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17m ago

Mamdani Presses $1.1 Billion Community Safety Plan as Audit Flags Troubled 911 Pilot

The mayor-elect seeks to scale B-HEARD into a new department using a public-health model despite findings that many eligible crisis calls went unserved.

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Overview

  • A May comptroller review found over 60% of routed calls labeled ineligible and about 35% of eligible calls received no B-HEARD response, with thousands unaccounted for due to poor tracking.
  • From fiscal years 2022 to 2024, 96,291 mental-health 911 calls were routed to the pilot, and 24,071 led to a B-HEARD dispatch.
  • The program currently operates 18 teams limited to parts of the Bronx, Upper Manhattan, central Brooklyn and northwest Queens.
  • Mamdani proposes folding B-HEARD into a Department of Community Safety funded by $605 million in existing programs plus $455 million in new dollars.
  • His blueprint envisions at least one crisis-response team in every neighborhood, a plan drawing warnings from public-safety figures including Richard Aborn and Hank Sheinkopf over feasibility and responder safety.