Creation of REACH makes Vanessa Nordyke’s dream of a Salem mental health crisis team a reality

For quite a few years Councilor Vanessa Nordyke has been working to bring a mental health crisis team to Salem. I’ve written about her ups and downs in various blog posts:

“Setback for Salem mental health crisis response team” (September 24, 2021)
Led by Vanessa Nordyke, last June the Salem City Council appropriated $135,000 for a mental health crisis response team similar to the CAHOOTS program that has been a big success in Eugene — where a medic and crisis worker handle about 17% of the police department’s call volume, saving about $12 million a year at a cost of about $2.1 million a year. But now the Salem project is on life support, according to a Salem Reporter story, “Salem, United Way halt plans for mental health crisis responder program.”

“Crisis response team for Salem showing some life” (November 10, 2021)
Good news! City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke sent me a message today about state grant money being available for a Salem mental health crisis response team similar to Eugene’s highly successful CAHOOTS program. This comes after the crisis response effort Nordyke has been pushing for met with a setback in September, when the Marion County Board of Commissioners balked at allowing Salem to use state funds that went to counties for crisis stabilization services. As you can read below, $10.5 million in state grant money is coming directly to Salem, so Nordyke hopes a chunk of that can be used for a crisis response team pilot project.

“Councilor Nordyke makes progress on mobile crisis unit” (January 11, 2022)
Thanks to Councilor Vanessa Nordyke, last night the Salem City Council approved a motion to have city staff prepare a report about a mobile crisis unit pilot project. She was happy in a Facebook post. And humble, because the staff report that was approved was written by her. The pilot project would be a civilian-led mobile crisis unit similar to CAHOOTS in Eugene to respond to calls for service involving persons experiencing homelessness or behavioral health crisis and would likely be for one year. Staff is directed to consult with CAHOOTS of Eugene regarding what this pilot project could look like in our city.

“Salem City Council makes mobile crisis unit a low priority” (September 27, 2022)
If the efforts of city councilor Vanessa Nordyke to make a mobile crisis unit a reality in Salem ever come to fruition, she deserves a Perseverance Prize. Because while the general public really likes the idea of having people other than police officers respond to mental health and other calls that don’t require an officer, the Salem Police Department, City Manager, and her fellow city councilors haven’t been nearly as enthusiastic.  Last Monday the City Council dealt the mobile crisis unit proposal another setback when Nordyke’s motion to seek $2 million in state funding for a multi-year pilot project failed to pass on a 4-4 vote. (Councilor Phillips was absent, leaving eight of the nine councilors present.)

But nothing happened until this year, leaving aside the creation of homeless service teams where police officers would go out with social service workers in an attempt to connect homeless people with needed services. But Nordyke and others kept on pressing, and their work finally has paid off.

Now Salem has a real mental health crisis response team: REACH, which stands for Rapid Engagement, Assessment and Community Health. It warmed my heart to see Councilor Nordyke in a January 20 Fox 12 story about the kickoff event for REACH. Here’s a link to the video.

The Salem Reporter has a story by Madeleine Moore, “Salem launches REACH team to respond to mental health, substance crises.”

The goal of REACH – which stands for Rapid Engagement, Assessment and Community Health Team – is to improve mental health situations for people in crisis and reduce the need for police and firefighters to respond. Many of the city’s mental health crisis calls involve substance use and the local unhoused population.

…The team is part of the city’s efforts to confront homelessness, mental health challenges and substance use through a $626,000 funding package that expanded two city teams and funded the new team.

Staffed by a city paramedic, a medic and a Marion County mental health professional, the team will handle the high volume of 911 calls related to mental health challenges and substance use.

…Salem City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke, who has long supported bringing a crisis response team to the city, said that each team member will be saving lives through their work.

She told Salem Reporter that she hopes the pilot brings a “cultural mindshift” to Salem, where people can expect a follow-through response to crisis situations.

“Because even though we increase shelter, we increase case managers, we increase affordable housing, we found new pathways for people to end homelessness, something was missing from this equation, and that was the REACH team,” she said at the launch.

Initial funding only allows for a six-month pilot program. Hopefully additional money can be found to keep REACH going.

If not, there’s a good argument to be made for cutting the budget of the Salem Police Department and allocating that money to REACH, since a mental health crisis team can be sent to many of the 911 calls that currently are responded to by police officers who aren’t as capable and well-trained in dealing with the types of problems a REACH team can handle. See my 2021 post, “Police budget should be cut to pay for crisis response team.”