Thomas Breen photo
Uniforms, logos and vehicles for the city's planned COMPASS crisis response team.
The following op-ed was submitted by Yale School of Medicine psychiatry residents Nichole Roxas and Alice Shen.
(Opinion) We were shocked to read that the Board of Alders approved a $3.5 million contract with Yale University to set up a community response team — Compassionate Allies Serving our Streets, or COMPASS — to respond to 911 calls related to mental health, substance use, and homelessness.
The contract allows Yale, as the programmatic lead, to subcontract Continuum of Care and other city departments to run the COMPASS pilot program.
As two community psychiatrists, our patients tell us they do not trust the police in New Haven and, more than that, they do not trust Yale.
As Yale Psychiatry residents striving to provide trauma-informed, equitable care, we are invested in the COMPASS team’s success. We know that police response to 911 calls for mental health emergencies can be lethal. We both share the experience of caring for loved ones who came close to harming themselves or others. We both grew up as children of first-generation families who were fearful of police.
Studies confirm what we knew as children and what many minoritized communities already know: our fear is justified.
A 2018 JAMA study found that exposure to police violence was “higher among men, people of color, and those who identified as homosexual or transgender.”
We remember Angelo Quinto, a 30-year-old Filipino-American man who was killed by a policeman who kneeled on his neck during a mental health crisis on Dec. 23, 2020.
We remember Christian Hall, an unarmed 19-year-old Chinese-American adoptee, who was shot and killed by Pennsylvania State police during a mental health crisis on Dec. 30, 2020.
We remember 41-year-old Daniel Prude, a Black father, who police placed in a spit hood causing him to die by “complications of asphyxia in the setting of physical restraint” on March 30, 2020.
When police respond to mental health emergencies, they can kill the person in need.
We do not have long personal histories in New Haven, so we lift up the voices of those who do.
In September 2021, a friend forwarded a report titled “Policing, Community, Safety, and Crisis Support” by Seeds and Sprouts, a local grassroots collective with lived personal, familial, and work experiences with mental health. This report was delivered to COMPASS team leadership and included dozens of testimonials from New Haven residents in response to the city’s proposal. We were inspired by so many people who shared wisdom from generations of lived experience in New Haven in the spirit of collaboration and cocreation.
After months of silence, on March 28, 2022, the city announced a plan to pay $3.5 million to Yale University and other subcontractors to implement the COMPASS team. How did Yale sneak in on the cut? Did the city solicit community input about who would receive the money and how it would be spent? Would reported concerns be addressed?
In response we signed a local petition titled: Mental Health Providers Amplify Community Demands to the City’s COMPASS Team.
We stated, “In summary, as mental health providers, we call on the city to listen to the knowledge and lived experience of community members. Many of us are employees of Yale and unsure how more funding to Yale will benefit the patients or communities we serve. As one New Haven resident stated in the “Policing” report: “We know we are living in Yale Haven. But that money [from Yale] isn’t coming in either.” We want to know how funding for the crisis response team will directly benefit New Haven communities […] Please take the time to listen and publicly respond to each of these nine requests before proceeding further.”
In solidarity with the New Haven residents who contributed testimonials to the “Policing” report, we ask:
1. How will the money earmarked for Yale University be spent? How was Yale University chosen the programmatic lead for COMPASS?
2. What is the degree to which police will be involved in COMPASS?
3. How will New Haven residents be recruited and sponsored to work on COMPASS?
4. Will peer specialists have equal pay to other COMPASS team members?
5. How much will Community Advisory Board members be paid? What power will they have in the process?
6. Will COMPASS team members have free comprehensive mental health insurance?
7. Will COMPASS team members be trained in anti-oppression and trauma-informed practices?
8. Will the COMPASS team partner with respites around the city as an alternative to hospital emergency rooms?
9. Will COMPASS invest in spaces and training for New Haven community members who are supporting family members and friends experiencing mental health struggles?
Though the city’s website offers general updates, it does not address these questions. Thus, we request a written response to exactly these questions so that we can recommend this resource to our loved ones, neighbors, and patients in good conscience. Above all, transparency is vital to earning trust.
We wish that our younger selves could have called a trusted resource for help. If the city is willing to move at the pace of trust with the greater New Haven community, then perhaps our dream will become a reality. Ultimately, this is an opportunity to build a lasting, thoughtful program led by the wisdom of community members.
City of New Haven, this is your chance.