Here’s how Boise is ‘defunding the police,’ but it’s not what you think
It may not seem like it, but the city of Boise’s low-cost rental housing program is a small example of an effort to defund police.
And it works, too.
Last fall, I sat down with Penelope Hansen, who is the mental health coordinator for the Boise Police Department, and Boise Police Officer Blake Slater, who was brought on to help Hansen as a behavioral health liaison officer, to talk about how they handle mental health calls. Our conversation holds insights that are even more pertinent in today’s discussions about defunding police.
Hansen and Slater shared with me an example of a man in Boise who would come into frequent contact with Boise police, the county jail and the court system.
Slater said the man had 57 arrests the previous year but was then directed to the city’s low-cost rental housing program, where he got his own apartment.
“Once he got housing, he had a total of three arrests the whole year, and it was months in between police contact, when it used to be, he would probably go to jail two or three times a week sometimes, or at least have police interactions,” Slater said. “I can’t even imagine the number, the monetary amount of resources that that guy costs the city, and to have him housed in a nice little apartment right downtown in city housing versus what we spent in resources trying to deal with the chaos that surrounded him around his mental health issues and drinking. Just that guy alone, the number of (emergency department) visits, the number of transports in an ambulance, the number of incarcerations, and the frequency of incarceration, and what the monetary amount of each of those things, and then to pull them out of that environment and to put them in housing.”
“Defunding the police” is a terrible misnomer because it mischaracterizes its intent and provides ammunition for a knee-jerk reaction against it.
There are some who really mean defund the police as in completely defund the police, but for most of the serious conversations I’ve seen, it means redirecting some money away from police departments and toward other government services, such as efforts to help those experiencing homelessness, those with mental health issues and those with drug and alcohol addictions.
Programs such as Boise’s New Path Community Housing, low-cost rental housing, the Pathway Community Crisis Center and Allumbaugh House are just a few examples of how the city is already working to defund police.
In the wake of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis and the consequent resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, defunding the police has become a point of debate. There are other points of discussion around this topic, namely the increased militarization of police departments across the country, the use of force, training and policies surrounding such issues as reporting bad and racist behavior and the handling of citizen complaints against officers.
These issues, admittedly, are more difficult to tackle.
In the meantime, though, diverting resources toward social services that we shouldn’t expect police officers to handle is the low-hanging fruit that we should tackle now.
Mental health police calls up
One area alone — mental health services — could have a big impact on the police budget.
The number of mental health-related reports and calls for service coming into the Boise Police Department has nearly doubled in 13 years.
Total mental health-related calls went from 5,726 in 2005 to 9,870 in 2018, according to statistics compiled by the Boise Police Department. In other words, one out of every 15 calls police respond to was related to someone with a mental health issue.
“Part of that is because we have more people in the Treasure Valley than we had before,” Hansen said. “But in addition to that, our foundation of services out in our community, because of the number of people, are overloaded, so we don’t have enough resources for the people that need it.”
Because of that, unfortunately, police officers are often the first line of contact with people who are struggling with mental health issues. Seeing this trend in the community, the Boise Police Department created the mental health coordinator position about six years ago and hired Hansen and later brought on Slater to join her.
“We were getting so many calls for service that, turns out, they’re not criminal in nature,” Slater said. “They are public calls for service, but they don’t deal with criminal violations, and so how do we divert those calls away from patrol function? And more importantly, how do we give the ones that really need additional follow-up time and appropriate attention.”
In Hansen’s ideal world, we’d have more resources on the front end to handle mental health crises before they get to the level of an interaction with police.
Medicaid expansion, other tools
There are new tools in that toolbox, though.
Hansen said Idaho’s recent Medicaid expansion is expected to help by getting people needed health insurance so they can seek services. Also expected to help is the new Cottonwood Creek Behavioral Hospital in Meridian, an acute-care psychiatric hospital for anyone dealing with mental health and substance abuse issues.
That’s in addition to the Pathways Community Crisis Center, which opened in 2017 in Boise with the help of state start-up funding with the intent of heading off people before they come into contact with police.
All of this is expected to ease the reliance on Allumbaugh House, a clinic run by Terry Reilly Health Services that provides medically monitored detoxification and mental health crisis services in Boise.
Ada County commissioners last year increased its funding for Allumbaugh House to $316,058, according to the Idaho Press. It’s part of a $2 million budget, funded by hospitals and various government agencies, including the city of Boise, which contributes $318,000.
The city also owns and operates more than 300 units of affordable rental housing units, to which Hansen and Slater were referring. The city spent $7.7 million and brought in $5.7 million in revenues from federal dollars and rental payments.
Police spending
Still, this is a drop in the bucket compared with what the city spends on police.
Boise’s proposed police budget for the next fiscal year, which starts in October, is $71 million, or about 30% of the proposed general fund budget. It’s the largest item in Boise’s budget.
It’s an increase from the 2020 budget of $70 million for police, or about 29% of the budget. It’s grown 47% since 2013 and 17% over the past three years.
The police budget is also growing as a share of Boise’s property tax collections.
In 2013, the police department budget was $47.5 million, or about 42% of the city’s property tax collections. The department’s 2020 budget of $70 million accounts for 44% of the city’s $159 million in property tax collections.
The next biggest slice in the city’s budget, the Fire Department’s budget of $59 million, is 24% of the total budget and 37% of property tax revenue.
Lee, who started this month as Boise’s new police chief, coming from Portland, said he understood the sentiment behind calls to defund police forces around the country, but he said it is critical to have adequate police service.
Of course, that’s the heart of the question: What is “adequate”?
The city of Boise in April released an evaluation of the performance of its New Path Community Housing, a 41-unit apartment building for residents experiencing chronic homelessness. The evaluation reported a 63% reduction in the use of emergency services and the criminal justice system, resulting in a $1.3 million cost avoidance to the community.
When we’re talking about defunding the police, that’s exactly what we’re talking about.
