Residents of Kingston are looking for alternatives to police when responding to certain calls, mainly those involving mental health or addiction issues.

“If someone’s loud, you don’t necessarily need a police officer to go and talk to that person," said Callie Jayne, executive director of Rise Up Kingston. "It could be a community member who’s trained in de-escalation.”

They’re looking to the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Oregon. CAHOOTS was founded in 1989 by the White Bird Clinic, and it dispatches medics and crisis workers to calls involving conflict resolutions, welfare checks, suicide threats, and more.

Now, Rise Up Kingston and the Samadhi Recovery Center are spearheading an effort to bring a similar program here.

“We decided to join forces since it was something that we were very aligned on, and look at some of the different possible ways that we could create a CAHOOTS-like team here in Kingston," said David McNamara, executive director at Samadhi.

White Bird says that CAHOOTS has an added efficiency benefit, saving the city of Eugene approximately $8.5 million a year. Through their own research, Jayne says that nearly a quarter of Kingston 911 calls could be handled through this program.

“Community lockouts, animal issues, noise complaints, medical issues. We don’t need cops for those. We need individuals who can go out and support the crisis at hand.”

Studies find that interactions between police and people with mental illness can escalate quickly. The American Journal of Preventative Medicine’s study estimates that between 20 and 50 percent of fatal encounters with police involve an individual with mental illness.

And according to the Treatment Advocacy Center, people with mental illness are 16 times more likely to die during encounters with the police.

“We don’t try to fix people or tell them that they’re not experiencing what they’re experiencing, or they’re not seeing what they’re seeing. But rather, partner with them to get them to a place where we can come to an agreement that there’s something that we can do that’s in their interest to protect them," McNamara said.

Getting a program off the ground in Kingston is in its early stages, but community support appears strong. Nearly 90 people showed up for a Zoom training hosted by CAHOOTS.

“I don’t like this to be an "us or them" thing, like, that we’re going to replace the police. It’s coming together as a community and supporting each other," McNamara said.