As Albuquerque Community Safety turns two, department experiences 'growing pains'

Albuquerque Community Safety is turning two.

The fledgling department, which started taking calls in 2021, sends professionals with behavioral health and social work backgrounds — rather than law enforcement — to handle city crises.

During a news conference at the Gibson Education Building celebrating the two-year anniversary, several speakers highlighted how the program — which Mayor Tim Keller said was the first of its kind — had been adopted around the country, including in Seattle and Durham, North Carolina.

“When we’re here for our 20th anniversary, I want to make you a bet,” Keller said. “Every city in America will have this.”

But the department has been experiencing “growing pains,” ACS Director Mariel Ruiz-Angel said. As its profile grows, so do the number of calls — and there haven’t always been enough responders to answer them.

In late August, the department debuted a graveyard shift, and Ruiz-Angel worries about the handful of late-night responders being stretched too thin as they handle “a disproportionately high number of calls,” according to a report released Tuesday.

If ACS were a toddler, Ruiz-Angel said, “We would literally be in terrible twos — and it feels like it right now.”

The Tuesday report was compiled in response to a Sept. 6 City Council meeting at which councilors questioned reports of three-day response times, growing numbers of pending calls and confusion about the difference between 911 and 311, the non-emergency line for all city departments.

“My concern is there’s some really amazing one-on-one work happening in our city, but everybody’s overwhelmed with service needs,” Councilor Pat Davis said at the meeting. “But I don’t want us to fall so far behind that people give up on this program.”

Ruiz-Angel said there’s more behind the numbers. The department is prioritizing 911 calls — which could include suicide response, wellness checks and/or behavioral health issues — over certain 311 calls. Those calls can take longer at the scene, the director said at the September council meeting.

For suicide-related calls, ACS behavioral health responders reach a suicide-related call in, on average, 13 minutes. Behavioral health issue calls get a response in nine minutes, on average.

But 311 calls take approximately 42 hours to complete. ACS gives itself a 48-to-72 hour window to close 311 calls, which Ruiz-Angel said is typical for most departments.

Almost 45% of the calls the department receives are in response to homeless people, according to the report; Ruiz-Angel said those calls often take lower priority.

And call volume is increasing. In the past two years, the number of calls to ACS has skyrocketed; between fiscal years 2022 and 2023, calls more than doubled. The number of calls diverted from the Albuquerque Police Department almost tripled, from 5,976 to 16,393.

“We grew faster than we can really meet the demand,” Ruiz-Angel said.

Currently, there are around 100 employees at ACS, with a handful of new two-person units soon to join the team. The graveyard shift consists of just eight first responders and two supervisors. When the night shift rolls around, Ruiz-Angel said, around 35 calls might be already be pending. Since the graveyard shift was announced, she said one responder, who wasn’t assigned the shift, has quit.

Ruiz-Angel didn’t have a specific number of staff she’d like to see. As far as funding, this year, ACS will be included in the Metro Crime Initiative, which sets legislative priorities which includes additional funding for public safety agencies.

Ruiz-Angel said she’d like to focus additional funds on preventive programs, including school outreach programs, and gradually growing staff. But sustainability, and keeping quality high, is her main goal.

“We are new, this has never been done before,” Ruiz-Angel said. “Police have had two centuries to figure this out, and they still struggle. And that’s not on them — this work is tough.”