Mayor says Phoenix will revamp its homelessness policing policy, prioritize social workers

PHOENIX — Soon, people experiencing homelessness in Phoenix will be met with fewer police officers and more social workers.

That’s because the city of Phoenix is stepping up to propose substantive reforms after facing federal scrutiny for its approach to homelessness policing.

“We are trying to take calls related to homelessness and addiction where there’s not an underlying crime beyond the addiction and push those towards social workers,” Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show on Tuesday.

This reflects a complete overhaul of the city’s current 911 dispatch and public safety strategies.

However, the change is necessary as both law enforcement and progressive activists felt that police officers were taking too many calls related to homelessness, according to Gallego.

“Our community wants people who are focused on ending that homelessness to take those calls and let police officers be focused on more traditional crime,” she said.

Why Phoenix leaders want to change the way they’re responding to homelessness

Gallego’s comments came one week after the Phoenix City Council voted to help the city’s police department reform and improve itself.

Police leaders in Phoenix have long been vocal about their desires to improve. However, their voices became especially loud after the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched an investigation into the department’s potential civil rights violations and abuses of power in August 2021.

In 2022, city officials hired Michael Sullivan as interim police chief and tasked him with guiding the department through the investigation and leading reform efforts.

The DOJ then released a scathing report about the department’s alleged civil rights violations in June of this year.

The report accused the department of violating the rights of people experiencing homelessness in Phoenix by stopping, detaining and arresting people without reasonable suspicion that they engaged in criminal activity. The DOJ also accused police of destroying the property of unhoused people without providing notice.

“One of the things that the Department of Justice pointed out was that so many of our calls are related to homelessness,” Gallego said. “If there’s a weapon or threat of violence, police officers need to be the front lines, but when that’s not the case, we ought to focus on (being) more solution-oriented.”

How else is Phoenix changing homelessness policing policy?

Some of the improvements the council suggested the Phoenix Police Department try include:

• Developing a biennial training plan for Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) officers.
• Exploring youth prevention programming.
• Exploring additional homelessness assistance services that civilian staff, rather than Phoenix Police officers, could provide.

These suggestions build upon the short-term, mid-term and long-term goals the city has in improving its homelessness policing policy.

Further details on the city’s new ways to improve its relationship between policing and homelessness can be found on page 13 of the council’s official list of improvement ideas.

Other changes that could come to Phoenix Police Department

The city of Phoenix uses data to try to find the most effective strategies to try to help people experiencing homelessness, Gallego said.

“The changes the Council made last week will make it even easier to do so,” she said.

Another change coming to Phoenix Police is the creation of a new position at each precinct, Gallego said. This will take some of the burden off of frontline supervisors who coach younger officers.

Gallego said she hopes the changes will help the city avoid a consent decree with the DOJ.

“For the majority of the elected officials in Phoenix, we really would prefer to avoid a consent decree. They can be costly and ineffective,” she said.

Gallego also said she has talked to officials who work under consent decrees who tell her that the bureaucracy it imposes on police make change slow.

“We’re happy to work with the DOJ,” Gallego said. “There’s a variety of changes, from how we dispatched calls to how we monitor our data, that the DOJ suggested we think we can make right away.”