Toronto Community Crisis Service

In 2020, in response to calls for police reform following the murder of George Floyd in the United States and a series of similar incidents in Toronto such as the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet,[1] Toronto City Council considered a series of motions aimed at reforming policing and crisis response in the city.[2] Mayor John Tory tabled a motion to "detask" the Toronto Police Service. The city would explore how duties currently assigned to sworn officers would be assumed by "alternative models of community safety response" to incidents where neither violence nor weapons are at issue.[1][3] Tory's motion passed unanimously on June 29.[2]

City staff presented a report to the Executive Committee on January 27, 2021,[4][5] which recommended the creation of a community crisis support service pilot program. The Executive Committee endorsed the report and it was later adopted by Toronto City Council on February 2.[6][7] City council gave the Social Development, Finance and Administration Division (SDFA) the remainder of the year to develop the non-police crisis response pilot.[8]

Denise Campbell, the division's executive director indicated in April that some issues her team were considering included integration with 9-1-1 and 2-1-1 call centres, consultation with community and police, and the mandate of the program itself.[8] A point of contention was the language of the program, whether it is non-emergency or crisis. According to Campbell, despite the word non-emergency, the goal is that the program would be able to respond to calls as fast as an ambulance.[8] As a pilot project, the division aimed to target specific communities most at need. Three of the services areas were divided geographically, another pilot program was creating a team aimed at serving Indigenous communities.[8] The program was projected to cost the city between $7.2 million to $7.9 million to operate each year.[8]

On January 26, 2022, the Executive Committee approved SDFA's report outlining an implementation plan for the pilot program.[9][10] It was subsequently adopted by city council on February 2.[10] The first pilot was set to begin operating in the downtown east and northeast areas by March. Another pilot in the northwest as well as the Indigenous initiative in the downtown west was planned to begin operating in June.[9] The community agencies chosen by the city were TAIBU Community Health Centre, the Gerstein Crisis Centre, the Canadian Mental Health Association, ENAGB Indigenous Youth Agency and the 2-Spirited People of the 1st Nations. According to Mayor Tory, "the pilots will allow the city to test and to evaluate and to revise this model before we implement it on a larger scale but make no mistake it is our intention to implement it on a larger scale and to have it city-wide by 2025 at the latest".[9]

The first pilot in the downtown east launched on March 31, 2022, the northeast pilot launched on April 4, and the northwest and downtown west pilots launched in July.[11]

In January 2023, a six month evaluation report conducted between March 31 to September 30, 2022, by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) found that the program had managed to resolve 78 per cent of 1,530 calls received from 9-1-1 without police involvement.[12][13] The report was received positively by city officials, with Campbell indicating her division would recommend a city-wide rollout to city council in October.[14] In a statement, Mayor John Tory described the program as a "success",[13] and called on the Ontario and federal governments to make investments in mental health.[15]