News

Starting this week, the Cambridge Community Safety Department’s CARE (Community Assistance Response and Engagement) Team began responding to needle pickup calls in public spaces across Cambridge. Needle pickup calls are the first call types that the CARE Team is being dispatched to.

This update provides an overview of the Community Safety Department, updates on the Department’s work over the past five months, and highlights of its plans for the coming months.

This visit was conducted as the Cambridge Community Safety Department’s Community Assistance Response and Engagement (CARE) Team finalizes its preparations to begin responding to select 9-1-1 calls this spring.

The Community Safety Department is a fully funded city department that exists outside of the traditional scope of public safety. Our mission is to provide residents with an alternative police response that will prioritize issues of mental and behavioral health in some of our most vulnerable communities.

The City of Cambridge’s Community Safety Department, whose mission is to provide residents with an alternative police response that prioritizes issues of mental and behavioral health in some of the city’s most vulnerable communities, has announced the hiring of an Assistant Director of Clinical Services, and new Community Assistance Response and Engagement (CARE) team.

The City of Cambridge is excited to provide an update on the development of the Cambridge Community Safety Department. The team has been hard at work creating this new department and getting ready to have non police responders going out on mental health 911 calls this Fall, 2023.

The City is committed to ensuring the Cambridge community has access to non police responses to crisis situations and creating a sense of safety for all who live, work, play and pray here. The development of the new Community Safety Department is guided by an understanding that a compassionate response to a mental health crisis is optimal for healing and de-escalation.