There are some calls that police officers simply aren’t trained for. In 2020, a Center for American Progress review of 9-1-1 phone calls from five major cities found that between 21% and 38% of 9-1-1 calls were related to mental health, substance use and other quality-of-life concerns. All too often, these calls can result in violence. At least 104 people were killed by police responding to calls about erratic behavior or mental health crises in 2021 alone.

In Durham, community members have another option. In June 2022, the Durham Department of Community Safety launched its pioneering Holistic, Empathetic, Assistance Response Team (H.E.A.R.T.) program, which provides unarmed, community-centered responses to crisis calls and other quality-of-life concerns.

The program consists of four response teams, each equipped to handle a specific range of calls. Crisis Call Diversion embeds mental health clinicians in the city’s 9-1-1 call center to direct callers to the right resources. Community Response Teams send an unarmed trio consisting of one peer support specialist, one clinical social worker and one EMT to respond to mental health crises or quality-of-life concerns. The Care Navigation Team follows up to connect callers with resources and support after the fact.

In more dangerous situations, the Co-Response Team is accompanied by police officers with special crisis intervention training. All H.E.A.R.T. responders have access to a radio to call for police backup in an emergency.

Tydricka Lewis, a peer support specialist with H.E.A.R.T., has been on the other side of H.E.A.R.T.’s crisis work for much of her life. Lewis said this has helped her connect with the people she assists and creates a sense of ease that might be more difficult to create otherwise.

“I grew up here in this town, for one. Not only that I grew up in this town, you know, I have a lot of lived experience. You know, I’ve been incarcerated,” said Lewis. “I suffered from the disease of addiction, you know, I suffered from mental illness, and so being just those pieces, the person automatically goes, ‘Oh, okay,’ you know, you’re not here to tear them down.”

Lewis’ favorite part of the job is seeing a neighbor “break through” and leaving them better than she found them. Unfortunately, the H.E.A.R.T. team can only do so much.

“I believe that, you know, as a human right, people deserve that air of peace. But I could imagine, you know, in certain conditions that I found my neighbors, and how are they able to even think about peace?” Lewis said.

Kirby Jones, a shift manager for H.E.A.R.T., said that the feeling of not being able to do enough is a constant in crisis response. Jones has worked in the field for seven years.

“There’s so many calls and so many moments that you leave saying, I wish I could have done more,” Jones said.

H.E.A.R.T. has grown tremendously since its inception in June 2022. Initially, the program was only able to operate in a third of the city from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Oct. 23, 2023, a budget increase expanded the program to the entire city, with at least one team available from 6 a.m. to midnight. This has provided H.E.A.R.T. with the resources to help many more neighbors: the team celebrated its 20,000th response in late August.

Even now, the program has room to grow. According to Ryan Smith, Director of the Durham Community Safety Department, H.E.A.R.T. needs more resources to fulfill its purpose as a fifth branch of Durham’s public safety services. This includes more resources and staff to cover the overnight hours and to ensure that H.E.A.R.T. can respond to all of its calls.

Every budget cycle, the Community Safety Department analyzes its call data and submits a budget proposal for what the department needs to continue scaling up. Smith said that the department is currently working on its proposal for the next fiscal year to inform the City Council of how much additional funding is needed to offer 24/7 coverage and respond to all eligible calls.

“I think that in our first two years of operation, there are enough reasons to think that this response is helping us better meet the needs of residents in crisis. And I think if that is true, then we should want it to be available just like any other essential public safety, which is 24/7,” Smith said.

Edited by: Landon Jobe, Aniah Stitt and Davis Seik