Support a non-police community-based mental health crisis response for the City of Boston! 

Following the police murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor in the summer of 2020, the powerful movement to stop the construction of “Cop City” in Atlanta, and the three police murders in the Greater Boston area in 2023, communities across the country have brought the mass movement of abolitionist, non-carceral approaches to public safety to the forefront of local and national politics. Non-police crisis response models are being implemented in cities across the country, from Oakland and Denver to New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts. 


It is time for Boston to move toward genuine public health and safety, through investing in a community-based mental health crisis response that doesn’t involve the police.

We are proposing a model that contains the following core components (click here to learn more about the organizing and design process leading to this proposal):
  • The model does not involve law enforcement in any phase or capacity.
  • The model is non-carceral, consent-based, and free to use.
  • Funding for the model is to be diverted from the city’s law enforcement budget.
  • The model is to be situated in a public city agency, including the guarantee of well-paying positions for response team members, as well as a Community Oversight and Accountability Board. 
  • The model includes community response teams in each neighborhood, made up of primarily Black, Indigenous and people of color, and of people with lived experience of mental health challenges, as well as multiple ways to reach the program from diverted 911 and 988 calls to a separate number and text-based app that will be reachable in multiple languages. 

While we did not win our demand to fully fund a pilot of the model in the FY 2024 budget cycle, due to a veto by Mayor Wu, we are committed to continue fighting for better access to non-carceral community mental health care, and need your support to demonstrate that Boston is ready to invest in the liberatory future of crisis response work!


If you believe that the City of Boston deserves a mental health crisis response that is non-carceral, doesn’t involve law enforcement, and is community-based, then sign and share this petition!

—MHCR Campaign Steering Committee (Amatullah, Husain, Tara, Emy, Maya, Marina, Jaz, Jalitsa)

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