Committee approves making UMCR permanent and advances consolidation with CIRCLE

The Los Angeles City ad hoc committee on unarmed crisis response voted to make the Unarmed Model of Crisis Response (UMCR) permanent and approved a motion to pursue consolidation with the mayor’s CIRCLE program, moves officials said will advance work toward a single, citywide civilian crisis-response system.

Councilmember Alisa Hernandez, cochair of the ad hoc committee, urged the committee to treat crisis response as care rather than punishment, saying, “When someone is in crisis, the city's first response should be care, not punishment.” Hernandez and other council members framed permanence and consolidation as a way to embed civilian response into the city's public-safety infrastructure with clearer governance, coordinated dispatch and accountability.

The City Administrative Officer’s office presented a year-two status update on UMCR. Vanessa Willis, a CAO staff member, reported that UMCR has “responded to 19,220 calls” since launch, an average response time of about 27 minutes, an average on-scene time near 19 minutes, and that roughly 3.8% of calls were redirected to LAPD. Willis said 40% of eligible calls resulted in assistance on scene or no crisis identified and that gone-on-arrival rates (GOA) remain an area for improvement driven largely by dispatch information and timing.

Willis also described a pilot with the Los Angeles Fire Department to divert low-acuity calls. She recounted that in 2024 LAFD recorded about 9,600 mental/emotional incidents and 8,600 unknown/person-down calls; up to 80% of those often required no medical transport, and LAFD estimates roughly half of the unknown/person-down category are UMCR-eligible, creating an estimated pool of about 14,000 potential UMCR diversions annually. The pilot launched in a Southeast police division in September, expanded to Devonshire and Olympic in November, and was scheduled to begin accepting LAFD referrals in West Valley and Wilshire on Feb. 17. Between Sept. 2 and Feb. 3, the pilot diverted 143 calls, the CAO said.

Battalion Chief Art Tarango of LAFD described refined transfer procedures and recent dispatcher training that reduced handoff time; he said targeted training over three days led to about 10 additional calls diverted to UMCR and reported an average 3.5-minute transfer time in the refined process.

Deputy Mayor Karen Lane presented the mayor’s CIRCLE program update, describing CIRCLE as a 24/7 unarmed response program focused on low-risk LAPD calls involving people experiencing homelessness and emphasizing outreach, case management and respite facilities. The deputy mayor said CIRCLE now operates across seven areas covering 13 LAPD divisions, reported an average response time around 23 minutes and average on-scene time about 14 minutes, and said top referral categories included housing, mental health and medical connections.

Committee members asked for additional disaggregated metrics (for example, response-time calculations excluding long FIT deployments and the breakdown of hospitalizations versus county facility placements) and pressed the CAO and mayor’s office to pursue a robust third-party program evaluation to support expansion decisions. Willis said current UMCR contracts expire in August 2026; the CAO has prepared a request for qualifications to create a prequalified vendor pool, plans to release task orders after the city budget is adopted (typically in June), and anticipates a July–August transition period and service launches beginning in September 2026.

Votes at a glance: Item 3 (adopt UMCR on a permanent basis and advance the Department of Community Safety) — approved (4 ayes: Blumenfield, Fernandez, Grama, Price). Item 4 (councilmember Raman’s motion to consolidate unarmed crisis response into a single citywide program) — approved (4 ayes). Item 1 (receive and file CAO status report) — received and filed (4 ayes).

Resident Jason Enright, representing LA Forward, spoke during public comment in favor of both motions and urged careful merging of programs so the city “find[s] the best of both programs” and eliminates redundancies. Enright said he hopes pilots become permanent and expand citywide to ensure consistent service access.

Next steps: the CAO and mayor’s office said they will pursue procurement (RFQ/task orders) after the budget process, provide additional disaggregated performance metrics requested by councilmembers, and pursue a third-party evaluation to measure UMCR/CIRCLE impact on outcomes such as repeat calls, arrests for the call types served, and downstream effects on emergency-room and public-safety workload. The committee adjourned after completing business.