Paul Bass Photos
City social-services chief Mehul Dalal with Mayor Justin Elicker at announcement of second six-month planning phase for crisis team.
Mayoral challenger Karen DuBois-Walton calling for swifter, more inclusive action on recovery aid.
New Haven has a chance to seize the post-pandemic, social-justice moment — and it needs to hear from everybody about the best way to do it.
Two mayoral candidates held separate press conferences with that message, and disagreed about who can deliver.
Incumbent Mayor Justin Elicker and Democratic primary challenger Karen DuBois-Walton held those campaign-season events at City Hall Monday.
Pandemic Recovery Bucks
Holding her event outdoors in front of the Amistad/Singbe Pieh statue, DuBois-Walton noted that the city is receiving its first batch of federal aid under the pandemic-relief American Recovery Act.
New Haven government expects to receive around $94 million in direct aid under the act, the Board of Education another $94 million, with another $25 million or so estimated to come to the city through a regional county process.
At the press conference, DuBois-Walton criticized Elicker’s administration for not having more of a plan in place for getting the money quickly to people who need it — and for not having consulted with enough people in New Haven on how to spend it.
“Change cannot come from the top down,” she said. “We cannot have another secret Yale negotiation.”
She repeated a call for immediately spending $10 million of the federal money on gun violence prevention and police accountability initiatives. For the rest, she called for a “comprehensive” community conversation extending beyond Board of Alders hearings. Specifically she called for several in-person and Zoom meetings backed by an option for people to contribute ideas via telephone or online; meetings with community management teams and service providers; publicly stated goals with metrics for gauging success; and regular public updates.
In addition, DuBois-Walton announced that her campaign will host a “virtual town hall” on this subject this Friday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. She promised “the campaign will not consider any individual or organization’s participation in the town hall as any kind of endorsement, and no registrations from the town hall will be linked to any campaign databases.” Find more details about the event here and here.
In response, Elicker said his team has sought public input on how to spend most of the federal cash infusion and is planning a host of community meetings along the lines that DuBois-Walton proposed. “She’s welcome to participate,” Elicker said.
In April he laid out some initial plans for a $6.3 million “summer reset” supporting a citywide youth ambassador program, fixed-up city playgrounds, homeless drop-in centers, and street outreach workers focused on preventing violence. He has submitted for alder review a separate plan to spend $20 million of the infusion on “cost recovery” related to covering pandemic-related increased costs and lower revenues on parking meters, building permits, and police and fire overtime.
“Redefining” Public Safety
Crisis planning team members, clockwise from top left: city government point person Carlos Sosa-Lombardo, Yale psych prof and CMHC peer-support chief Chyrell Bellamy; CMHC peer support chief Richard Youins and recovery support specialist Kimberly Guy.
Elicker made the comment after his own press event held at 1 p.m. inside City Hall in the first-floor lobby. He assembled city officials and service providers involved in helping to create a Community Crisis Response Team to send social workers and mental health workers instead of cops to some emergency calls for help.
The announcement: The Elicker administration is embarking on a second six-month planning phase to create such a team. It is partnering with Community Mental Health Center (CMHC), which already does emergency crisis response, to oversee this planning phase and figure out whom to send on which 911 calls.
Elicker announced this plan last August; the Board of Alders authorized spending $100,000 on a first phase of planning.
To quarterback the project, Elicker tapped Community Services Administrator Mehul Dalal, who in turn tapped city Special Projects Director Carlos Sosa-Lombardo to craft initial plans and bring them to community management team meetings.
Dalal noted that requests for such non-police intervention grew nationwide out of social-justice demonstrations last summer following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
“We heard you,” Dalal said at Monday’s event. “We’re listening.”
Since then, the city has drawn an initial estimate that a crisis management team could divert up to 11,000 out of over 100,000 annual 911 calls from the police, Elicker said. That would enable police to focus on other priorities while de-escalating and bringing more effective responses to calls involving people struggling with mental illness, addiction or homelessness.
Elicker said he expects the city to be ready to roll out a pilot of the crisis team in the fall. U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro is seeking federal dollars to support the effort; the city is in talks with the state for support as well.
“We are redefining what it means to keep people safe,” Elicker declared.
DuBois-Walton said she supports policing alternatives like the crisis team. She argued that Elicker should have had it up and running much sooner rather than take a year planning it.
“To say you want community involvement does not mean you have to go at a glacial pace,” she argued. “Folks who have worked in government, in public systems before, have a real advantage in knowing how to move things more quickly. This has taken far too long …
“What’s missing for me is the sense of urgency and the ability to execute things that meet the urgency of the matter of the community.”
Asked about the length of planning time, Elicker stressed the need to do it right. “We need to be deliberate and thoughtful about this,” he said.
The first phase included a request for proposals process, which led to bringing in CMHC as a lead partner. Dalal spoke of the need to walk through all the scenarios first responders will face to come up with a detailed standard operating procedure. Officials promised an extensive public input process.
The team would be the first city-run one in the state. Officials have looked at Eugene, Oregon’s 31-year-old version of a crisis management team (called CAHOOTS) as one model. New Haven’s will probably be a little different, according to Sosa-Lombardo: New Haven might send peer support specialists rather than EMTs and paramedics to accompany social workers on some calls, for instance.