By Dianne Anderson

Instead of being funneled through the police, a new pilot program is set to deescalate mental health crisis in West Long Beach with calls for nonviolent help being handled by trained nonsworn mental health professionals.

As part of the City’s Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative, the program focuses on connecting the community to health resources, behavioral health and other quality of life issues.

“This new team will create opportunities to make connections within the communities that we serve. The goal is to build on those relationships and ultimately earn the trust of those who require assistance,” said Mayor Rex Richardson in a recent announcement. “This is important as advocates of Public Health, as a public health city, we understand that mental well-being is an important aspect of one’s overall health and resilience in their community.”

Calls coming in from concerned residents, family students in mental health crises will be handled by the Community Crisis Response Team program. The five-person team is made up of civilian staff, including the program manager and team supervisor, who is a licensed clinical psychologist, and based in-office to lead the program and provide in-field support if needed.

“We also have four folks that go out into the field – a licensed clinical social worker, public health nurse, and peer navigator. The Crisis Intervention Specialist in the field is a mental health professional,” said Jennifer Rice Epstein, spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services.

Other services for the health-based approach include resource navigation, suicide assessment and intervention, general health education, items for basic needs such as hygiene, clothing and nutritional supplements. Starting later this fall, also included transportation to services, including Multi-Service Center, mental health urgent care, and housing services.

Of the calls received in the year ending 2022, she said the city’s Emergency Communications Center answered an average of 327 calls per month that could have been CCR eligible. Of those, about 37 calls were on the Westside.

“Data was used from 2019-2020 to inform the concentration of calls that meet the criteria for response during the planning phase in 2021. Through this analysis, west Long Beach was identified with the most concentrated calls that met the criteria for this team,” she said in an email.

She also encourages the community to check their website, longbeach.gov/jobs for openings, she said.

“We are not currently hiring for CCR but we are hiring for other positions that have a positive impact on our community, including a public health nurse and Community Violence Prevention Manager,” she said.

None of the nonsworn trained mental health professionals are African American.

In West Long Beach, community advocate Jerlene Tatums said that she doesn’t feel the new team meets the diversity goal laid out in the City’s Racial Equity and Reconciliation Initiative.

“Is it important or does it matter that these individuals do not reflect the ethnic makeup of the community?” Tatum said.

There is also some confusion about why the crisis response team targets West Long Beach because a team is already available to serve the homeless population.

“Along the Anaheim corridor, that’s where all the homeless are. When you’re talking about calls for service, is this supposed to be for the general population because they [the city] claim they have a team just for the homeless,” she said.

She wonders whether data or services overlap, or skewed with the unhoused numbers.

“What data supports it only being in one part of town?” she said. “I think my side of town gets a bad rap but this has one of the highest population of homeowners in the city.”

Community members also recently expressed diversity concerns on the heels of the termination of Cathy Snuggs, the city’s Violence Prevention Coordinator.

In an August 7 Facebook post, Melissa Morgan, a moderator of Black Lives Matter Long Beach, expressed outrage over Snuggs’ termination.

“The firing of Cathy, the City of Long Beach’s ONLY Violence Prevention Coordinator, is not just absurd, but denigrating, offensive, and stinks of anti-Blackness from a City institution that is complicit in harming Black people over and over again,” she wrote.

Earlier this month, a letter submitted to many city officials by the Concerned Members of the Long Beach Community, stressed extreme alarm over the termination.

They also cite that while Blacks represent only 12.7% of the population, they comprised a disproportionate number of all gun violence deaths in Long Beach between 2013-2023.

“Due to the increase of racially motivated violence, Ms. Snuggs recognized the disconnection between the City and its community-based organizations which are responsible for providing additional support to victims,” the letter said.

Members commended Snuggs as effective and as the city’s only Black violence prevention coordinator, and stated that the decision is a blatant contradiction to the Racial Equity and Reconciliation Report’s findings and recommendations.

“After a year of working as the Violence Prevention Coordinator, Ms. Snuggs strengthened Long Beach Advancing Peace’s relationship with powerful women leaders and women-led organizations like AOC7 (Rocio Torres and Mary Simmons), Latinos in Action (Martha Cota), Puente LA (Hilda Gaytan), Centro Cha (Jessica Quintana), and April Parker Foundation (April Parker). Ms. Snuggs’s tireless efforts have been devoted to creating a safer and more inclusive environment for all communities in Long Beach,” the letter said.