Wheeler proposes expanding Portland Street Response

PORTLAND, Ore. (KPTV) – Mayor Ted Wheeler announced that he will be proposing to expand Portland Street Response so that the team can response city-wide and 24/7.

It has been about a year since PSR began providing services in Portland. The team is made up of unarmed first responders who respond to calls where someone may be experiencing a mental or behavioral health crisis.

Portland State University’s Homeless and Action Collaborative provided an evaluation of the program this week and found that:

• PSR call load represents a four percent reduction in total calls that police would normally respond to
• PSR helped reduce PPB response to welfare checks and unwanted persons calls by 27 percent
• PSR helped reduce Portland Fire & Rescue activity on behavioral health and illegal burn calls by 12.4 percent
• 89 percent of PSR calls did not involve co-response with other agencies
• PSR did request PPB co-response 18 times
• PSR was able to resolve the majority of its calls with only 29 people having to be taken to a hospital for further treatment

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