At a time when we are facing diminishing funding and resources for human services and mental health care, it is critical that cities and counties work together to prevent duplication of services and to achieve efficiency. That’s why it is so disappointing to see the Minneapolis City Council again funding their own mental health crisis team and using an out-of-state vendor.
For 20 years counties have been developing mobile mental health crisis services either delivering the care themselves or contracting with community mental health centers. There is state funding and teams can bill insurance. There are standards embedded in state law and reporting requirements, including providing stabilization services after the initial crisis.
The mental health community wanted to build a statewide mental health crisis system (not city by city) – and we are one of the few states that have teams covering all 87 counties. Generally, the teams receive high marks, the main problem being speed of response. But the entire statewide budget is less than the budgets of police departments in our major cities making it difficult to respond as quickly as police.
COPE is Hennepin County’s team. But the city council stopped contracting with them several years ago so they could have their own team. It has left people confused. 988 sends out COPE, 911 under Travis’ Law is supposed to send out crisis teams, and few people understand the difference between COPE and the city funded team.
The question must be asked – why won’t the city council contract with COPE to expand coverage?
Sue Abderholden, Minneapolis
