Berkeley’s new Specialized Care Unit, which is tasked with taking calls for mental health and substance abuse crises that might otherwise fall to city police and firefighters, has responded to more than 150 such calls since it first rolled out Sept. 5, according to city officials.
Of those calls, the SCU has “provided services to approximately 95 clients,” according to a statement Friday from the city’s Health, Housing and Community Services Department. Those services can include creating “safety plans to prevent harm to themselves or others” or hooking people in “to community resources to continue to assist the client post-crisis,” according to the statement.
The SCU is operated by Bonita House, a mental healthcare organization that the city hired to run a two-year pilot program for $4.5 million. Bonita House has said it intends for the SCU to be an around-the-clock operation. But until it can increase staffing, the unit only works 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. seven days a week, up from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. when it first began taking calls.
The statement did not specify how many calls the SCU has taken so far would have otherwise been conventional 911 calls, or whether the callers felt comfortable calling the SCU but would not have otherwise called city police and medics.
The SCU’s progress is scheduled to be part of a presentation on the city’s ongoing “reimagining public safety” initiatives at a City Council meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. today.
Anyone in Berkeley who is dealing with or witnessing a mental health or substance abuse crisis or wishes to request a welfare check can call the SCU at 510-948-0075.
