Minneapolis politics, slightly ground down

A Minneapolis politics podcast hosted by four-term Ward 2 city council veterans Cam Gordon and Robin Garwood, with longtime activist Jesse Mortenson

Safety Shifts pt 2: Behavioral Crisis Response Faces Big Proposed Changes

October 13, 2026

Minneapolis safety programs are facing big shifts, putting key strategies at risk. In part two, we focus on Behavioral Crisis Response (BCR). BCR was built out by a local mental health care provider, Canopy Roots, that received a very positive evaluation this year. However, city staff now recommend changing vendors, just a couple months before the contract is slated to expire. Staff also want to change the scope of the program. Why change now? does this put a successful safety program at risk of gaps in service, or even compromise its focus and excellence? A lot of possible change is swirling around BCR at this moment, making it critical that we speak up.

This is Part 2 - go back and listen to Part 1 to catch the introduction, as well as our conversation about violence interrupters facing budget cuts.

Recorded 10/7/26.

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What is the Behavioral Crisis Response Model?

In the US, the pioneer was a mental health clinic in Eugene, Oregon - White Bird Clinic - which started a program called Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS). CAHOOTS operated successfully for decades, earning the support of community members as well as other first-responders. CAHOOTS teams respond to behavioral emergencies with staff trained to do that work. It's a nonviolent, caring response. The program diverted something like 5-8% of emergency calls away from police response.

In mostly 12-hour shifts, CAHOOTS teams made up of a medic and a crisis worker respond to urgent medical or psychological crises. Employees do not carry guns or wear uniforms; instead, they wear casual hoodies and drive vans with a dove painted on the side. (source).

CAHOOTS is meaningfully distinct from other late 20th-century police policy changes around mental health care, such as "Crisis Intervention Teams" or "co-response." Both of those involve training police officers and/or sending a social worker or other mental health care provider along with a police response. The CAHOOTS model does not send police to mental health calls, instead emphasizing a health care and peer-support response.

More information on CAHOOTS:

Where has this model spread? Denver and Others

I did most of this research in 2020. At the time, it seemed that many cities around the country were finally responding to the success of CAHOOTS and mounting their own pilot programs.

  • Portland, OR: Portland Street Response
  • San Francisco, CA: Mental Health SF
  • Oakland, CA: Mobile Assistance Community Responders
  • New York City, NY: B-HEARD
  • Los Angeles, CA

Denver, CO

In Denver, the Support Team Assisted Response - STAR - program was started in 2020. Denver is an interesting comparison point for the Twin Cities, because its metro is somewhat similar in population, with 2.9 million population compared to the Twin Cities urban population of 2.7 million (per Wikipedia). Of course, Minneapolis is just half of the Twin Cities metro, with a 430k population, while Denver's city-limits population is 715k.

Program budgets are also similar: the 2026 budget for STAR is $6.3m, which is a little more than the $5.9m proposed for the pending 2027 BCR contract in Minneapolis.

The Denver program seems to have made a positive impact, but is not fully funded. It does not operate 24/7. Looking at STAR, I would say we're doing a better job in Minneapolis. STAR is successful, but underfunded and showing some of resulting weaknesses in terms of operations and outcomes.

  • Denver city STAR program overview
  • 2026: Denver Post overview
    • "200 fewer police contacts every year"
    • "Still, STAR teams responded alone to just one in five 911 calls in Denver that were eligible for a STAR response between 2020 and mid-2024, the study found. The program was limited both by STAR’s small capacity and longstanding norms in public safety that default to sending police officers to calls, researchers found."
    • "Police officers — not STAR teams — answered the majority of STAR-eligible 911 calls between 2020 and mid-2024, the study found. That’s not what the program’s creators had hoped for, said Vinnie Cervantes, executive director of the Denver Alliance for Street Health Response, an organization that helped start the program. They envisioned STAR replacing police responses."
    • Between 2020 and mid-2024, nearly 49,000 911 calls in Denver were eligible for a STAR response, the study found. STAR teams alone responded to about 9,800 calls, or about 20% of those eligible calls. The teams responded to an additional 2,700 calls alongside police officers, about 6% of the total, according to the study. Police officers answered 27,700 of the eligible calls — 57% — without STAR teams.
    • "The STAR program began in 2020 as a pilot within the Denver Police Department, which, early on, created an expectation that police were the automatic default, said Andrew Dameron, Denver 911 director. The agency, in the years since, has taken pains to culturally move away from that attitude in favor of an approach that sees STAR as a standalone response option on equal footing with police, firefighters and paramedics."
    • "The STAR program is now housed within Denver’s Department of Public Health and Environment."

Minneapolis Behavioral Crisis Response (BCR)

BCR now responds 24/7 and citywide, with 40 responders handling 10k annual calls. This service is provided by Canopy Roots.

