Formation | 1989 |
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CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) is a mental-health-crisis intervention program in Eugene, Oregon, which has handled some lower-risk emergency calls involving mental illness and homelessness since 1989.[1] This makes it the earliest, or one of the earliest, Mobile Crisis Teams.
In most American cities, police have been responding to such calls and at least 25% of people killed in police encounters had been suffering from serious mental illness.[1][2][3] Many cities in the US and elsewhere have been considering and implementing implementing something like CAHOOTS.[3] In 2015, Stockholm a similar concept was considered a success.[3] In early 2020, Denver started a similar program.[4] After the George Floyd protests that year, several hundred cities in the US interested in implementing similar programs requested information from CAHOOTS.[5]
In 2021, the US enacted legislation to cover 85% of the expenses for three years for Mobile Crisis Teams, directing $1 billion to the effort.[6] By the end of the year, many cities were starting such programs, such as Minneapolis' Behavioral Crisis Response.[7] By 2024, most US states had multiple cities implementing such programs, or had them available state-wide.[8][9][10]
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was invoked but never defined (see the help page).