CAMBRIDGE — It took less than a minute for the crew of five social workers in matching mint-green T-shirts to find people who could use some help.
Right outside the door to their Central Square headquarters last month, they found a woman sitting on the ground with a few small bags, taking a rest in the 80-plus-degree heat, and gave her water and snacks. A few steps down Mass. Ave., they chatted with a homeless man who wanted assistance getting an ID.
Later, they consoled a woman who walked up to them in tears, asking if someone could pray with her. They obliged.
It was just another afternoon for Cambridge’s new five-member Community Assistance Response and Engagement, or CARE, team, which has for months been meeting with some of the city’s most vulnerable.
But if all goes according to plan, the team will soon have a more high-stakes task: responding to 911 calls, sent to the scenes of nonviolent, mental health-related incidents handled at present by cops with guns.
Four years after the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd spurred nationwide protests, the CARE team is Cambridge’s first real try at an alternative to police in emergencies. As envisioned, it would be among the most ambitious such efforts in Massachusetts, because it would respond to some incidents instead of — rather than with — police. The team’s launch has raised thorny questions about when people in crisis actually need the cops, and when a social worker can show up instead.
Cambridge Police Commissioner Christine Elow publicly supports the CARE program and said she has met frequently with the team.
Negotiations with the largest local police union have delayed the rollout of the program, as officers say they still have concerns to address before they are ready to hand over some responsibilities to unarmed civilians.
Chris Sullivan, president of the Cambridge Police Patrol Officers Association, which represents roughly 220 sworn officers, said the CARE team “has a place in Cambridge as a supplement to the city’s already excellent emergency services,” but said it “must first be prepared with proper training and safety protocols, and negotiations must be settled in good faith.”
Sullivan added that Cambridge police “provide compassionate assistance” to people in medical or mental health distress more than thousand times a year, and approach the work with “care, compassion, and dedication.”
The union representing higher-ranking law enforcement did not respond to a request for comment.
A non-police response
Calls for a program like the CARE team gained steam in Cambridge in 2020 amid a push for police reforms and have had wide support in the city. Including, some officials say, from police themselves.
“Most people in the community don’t want to criminalize homelessness or mental illness or substance abuse,” said Marc McGovern, a Cambridge city councilor and the city’s vice mayor. “When your only response is with police officers, it makes that more of a possibility.”
McGovern, who is a social worker by trade, pointed to a case in July of 2020, in which a man who was distraught over the sudden death of his mother and was trying to get inside her apartment was restrained in handcuffs. The incident cast a negative light on policing, he said.
It might not have ended that way, McGovern said, if a trained clinician had been brought in to de-escalate.
“That’s not something a police officer is going to do,” McGovern said. “That’s not their job. Their job was to protect the perimeter.”
The CARE team’s impending launch also comes in the wake of a 2023 incident in which an officer shot and killed college student Arif Sayed Faisal, who was armed with a foot-long knife and was in the midst of a mental health crisis during the fatal encounter with police. A judicial inquest later that year cleared the officer of wrongdoing. This year, an independent review of the department praised its crisis-intervention training for officers, and suggested the department would benefit from having social workers join police on mental health-related calls.
Right now the CARE team members all have extensive backgrounds as social workers and first responders; several have master’s degrees. The team hopes to add two more responders, and one more clinician.
When the CARE program is up and running, 911 dispatchers who get calls for certain types of nonviolent incidents — including well-being checks, complaints about loitering, and concerns about people who are in mental health-related distress — will send the CARE team instead of the police.
They can’t do so until negotiations between the city and its police unions conclude, said Elizabeth Speakman, the team’s director. (So far, the team is only responding to requests to pick up discarded needles, a task previously handled by the Fire Department.)
Still, a tentative plan is taking shape, in which the CARE team would respond to 10 call codes, with some important exceptions.
It would handle many mental health cases, but not for someone who is armed with a weapon, for example. It would also alert family members when a loved one has died, but not if it’s part of a homicide investigation. It would respond to loitering, but not trespassing.
“To have a partner that can respond to certain calls will be beneficial on so many levels, including helping us better connect with our most vulnerable,” said Elow, the police commissioner, in a statement.
Members of the CARE team see their relationship with police as symbiotic.
“We’re trying to get away from, like, ‘us or them,’” said Jeffrey Alger, who before joining the team was an EMT in Cambridge. “It could be a cop that’s calling us for the mental health portion of a call.”
CARE team members will coordinate with police during responses, and carry city-issued radios with emergency buttons that can summon officers if they’re in danger, Speakman said.
“The intent throughout has not been to replace the police or eliminate the police,” she said. “I don’t believe communities have to make a choice between police or mental health clinicians. It’s really about figuring out what is the challenge the person’s having, and how do you make sure you’re providing the right response for them.”
Novel autonomy proposed brings some doubts
Few other cities’ alternative responder programs work as independently as the CARE team plans to.
“This is at the cutting edge,” said June Binney, a Massachusetts advocate for better mental health practices in policing. “We’ve asked way too much of our first responders, and haven’t asked enough of our mental health and substance use provider systems to really respond to the needs of people who are in crisis.”
Some experts who work with police have shared doubts about initiatives like it, because 911 calls can be unpredictable.
“By definition it’s a chaotic, very stressful, very fluid situation,” said Eric Piza, a Northeastern criminology professor. “It could be really difficult for callers to communicate the information necessary for the dispatcher to accurately identify mental health calls.”
Speakman, though, said research shows alternative responder programs in other cities almost never need backup. And for now, she hopes that maximizing face time with vulnerable community members will make calls safer down the line.
Limited scope of work, at least for now
Last month, at a Mass. Ave. bus stop where a small group of people were sipping from liquor bottles, a man stood up, lost his footing, and tumbled onto the sidewalk.
Alger and fellow CARE team member Dimitri Virgile, who also has a background as an EMT, rushed to his side.
He appeared dazed, and may have been injured. Virgile flagged another team member: “Call 911.”
A few minutes later, he was loaded into an ambulance.
In time, the CARE team may follow up. “If I do see him again, we can chat. If he wants to talk with me, he can,” Alger said.
But at that moment, there was nothing else for them to do.
Spencer Buell can be reached at spencer.buell@globe.com. Follow him @SpencerBuell.