History

City page on history

Canopy Roots and Program Performance

  • Company website
  • Also provides services for:
    • Brooklyn Center
    • Metro Transit
  • MN Justice Research Center Evaluation, Jan 2026 MN Justice Research Center Evaluation, Jan 2026 https://www.mnjrc.org/bcr-evaluation
    • Somewhat limited real-world observation:
      • 11,000 call logs (a year’s worth of Canopy Roots' contacts)
      • 500 community survey responses
      • 6 direct observation sessions (ridealongs with BCR teams).
      • 36 stakeholder interviews and 1 focus group with BCR responders, Canopy Roots’ staff and Community Advisory Board, community members, police officers, and other safety ecosystem partners
    • Key Findings
      • BCR perceived by other responders as filling a critical gap
      • Canopy Roots service aligns with best practices
      • Community strongly support BCR
      • BCR serves diverse residents wtih serious mental illness
    • Key recommendations
      • Bolster data collection
      • Move from individual cooperation to collab w community groups and the city
      • Invest in broad education campaign to share BCR's impact
      • Prioritize Workforce retention
    • "Minneapolis’s choice to award its BCR contract to Canopy Roots—a local, majority Black-owned and woman-led mental health agency—reflected the community’s demand for culturally responsive, trauma-informed care"
    • "measurable results are clear: mental health crisis response results in fewer arrests and reduced police use of force, and it boasts strong public support and an excellent safety record. The challenge now is scaling these promising models"
    • "BCR call data could contribute to a citywide needs assessment that could impact broader policy conversations, funding decisions, and community development efforts"
    • "Other first responders at all levels—from police leadership to patrol officers, firefighters, and county agencies—voiced consistent and growing support for BCR teams,"
    • "less than half of community members knew about BCR before being surveyed"
      • "once informed, support was overwhelming—91% backed unarmed alternatives to police response and 88% reported increased feelings of safety knowing the program exists."
    • "Throughout this evaluation, the voices of responders, recipients, community members, and safety ecosystem partners have told a compelling story of a program that is reimagining how communities respond to human suffering"

Proposal to Change Vendor & Program Scope

City staff presented a proposed contract to hire Community Bridges to replace Canopy Roots as program provider, and to switch the brand/scope of the program from Behavioral Crisis Response to "Mobile Crisis Response."

The 10/7 Committee meeting moved this proposal on to the City Council with a recommendation to reject the proposed contract with Community Bridges.

City documents and meetings:

Community Bridges

  • Company website
  • workforce of over 1,700 employees,
  • runs mobile crisis teams in Arizona, Oklahoma and Idaho
  • runs more than 30 programs that employ 1,700 people, according to its website
  • OCS Deputy commisioner Jeffries cites examples of experience in
    • Mobile crisis in cities in AZ
    • Statewide program in OK
    • Several jurisdictions in ID
    • Washington DC
  • Board of directors is 4 chiefs of police out of 11 members

Media coverage

Media coverage

  • MPR: Minneapolis plans new provider for behavioral crisis response program (9/23)
    • Payne: “One of the things that is critically important is a robust implementation plan that ensures we don’t have discontinuity of services. Right now, I’m not presented with anything that gives me confidence that we’re not going to face a discontinuity of services.”
    • Canopy Roots was recently notified that they weren’t chosen to continue running the program by city officials after a request for proposals was issued earlier this year. There were seven applicants, but city leaders decided to award the contract to Arizona-based Community Bridges, Inc.
    • With the complexity of the program, Hanson said she’s worried there may be service gaps during the changeover. Hanson said they haven’t yet received detailed information about the city’s transition plans.
    • “We know that when we make sure the marginalized are taken care of, everybody is better and everybody gets what they need,” Hanson said. “People in Minneapolis who rely on this service, I do feel worried about what they'll get next.”
  • Minneapolmedia editorial
    • The council must also guard against turning clinicians into a general-purpose response to visible poverty. Crisis teams should not be used to remove people from public spaces because their presence makes others uncomfortable. Nor should responders be sent into situations involving weapons or active violence without adequate protection. Clear dispatch rules are necessary both to protect civil rights and to protect workers.

Safety Program Org Structure in Minneapolis

The Office of Community Safety is the umbrella organization, containing:

  • 911
  • Emergency Management
  • Fire
    • Behavioral Crisis Response
  • Police
  • Neighborhood Safety Department (NSD)
    • [NSD was formerly the Office of Violence Prevention/OVP]
    • Group Violence Intervention (GVI)
    • Next Step
      • Hospital-based support for victims of violent injuries
    • Violence prevention services program
    • Youth Group Violence Intervention (YGVI) program (? couldn't find website)
    • MinneapolUS / Violence Interruption
      • trained by Cure Violence
    • Community Safety Ambassadors

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