Portland Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty secures support for her push to expand Portland Street Response citywide

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty on Wednesday indicated she has lined up majority support on the Portland City Council to expand citywide Portland’s program that dispatches health care teams instead of police to evaluate and help people in mental health crisis on the streets.

It will require $1 million in additional city spending, on top of the $1.9 million already set aside to expand the program, Hardesty’s office said. The program would continue to be run by the Portland fire bureau, the office said, rather than outsourced to a nonprofit, a potentially money-saving change that some city council members has said they wanted to consider.

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