A friend is experiencing a mental health crisis and you're worried they may hurt themselves. What do you do? You think a child on your block needs support meeting basic needs. Who do you call? A couple is arguing next door, and it sounds heated.  Do you step in?

Every day, people in our community are faced with crises like these. For many people, the answer is singular: “call 911.” But crisis response in the Twin Cities is far from perfect: it can lead to more harm rather than resolving it, and can have deadly outcomes – especially for Black and Indigenous people, and people of color. This leads to the question, who can we call besides 911? Does anyone “else” exist?