As It Expands Across Seattle, Care Department Chooses First Hill For East Precinct ‘community Crisis Responders’ Headquarters

As Seattle’s CARE Department expands citywide thanks to a $1.9 million federal grant, its East Precinct crisis team has secured a new home.

The First Hill Improvement Association has announced that the city’s Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department has selected a Madison commercial suite for its new East Precinct “Community Crisis Responders” headquarters.

“The East Precinct CCR office will be located in First Hill on Madison Street in front of Swedish’s Nordstrom Tower (near MAD Pizza and Vietlicious). Welcome to the neighborhood!,” the FHIA announcement reads.

CARE is “procuring additional office spaces in several precincts,” FHIA says.

The choice of Madison ends efforts by CARE to establish its East Precinct office near Broadway and Pike.

CHS reported here on efforts to arrive at a deal for the headquarters in a former Chase bank in the Harvard Market shopping center. Morris Groberman, part of the local ownership behind Harvard Market, told CHS last month that the city was balking over price.

“Although the city had the lease in hand, they chose not to sign due to financial limitations,” Groberman said. “While I believe that the intentions of local politicians are sincere, the lack of resources and political will is a significant barrier—evidenced by their inability to meet hiring goals at SPD.”

The Madison retail space next to the two First Hill restaurants CARE has selected has been listed for around $30 per square foot a year plus taxes, building insurance, and maintenance.

“Can be vented for restaurant use. Abundant parking in building,” the listing reads.

That parking will be useful. Madison through First Hill has been fully transformed to optimize for the new RapidRide G bus line. The CARE Department’s CCRs stay busy driving across the area.

“CCRs are qualified behavioral health professionals, trained to provide support and resources. They assist police officers in responding to 911 mental health crisis calls (that do not pose a threat of violence nor involve a medical emergency) to streamline the process of connecting individuals to the appropriate service providers,” the First Hill Improvement Association writes. “As part of a dual dispatch model, CCRs are dispatched to calls at the same time as police, although in different vehicles.”

Officials have said the new center will be CARE’s “base of operations in East Precinct” where Community Crisis Responders will “specifically utilize the location to maintain resources necessary to carry out their core job functions, such as communications equipment and supplies needed to support community members experiencing crises.”

CHS reported here last August as Seattle swore in its first Chief of the Community Assisted Response and Engagement Department. Amy Barden oversees the city’s 911 operations and the CARE crisis response effort. Barden has led the department since it was launched in 2023.

Mayor Bruce Harrell directed $1.9 million in federal funding to be used to power an expansion of CARE that has increased the size of the department and expanded it to citywide, seven day a week service starting with an expansion last year including Capitol Hill and the Central District.

The program began as a small, $1.5 million CARE team pilot hoped to help be the start of bigger changes in how the city responds to mental health and drug crisis 911 calls.

It included funding for only six responders and continues to be hampered by limitations on the types of 911 calls it is allowed to respond to.

CCRs are dispatched by the Seattle 911 Communications Center or directly radioed to assist by Seattle Police Department patrol officers, “who ensure the situation is safe and CCRs can spend sufficient time co-facilitating community members to the appropriate service providers,” the city says.

“CCRs are not law enforcement, will not exercise enforcement of any kind, and will only respond to calls that do not require enforcement of any kind.”

911 callers can’t request the CCRs — technically. To request help, the city directs you to call 911 and the city’s dispatchers will determine what resources need to be sent.

With a new contract agreement with the city’s police officers that includes the ability to move more work around public safety like automated traffic tickets and property damage to teams outside the department, and the federal funding, the Harrell administration has moved forward with expanding the CARE pilot to the full-fledged, citywide effort.

Last Monday, March 10th marked the start of CARE’s new citywide operations. The city says the department now includes 24 responders, three supervisors, a manager, and one training manager, and the start of opening “satellite locations.”

The department says a study of its first year of expanded operations last year from Seattle University will soon be released with finding around “perceptions of utility in first response” and the “issues around role confusion” that have challenged effectiveness of the new department as well as its impacts to response time and “first responder capacity” as the program has been hoped to help ease the workload for the city’s cops.

Change, meanwhile, for street disorder, drug use, and mental health crisis hot spots like Broadway and Pike ebbs and flows. CHS reported here on the latest updates in the plan from Harrell’s office to improve safety in the area including a focus on problem alleys, expansion of an anti-crime camera system pilot, use of Capitol Hill Stay Out of Drug Area exclusions, and more cops.

The GSBA chamber of commerce organization is also making a larger push with early discussions around forming a new Pike/Pine Business Improvement Area that would use assessments on area properties to fund neighborhood anti-graffiti programs and clean-up programs along the streets

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