Burlington CARES, a city program designed to send mental health clinicians to certain emergency calls, will cease operation by mid-December.
Launched last year, the program was funded with a state grant that will expire next month. The city was unable to find other money for the program, which currently has 57 regular clients, according to a city memo. Two city staffers will be laid off as a result.
City officials say Howard Center’s Street Outreach Team, which responds to mental health incidents, is best suited for the work being performed by CARES. The outreach team recently received an infusion of city cash to help backfill recent funding cuts. The additional money won’t pay to hire more outreach workers or expand the team’s operating hours, a Howard Center spokesperson confirmed.
That concerns City Council President Ben Traverse (D-Ward 5), who views the end of the CARES team as a “net loss” for people who relied on its services.
“There’s going to be a service gap. This program, at least in part, was designed to meet people where they are, rather than ending up in the emergency room, for example,” he said. “Without this program and without that goal, I’m concerned about taking steps backwards.”
City councilors will discuss the matter during a work session at their meeting on Monday.
Burlington CARES — or Burlington Crisis Assessment, Response and Engagement Service — was modeled after the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Ore., which dispatched unarmed professionals to help people experiencing mental health crises. CAHOOTS started in 1989 but garnered national attention in 2020 after George Floyd’s murder by police in Minneapolis caused communities to search for alternatives to traditional policing. The program in Eugene shut down earlier this year after facing budget cuts, though a nearby city still receives services.
Conversations about replicating CAHOOTS in Burlington began under former mayor Miro Weinberger, who initially proposed that Howard Center operate the team. Eventually the city decided to take on the project itself and was awarded a state grant in 2023.
But hiring challenges kept the program from fully getting off the ground. Housed in the police department, the team was meant to have four staffers, but the city only managed to hire two: a mental health clinician and team supervisor. Another clinician spot stayed vacant, as did a position for a nurse or emergency medical technician, which the city memo attributes to “difficult and ultimately unsuccessful negotiations” with the University of Vermont Medical Center.
“The lack of an embedded EMT/nurse limited the scope of the mental health services Cares could provide,” the memo says.
The short-staffed team responded to about 600 calls since launching last year, according to the memo.
The city was unable to find money to keep the team going beyond December, when state grant funds will run out. Jen Monroe Zakaras, deputy chief of staff for Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, said the city sought other state grants and considered using opioid settlement money, but neither option panned out. The general fund, which has faced severe budget pressures the past two years, couldn’t sustain the program, Zakaras said.
Meantime, the city allocated nearly $250,000 to Howard Center’s Street Outreach team in the most recent budget, more than three times the total in previous years. The increase makes up for funding cuts that “put the Street Outreach program in peril,” according to a city memo.
City officials say it makes sense for a social service provider to take the lead. Besides being the county’s designated mental health agency, Howard Center has a more secure system for maintaining private health data, the city’s memo says. And unlike CARES, the street outreach team isn’t part of the police department, an arrangement that was concerning to some residents and racial justice advocates, the memo says.
Interim Burlington Police Chief Shawn Burke said CARES team clients will still have access to services. Beside the Street Outreach Team, the department’s in-house social workers, called community support liaisons, will respond to calls involving people struggling with mental health.
Traverse, though, said losing CARES means one less resource will be available. He also expressed disappointment that Mulvaney-Stanak laid off city staff without first informing the council. The mayor has the right to hire and fire employees, but the council should have a say before an entire program is eliminated, Traverse said.
“This is a great program as it was envisioned,” he said. “I would have liked to explore whether or not we could find alternative funding sources or whether or not there was a way to keep it going.”
Zakaras said the city tried.
“I don’t think that council involvement would have changed anything here,” she said.
Zakaras said Monday night’s work session will allow councilors to ask questions. Councilors will also be asked to approve an agreement with Howard Center, which will require the outreach team to keep data on calls for service and referrals for additional care, among other items.
