Councilmember Price joined Mayor Eric Garcetti on Nov. 14 to announce the expansion of CIRCLE, a program that diverts non-emergency calls related to unhoused individuals from LAPD’s 9-1-1 system to trained crisis response teams consisting of licensed mental health professionals and outreach workers.
The City of Los Angeles initiated the pilot program this past January in Hollywood and Venice. Starting next year, CIRCLE, which stands for Crisis and Incident Response through Community-Led Engagement, will be available 24/7 in District 9 which has the second highest concentration of unhoused individuals in the City.
“As I have said time and time again, we cannot build our way out of the homelessness crisis, and we certainly cannot police our way out of homelessness and mental health crises either. I am confident that initiatives like CIRCLE will reinforce the long-term results we all want to see, creating a responsive system of assistance built on care, compassion and dignity,” said Councilmember Price during the press conference.
Since the program launched in January, there have been over 2,300 911/877-ASK-LAPD calls diverted and managed by CIRCLE and over 12,400 incidents proactively addressed by CIRCLE teams.