Crisis-Response Pilot Seeks 1‑Year Extension

Is COMPASS a Yale-backed public relations stunt — or a good faith and effective effort to improve crisis response services all across New Haven?

Alders sought answers to those questions, and received testimony and data bolstering the program’s cause, as they advanced a plan to extend the police-alternative pilot for another year.

Early in the evening on Monday, in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall, the board’s Finance Committee heard testimony from Lorena Mitchell, the city’s coordinator for community mental health initiatives, and Tirzah Kemp, the director of New Haven’s Department of Community Resilience.

Mitchell and Kemp updated the alders on the status of the Elm City COMPASS pilot program and requested approval for another year of operations, managed by Yale with no cost to the city, in coordination with local wrap-around services nonprofit Continuum of Care. 

The Finance Committee unanimously recommended approved of the proposal, sending it to the full Board of Alders for review and final vote. 

Before voting in support, over the course of Monday’s meeting, committee alders pressed Mitchell and Kemp for more clarity on the direction of the program.

Chair Adam Marchard opened the proceedings by broaching the elephant –– really, the bulldog –– in the room. ​“You mentioned that Yale has been a good fiscal steward of the resources,” he said. ​“But has Yale been a good partner to deliver the services?”

So far, so good, said Mitchell and Kemp.

“I oversee seven contracts, and COMPASS is continually one of the most organized, timely, efficient, effective, transparent in their reporting,” said Mitchell. ​“They’re excellent partners to the city and really delivering on the scope of the contract.”

The city began running COMPASS (short for ​“Compassionate Allies Serving Our Streets”) back in November 2022 to see if it could divert some crisis response duties for mental health, substance abuse, and homelessness issues to social workers and away from police. Now, COMPASS consists of three teams, doing the rounds in green vans from 8 a.m. straight through until 3 a.m., seven days a week.

The teams also help sign people they interact with onto Coordinated Access Networks, which link them to a suite of local services, including emergency shelter, behavioral health resources, and eventually long-term housing.

As of December 2024, roughly 60 percent of the time, the teams have responded to 911 calls and been dispatched by the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) once the police or fire department gives the go-ahead. 

Since the program started up, NHPD or NHFD has called in COMPASS 1,165 times. Nearly all of the rest have been ​“outreach” responses, where a COMPASS team goes directly to a person in distress, without a 911 call. Those account for 726 of the program’s responses to date, as recorded online in its monthly reports. PSAP has dispatched COMPASS without an NHPD or NHFD referral 72 times.

The contract with Yale, which was slated to end June 30, 2025, would now wrap up on June 30, 2026, with further extensions possible down the line. The full cap on spending for the contract would remain at $3,513,842. Funding from the current term, which hasn’t yet been spent, will be rolled over into the new one. The majority of the Yale-supplied budget comes from a grant awarded by the Federal Bureau of Justice Administration.

Toward the end of the hearing, East Rock Alder Anna Festa still wanted to know how well services have been distributed throughout the city.

“​When you hear that Yale is the main funder, you think, ​‘Oh, they’re just trying to protect their downtown, their area,’” said Festa. ​“I cover a little bit of Fair Haven. I just get complaints in Fair Haven that COMPASS needs to get in there more because of some of the prostitution and drug addiction that you see in that area. So some of the folks feel like there’s not much attention to them.”

Still, the data on COMPASS responses, which Mitchell and Kemp presented as a geographic distribution scattered over a map of New Haven, suggest that the teams are active in all corners of the city, on an emergency as well as an outreach basis. 

Board President and West River Alder Tyisha Walker-Myers added that she’s noticed that many of the people interacting with COMPASS in her district have developed relationships with the team leaders. ​“They know the names of the COMPASS workers and everyone that comes out to service them,” she said.

Kemp has seen the same playing out when she’s done a tour of the teams in action. ​“I saw it downtown just recently,” Kemp said. ​“Yes, they know who they are. They speak their names, and I think it’s wonderful, right? Because there’s a relationship there, they know what’s going on with the individual, what the issues are. They’ll say, ​‘hey, did you pick up your medication yet?’”