Advocates Call for More Funding for Unarmed Response Amid LA Budget Talks

The LA Forward Institute Tuesday urged Los Angeles elected officials to boost funding for the city’s unarmed crisis-response program to expand it citywide.

Mayor Karen Bass’ proposed $14.9 billion budget for fiscal year 2026-27 would allocate $18.8 million for the so-called UMCR program. But LA Forward argued that $30.7 million is needed to expand the program across the city, which would improve public safety and alleviate pressure placed on police officers to respond to mental health crisis calls.

In February, the City Council and Bass made permanent the program which had been operating as a pilot in select areas of the city. The program diverts emergency calls related to mental health crises away from the Los Angeles Police Department to specialized clinicians. There’s also an effort underway to consolidate all unarmed response initiatives into a single, citywide program.

The city launched the pilot program in 2024, which moved six types of 911 calls from the LAPD to specialized units.

Residents call LAPD’s 911 dispatchers, who can then divert calls to a centralized center which plugs in one of three nonprofits who handle calls for service — Exodus Recovery Inc., Alcott Center and Penny Lane Centers. Those organizations have staff trained in de-escalation, conflict resolution, substance abuse, cultural competency and other areas of need, according to city officials.

When the program expanded, each service provider picked up an additional LAPD Division area, with Alcott covering the Wilshire and Olympic divisions, Penny Lane picking up Devonshire and West Valley, and Exodus covering the Southeast and West L.A. divisions.

The program is inspired by initiatives in smaller jurisdictions such as the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Oregon.

“Instead unarmed crisis responders take those phone calls, so LAPD never has to deal with that at all — and neither do residents have to deal with law enforcement in those cases,” Godfrey Plata, deputy director of LA Forward, told City News Service.

“In the mayor’s budget, $18.3 million is only enough money to maintain the current program at its current status, or about 44% coverage of the city. The mayor’s budget does not grow this unarmed model of crisis response program,” Plata added, noting that LA Forward would like to see it expanded within the next two years ahead of the 2028 Olympic and Summer Olympic Games.

The goal is to increase coverage up to 71% of the city in the first year, and then reach 100% by 2028.

“We don’t think the $18.3 million budgeted is enough because it takes us off track from growth. We want to stay on track,” Plata told CNS.

Plata says he believes Bass set up her budget to sustain unarmed response programs such as UMCR, CIRCLE and GRYD while not growing them because together they serve as a patchwork system.

The Crisis and Incident Response through Community-led Engagement (CIRCLE) is a program under the mayor’s office that specifically addresses calls for service related to homelessness and Gang Reduction and Youth Development (GRYD) program services LA youth and aims to reduce gang violence through a coordinated, citywide strategy.

Plata argued the city should provide greater support to UMCR as it can be developed to address a range of public safety issues.

“It is the thing that Angelenos have been calling for, which is a curbing of police calls that don’t need to be police calls,” Plata told CNS. “The LAPPL (Los Angeles Police Protective League) has over 25 call types that they are saying they don’t need to take care of, but right now they to because we haven’t changed our system to be able to divert calls to other services that can exist.”

Plata said the city can find the money and it can come from “anywhere” or piecemeal from different accounts.

Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia said he supports efforts to expand UMCR citywide. In October 2025, the controller’s office released an assessment of LAPD’s Mental Evaluation Unit and SMART co-response model, which found that these “unarmed” initiatives required an armed response to mental health calls and that LAPD’s armed response very rarely involves de-escalation.

“LAPD costs the city more than any other department when it comes to liability claims. Having an unarmed response program can prevent the harm that would lead to liability payouts,” Mejia said in response to an email from CNS. “So not only would it mean less harm to people, it would also mean less costs to taxpayers thanks to fewer liabilities.”

The LAPPL — the union representing LAPD officers rank lieutenant and below — have supported unarmed response models, but have maintained that it should not come at the expense of moving funds away from the police department or hiring more police officers.

Meanwhile, Bass has maintained her proposed spending plan is “balanced,” with approximately $700 million to address homelessness and more than $2 billion to support the LAPD. Funding for the police department is expected to support the hiring of 510 new officers, which would maintain its force of 8,555.

LAPD would also have funding to conduct use-of-force, de-escalation and mental health intervention training.

The five-member Budget and Finance Committee is currently reviewing the mayor’s spending plan. Committee members are scheduled to meet Thursday at 10 a.m. in the Council Chamber at City Hall, to review budget memos and have general managers answer questions.