Five Years On, Portland Street Response Has Become a Pillar for Public Safety

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Launched in 2021 amid the chaos of the pandemic, PSR has become a vital part of the city's first responder system, leading to better and more humane outcomes for people in crisis.

The woman was standing on the ledge of the Ross Island Bridge. And she was threatening to jump.

Arriving on scene, police officers attempted to talk the woman down. Firefighters at Portland Fire & Rescue's Station 21 scrambled to get boats in the water. But the sirens and the police cars and the fireboats seemed to feed the woman's anxiety. She didn't trust the police. She didn't like firefighters. There was panic in her voice.

Fortunately, the police had another option. They learned that she had a relationship with Portland Street Response and called them to the scene. While police officers diverted traffic and shut the bridge down, two PSR mental health crisis responders, MarQuea and Wendy, walked out on the bridge to talk with the woman. Police had cigarettes they were able to provide as a de-escalation tool as PSR spoke to the woman. They built rapport. They earned her trust. After 38 tense minutes, the woman stepped back from the ledge and returned to safety.

Portland Street Response first went live in February 2021. In the span of five tumultuous years, the program has grown into an essential pillar of Portland's public safety system.

Focused on helping people in mental health crisis, PSR brings an emphasis on de-escalation, support, and follow-up. PSR is unarmed and does not enforce laws. Rather, PSR works together with other first responders to resolve emergencies that don't fit neatly into categories that were designed 100 years ago.

"Portland Street Response is a vital part of our public safety system," says Mayor Keith Wilson. "It is essential that every individual experiencing a crisis is met with care and respect. PSR can help folks in a way that no other service provides. They've earned the community's trust because they're effective, reliable, and humane. And they free up our police officers and firefighters to respond to other calls."

Wilson expanded operating hours and added money for more PSR responders in his 2025 budget. And last summer, City Council adopted a resolution recognizing PSR as an equal branch of Portland's first response system, authorized to respond to 911 calls independently, or alongside other first responders when appropriate.

Portland Street Response now has an annual budget of $10 million and a crew of 52 people responding to calls seven days a week. The team can shuttle folks to resources like shelters, day centers, and drug treatment. Last year they responded to a staggering 15,353 calls. The program has earned a reputation as a vital, trusted resource.

But the journey wasn't easy.

"PSR came under a lot of fire in the early days," says former City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who served as the program's champion and guiding light. "Some people felt threatened. But the community was heavily invested in its success - they wouldn't let it die."

The long and winding road

Portland Street Response was born from tragedy.

For decades, first responders have struggled to respond to the growing number of emergency calls involving people with mental illness. The fraying of Oregon's patchwork mental-health system often forced police officers to act as front-line psychiatrists, something they had neither the tools, nor the training for. This was a recipe for unpredictable and often dangerous outcomes, which nobody wanted to see.

Starting in the twenty-tens, the Portland Police Bureau stepped up training in crisis intervention, de-escalation, and trauma-informed care, but this didn't resolve a fundamental tension: the central mission of the police bureau is reducing crime and the fear of crime, not helping someone through a mental health crisis.

Eventually, however, a fresh idea began to gain traction, thanks in part to advocacy from the street newspaper Street Roots: an unarmed team of paramedics and social workers to respond to calls involving people suffering mental health crises.

In 2020, Hardesty - then a city commissioner - developed a plan to add a new pillar to Portland's emergency response system, which was built on a traditional trio of police, fire, or ambulance. She worked with a broad range of partners, including Street Roots, Sisters of the Road, front-line police officers, firefighters, neighbors, business leaders, and unsheltered people.

"I just knew we could do better," Hardesty says. "We could provide a more humane response to people who are living on our streets, and free the police up for other types of calls."

The public debate highlighted the gaps in the system. First responders can't provide counseling. Sometimes just the wail of sirens, the hypnotic overload of strobe lights, and the presence of weapons can trigger panic and inflame tense situations.

"People were desperate for an alternative," Hardesty said. "They were begging for something like this."

A bold experiment

Portland Street Response went live in 2021.

Portland finally launched a pilot program to test-drive the idea on Feb. 16, 2021. The first van rolled out for the first shift at 10 a.m. The team included a firefighter paramedic, a social worker, and two community health workers. The team was restricted to the Lents neighborhood. They couldn't respond to a medical emergency. They couldn't respond when someone had a weapon, or was threatening suicide. They couldn't go inside. They couldn't transport people. And so on.

The urban landscape was grim. Portland was grappling with COVID-19, social distancing, economic recession, and the fentanyl crisis.

Nonetheless, the early data was encouraging. A study from Portland State University found that the service was reducing the burden on overstretched police and firefighters, especially for calls about welfare checks and suspicious persons. Read more about the history of Portland Street Response.

"We kept showing up," says Heather Weitman, an early PSR responder who is now a supervisor. "And people began to realize we brought things no one else could bring. Instead of feeling threatened, they started to treat us like partners."

A key element in PSR's success was building relationships with people they serve. "Trust is fundamental to our work," says Brett Zimmerman, a former firefighter who now works for PSR. "We're trauma-informed. That means that we ask people for consent. We build rapport and respect their wishes. We earn their trust. That takes time. You might work with someone five, six times before they trust you enough to ask for help - real help."

Building trust, one call at a time

PSR team shares a happy moment in 2022.

Don Hilts was homeless and living in his minivan when he called 911 about a disturbed man walking down the street. When PSR arrived, the man had moved on, but PSR connected with Hilts and other unsheltered people in the area. Soon PSR helped him to a studio apartment downtown.

The success stories kept piling up. In 2022, PSR expanded citywide and started operating seven days a week.

In 2023, researchers at Portland State University reported fresh evidence that the program was working. Over 12 months, PSR handled 7,418 calls that would otherwise have gone to the police. And PSR was resolving the vast majority of those calls on their own. Just 6% of all PSR calls needed a co-response from other units, like police officers or ambulance crews. Only one of those calls resulted in an arrest by police. None resulted in injuries to PSR team members.

"For the City, dispatching Portland Street Response is way more cost effective than a police cruiser, and orders of magnitude cheaper than a fire engine," says Caroline Pope, a PSR spokesperson.

Preventing future emergencies

PSR aftercare responder Hashim Rhodes helped a woman who was living in her car reunite with her family in Missouri.

Prevention is another key benefit of PSR. When it makes sense, PSR teams circle back after an emergency call to connect people to support and resources. This service, known as aftercare, helps to stabilize people in crisis and forestall future emergencies.

In December, for example, PSR aftercare responder Hashim Rhodes followed up on a call with a woman living in her car with her dog and cat. He discovered that she had trouble communicating due to a recent stroke.

Over the next several days, Rhodes connected the woman to the City's reunification program and helped her (and her dog) fly home to her family in Missouri.

Last year PSR's aftercare team made 5,617 visits where they circled back after a crisis response to help people find longer-term support.

Perhaps the strongest endorsement of PSR's work comes from other first responders. Police officers, firefighters, and ambulance crews are increasingly asking PSR to co-respond on emergency calls where their expertise can help reduce tensions and yield better outcomes for people in crisis.

Despite the progress it has made, supporters say the program is just beginning to realize its full potential. Many hope it will finally operate around the clock. "PSR is a phenomenal resource," says Pope. "It makes a huge difference in our community."

The path forward depends on many factors: the City's finances and the state's mental-health system are two big ones. But public support has never been stronger.

"The Portland Street Response model has been proven to be a national best practice that is here to stay," Mayor Wilson says. "Trust in our first responders is an irreplaceable part of protecting our freedom to walk, shop, and live safely in our city. And PSR has earned that trust."

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