Denver’s Support Team Assisted Response, or STAR, responded to more than 7,000 calls in 2023 — its highest response rate yet, and one that reflects the need for more resources.
The police alternative started in 2020. STAR sends paramedics and mental health professionals to people in nonviolent crises, such as distress, poverty, substance misuse and more. Staff are trained in medical assessment, crisis intervention and de-escalation.
The service turned out to be extremely successful, quickly expanding its staff with help from Denver City Council.
However, even with that expansion, STAR has not been able to keep up with demand.
Of the 15,000 or so 911 calls that were eligible for a STAR response last year, the team could only respond to about half of them.
That’s actually STAR’s highest response rate since the initiative started, said, Evan Thompkins, STAR program specialist for the City of Denver.
While there’s room for improvement, Thompkins said STAR needs more resources to do so.
“To really meet the demand of the City of Denver, we're going to need more vans, more ground staff or behavioral health clinicians and paramedics, more supervisors to oversee those people, more administrative support, a full-time data analyst to work with the STAR program, [and] us continuing to grow our partnerships with community and different organizations,” Thompkins said.
The city nearly reallocated millions of dollars towards STAR last year.
In late 2023, Denver City Council weighed proposals that would have added an additional $4 million to STAR’s budget, which was set at $6.4 million for 2024. The money would have been repurposed from the Department of Safety’s Street Engagement Team and the police budget.
Those proposals failed. Councilmembers said they supported a theoretical expansion of STAR’s budget but were concerned about the program’s ability to budget for the additional $4 million in funding on short notice.
Thompkins said their office hasn’t heard anything about those proposals being reconsidered during upcoming city budget discussions. And due to ongoing budgetary constraints in the city, he’s not sure if they’ll get the resources they need to expand coverage to 24 hours a day. (Right now, STAR staff works between 6 a.m. - 10 p.m.)
“I will say with budget cuts and what the city's experiencing, that's kind of up in the air of if we will receive any additional funding or not,” he said.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston will present his budget requests in fall. Following that, City Council will hold a series of budget hearings before voting on a final funding package.
