CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The city of Charlotte's CARES team that focuses on mental health and low-level 911 calls is expanding.
The Citizen Assistance: Response, Engage, Support program was piloted in early 2023 and currently uses two clinicians. Once the county takes over operations, it will expand to a team of six.
The clinicians and social workers will seek solutions for people experiencing a mental health crisis as well as people who are homeless and need help.
"When people need mental support or support with basic lifestyle, life needs, that really isn't something that we need our law enforcement partners to do," the Mecklenburg County Public Health Director Dr. Raynard Washington said.
The city currently contracts with an intervention service called Crisys, which works directly with CMPD. However, once that contract ends, the county will hire its own team with the goal of launching in January 2025.
The changes are possible thanks to a federal grant totaling $963,000.
"Our crisis intervention team works very closely with CMPD as well as our child development community policing program, which provides that trauma support when police are out on call," Washington explained. "So, it's a natural fit."
The team will also expand the hours it's available to respond to calls and will respond to calls in the Westover and North Tryon divisions, in addition to the active Central and Metro divisions.
"They've been really busy throughout the day, which is part of the reason why we really want to expand to additional hours," Washington said.
A city report says between March 2023 and August of 2023, the CARES team was assigned to 268 calls for service and assisted 163 people.
"We're able to send out folks who can actually meet [people in crisis] where they are with a non law enforcement approach and make sure that they are able to get that help," Washington added.
The federal grant covers a three-year period through September 2027.
Contact Julia Kauffman at jkauffman@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.