Committee on Health and Human Relations
Meeting Date: September 9, 2020
ORDER
WHEREAS, the City of Chicago appropriated $1.78 billion for the Chicago Police Department (CPD) in FY2020. CPD has the second highest per capita spending among all large police departments throughout the country at $660 per year, an amount that has nearly tripled since 1964. The City of Philadelphia is a distant third at $488 per capita; and
WHEREAS, CPD overtime spending has skyrocketed over the past 10 years, from $42.2 million in 2011 to $139.5 in 2019. Overtime spending in 2020 is on-track to exceed that 2019 figure substantially; and
WHEREAS, the CPD's responses to mental health crises have proven fatal in many instances, including cases like the Quintonio LeGrier, and legal settlements for police misconduct in these and other cases now exceeds $100,000,000 annually; and
WHEREAS, Chicago is facing a mental health crisis that has only intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, with many residents lacking access to mental health services following years of divestment in Chicago's mental health infrastructure, and with a shrinking in the number of city-run mental health clinics, which would be an especially valuable resource to residents today, from 19 to only 5 today; and
WHEREAS, effective models of alternative responses to mental health crises, neighbor disputes, and other incidents have been developed and implemented through a joint partnership between the cities of Eugene and Springfield, Oregon. Crisis Assistance Helping Out On the Streets (CAHOOTS) is a 31 year-old program that provides services such as crisis counseling, suicide prevention/intervention, conflict resolution, substance abuse, housing crises, non-emergency medical care, and transportation in the Eugene-Springfield metropolitan area. CAHOOTS is run by the White Bird Clinic, and each CAHOOTS team consists of a medic and a crisis worker trained in trauma-informed care and de-escalation; and
WHEREAS, CAHOOTS resp...
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