate him and get him connected to more housing and walk him through the process of of how to navigate his housing situation, and uh sometimes he finds himself uh you know living in his car until we can get him rehoused.

Um, but just highlighting you know uh that that overlap and connection, particularly with individuals with dementia.

Um, and I I'm grateful for the work and overlap that the team is doing with our seniors and the senior centers because um it's very much needed, as the the councilwoman mentioned.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, councilwoman.

All right, that's all we have for our public safety agenda, but I did want to give a quick shout out.

Many of y'all had probably heard our long-term serving chief has decided to retire.

I know we're gonna have many celebrations for you this upcoming year, but I uh as the public safety committee chair just wanted to say thank you for so many years of service and for giving us a long runway, so not uh so we have time to help you transition.

So uh if we could all give a round of applause to Chief McMahonis for his years of service.

I I think Councilwoman Alderate Gavito released a statement talking about your effective way of communicating with residents, and we really appreciate everything you've done.

All right, at uh 3 59 p.m.

Uh, this session is adjourned, and I know Councilman Castillo is having a press conference if anybody'd like to stay.