911 Community Crisis Responders Act of 2025

The bill creates a federal grant program run by the Department of Health and Human Services, through the Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use. States, territories, cities, counties, Tribal governments, and Tribal consortia could apply for funds to start or expand unarmed mobile crisis response programs. These programs would handle certain nonviolent 911 calls by sending unarmed professional service providers instead of law enforcement. To qualify, a program must send out teams of at least two unarmed providers and be able to screen and assess people, calm tense situations, give trauma‑informed and culturally competent help, connect people to local services, and transport people to needed treatment. Programs must be independent of police oversight and must clearly define which types of calls will go to the mobile crisis teams first. They must also be able to coordinate with health, housing, and social service agencies. Grant money may be used to hire unarmed crisis workers and 911 public safety telecommunicators, and to train both groups. Training must cover how to identify and respond to mental illness, physical and developmental disabilities, and substance use disorders, using tools like de‑escalation and crisis intervention. Funds can also update 911 systems so call‑takers can sort nonviolent calls from those that need law enforcement, develop and deliver training curricula for telecommunicators, coordinate with 988 crisis centers for dispatch, expand multilingual and culturally competent services, and collect data for reports. Grant applicants must submit a plan, including how they will train 911 call‑takers to decide when to send an unarmed crisis team. Grantees must send reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services every two years, with details on the number and types of diverted calls, who was served, impacts on emergency rooms, hospitalizations, ambulance use, and law enforcement involvement, and information about response times, time spent on scene, outcomes such as transfers to alternative destinations, and program costs. The Secretary must then provide a summary report to Congress every two years. The bill also allows partial grants to programs that do not yet meet all program standards and includes a nondiscrimination rule for all programs funded under this section.

The bill addresses how communities respond to certain nonviolent emergencies, such as mental health crises, homelessness, addiction problems, and some public behavior issues. In many places today, police are the main responders even when situations are health‑ or social‑service‑related. This bill encourages another option by funding teams made up of nurses, social workers, counselors, and similar professionals who are trained for these types of crises and do not carry firearms. For people in crisis, this could change who shows up when someone calls 911 and what kind of help they receive. It may also affect how often emergency rooms, ambulances, and jails are used in these situations, but the exact impact would depend on how each community designs and runs its program. The required data collection and reports to Congress aim to show how these programs work in practice, including costs, response times, and outcomes for people served, so future policy choices can be based on evidence. The nondiscrimination requirement means programs must be open and fair to people of different races, genders, sexual orientations, gender identities, disabilities, and other traits. This may matter for communities that have concerns about unequal treatment in emergency responses, though the bill does not itself change other existing civil rights laws or enforcement systems.

• Creates a new section (section 554) in the Public Health Service Act authorizing federal grants for unarmed mobile crisis response programs.
• Limits eligible uses of funds to activities such as hiring and training unarmed crisis workers and 911 telecommunicators, updating 911 systems for call triage, building coordination with health and social services, and collecting program data.
• Requires funded programs to dispatch teams of at least two unarmed professional service providers, able to provide screening, assessment, de‑escalation, trauma‑informed and culturally competent services, referrals, and transportation to needed treatment.
• Prohibits these crisis response programs from being under the oversight of state, Tribal, or local law enforcement agencies.
• Requires programs to clearly define which 911 calls must or may be referred to the unarmed crisis teams as first responders, focusing on nonviolent emergency calls.
• Defines “nonviolent emergency calls” to include issues like mental health, homelessness, addiction problems, social services, truancy, intellectual and developmental disabilities, and public intoxication, when there is no obvious violent behavior.
• Mandates that grantees submit detailed reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services every two years, including demographics of individuals served, impacts on emergency and law enforcement use, response metrics, and cost analyses.
• Directs the Secretary to provide a biannual summary report to Congress about the grant program and grantee outcomes.
• Permits the Secretary to award reduced grant amounts to applicants that have not yet met all program criteria, allowing for phased development.
• Includes a nondiscrimination provision covering all programs or activities funded under this grant authority, based on characteristics including race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity), and disability.

• The definition of “alternative destination” excludes hospital emergency departments and jails, steering programs toward community‑based sites like clinics, crisis homes, respite homes, and stabilization centers.
• Demographic reporting must be highly detailed, including race, ethnicity, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, substance use disorder status, and housing status, which may require complex data systems and safeguards.
• Coordination with 988 crisis centers is an allowed use of funds, tying this 911‑focused program into the newer national suicide and crisis lifeline system.
• Programs cannot be overseen by law enforcement agencies, but they can still coordinate with them operationally, which may require careful local agreements that are not spelled out in the bill.
• The Secretary has discretion to decide what information is required in grant applications and how “timely” dispatch and other program standards are interpreted, which could lead to variation in how the law is applied across jurisdictions.