Raleigh advocates push for HEART program to come to the city

HEART, or Holistic Empathetic Assistance Response Teams, is making an impact in the city of Durham since launching last July. In Raleigh, citizens are pushing for the city to adopt the same approach.

Posted 1:58 a.m. Jun 13 — Updated 6:08 a.m. Jun 13

Julian Grace

, WRAL anchor/reporter

RALEIGH, N.C. — Community advocates Monday in Raleigh are making an urgent push to bring a team of social workers and counselors in to respond to non-violent 911 calls.

The push was made during the Raleigh City Council meeting Tuesday, June 6, during the public hearing for the Wake County budget.

Advocates are requesting Holistic Empathetic Assistance Response Teams, or the HEART program, be added to help people who are in mental crisis.

The city of Durham launched the HEART program July of last year. Since it's launch, data shows the unarmed first responder units are making an impact in the city.

According to the data, Community Response Teams with HEART in the program's first two months typically took an average of 7.6 minutes to arrive on the scene. The team typically spends an average of 18.9 minutes on the scene.

Durham's unarmed first responders are making an impact, data shows

Social justice advocates, like Kerwin Pittman, believes they could have prevented the deaths of individuals going through a mental health crisis, citing Reuel Rodriguez-Nunez as an example to where HEART could have helped.

"I believe if trained professionals were on the scene to help and talk them down, their lives would still be here, and they would be living their lives today,” Pittman said.

Rodriguez-Nunez was killed after he threw Molotov cocktails at two police cars and police returned fire, hitting him four times.

Members of Rodrigues-Nunez' family said he suffered from mental health issues.

Man shot by Raleigh police officers had history of mental health issues, family says

Currently, the City of Raleigh has ACORNS, which stands for Addressing Crises through Outreach, Referrals, Networking and Service. ACORNS combines five police officers with three social workers to deal with calls that deserve intervention over enforcement.

Pittman, however, believes Raleigh needs a program with more teeth.

"ACORNS responds after a crisis has happened, and a majority of the time, it is too late," Pittman claimed. "You can't respond after something that has already happened."

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WRAL News asked Raleigh Mayor Mary Ann Baldwin on her thoughts of making the switch to the HEART program. Baldwin provided the following response:

“I advocated for the creation of the The ACORN unit, which is comprised of police and social workers, as a new way of assisting our most vulnerable residents. The City Manager is working on a plan that will build on and expand that effort, which is supported by the Council.”

Raleigh City Manager Marchell Adams-David said her staff is evaluating what it would take to have a response unit that is completely civilian.

The findings of that evaluation will be brought to the Council in October.

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