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A city program that sends EMTs and behavioral health clinicians to respond to mental health-related 911 calls instead of police is under a magnifying glass after a mentally distressed teen was shot and killed by police last week.
City Councilwoman Linda Lee, chair of the Council’s mental health committee, is pressing City Hall to schedule an oversight hearing for the Behavioral Health Emergency Assistance Response Division, also known as B-Heard. The program dispatches teams consisting of two EMTs and a social worker to respond to mental health-related 911 calls in an effort to treat behavioral health calls as public health issues, not public safety concerns. The city has invested more than $100 million into the program, which operates in 31 police precincts.
Lawmakers and advocates say that lagging data on B-Heard and questions about the types of calls it responds to illustrate the disjointed nature of the city’s only non-police response to mental health-related 911 calls. These concerns are not new, and Lee has previously called for an oversight hearing. But questions about the program have again come to light in the wake of the fatal police shooting of 19-year-old Win Rozario from Ozone Park, who called 911 in mental distress last week. The police department said that officers shot Rozario after he charged at them with scissors.
Advocates have suggested that B-Heard teams – which respond to mental health calls where violence or weapons are not a primary concern – should have been deployed in this incident. But the answer to that question is unclear; B-Heard is not active in the 102nd precinct where Rozario called 911, and there’s no public information about what was said on the call to determine if it met the criteria for a B-Heard response. The program does not respond to callers who exhibit signs of violence, nor do they respond to people who are immediately suicidal.
Lee said that one factor contributing to confusion around the program is the fact that five city agencies are involved. The Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health oversees the B-Heard program, while New York City Health + Hospitals and the Fire Department provide clinicians and EMTs to staff the teams. The police department and the city Health Department are listed as participating agencies on B-Heard’s website, but in a health budget hearing last month City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said that the agency supports the program, but “does not have a direct role in B-Heard in any way.”
Lee said that the program is an example of the silos that exist in the city’s mental health response. “I’m not really sure if the right hand knows what the left hand is doing.”
Adams committed to expanding the B-Heard program to all 77 of the city’s police precincts as a part of his mental health plan announced last March. But since that announcement, the city has said that challenges to staff B-Heard teams and budget concerns have created obstacles. The mayor’s savings plan released in November included a nearly $4 million cut to the Fire Department’s budget for B-Heard, including the reduction of 20 civilian jobs, budget documents show.
The public hospital system, which supplies social workers for the program, has also seen funding cuts for B-Heard. H+H’s financial plan includes $12.5 million for the B-Heard program – roughly a third less than the adopted budget in the 2024 fiscal year. The hospital system said in budget documents that the mayor’s cuts have resulted in a pause in the expansion of the program entirely.
Kayla Mamelak, a spokeswoman from City Hall, said that the mayor’s total proposed B-Heard budget for the 2025 fiscal year is $35.3 million. The mayor’s savings plan to close gaps in the budget prevents the city from expanding the program, but will not peel back existing services, she added.
Not all calls are eligible for a B-Heard response. Mamelak said that 911 callers who exhibit an immediate risk of harm, have a weapon or show signs of violence trigger a police response, not a B-Heard team. But Ruth Lowenkron, director of the disability justice program at the New York Lawyers for Public Interest, said that the term violent is subjective and could limit calls from being eligible.
The criteria for a B-Heard response leaves a limited pool of callers who qualify. Of the 21,000 mental health-related 911 calls made between January and July 2023, 45% were eligible for a B-Heard response, city data shows. B-Heard responded to half of all eligible calls.
Lee said that the Mayor’s Office of Community Mental Health has been open to an oversight hearing, though the hearing still has not been scheduled. Lee hopes to see it come to fruition in the coming months.
Mamelak did not respond to a question about whether the city has agreed to an oversight hearing.
“We have one of the most well-resourced cities,” Lee said, noting that the city has several effective programs to address mental health concerns. “But yet, it seems like we’re sort of missing the mark.”
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Amanda D'Ambrosio , 2024-04-03 11:33:04
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