Vancouver Police dealing with an increase of mental health calls

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – It’s been a hot topic in BC over the past couple of months, and mostly due to some high-profile crimes, but the government still hasn’t laid out a solid plan on how to deal with mental health issues.

It has been several months since the Liberals announced it was investing $20 million to help patients who are battling mental illness and addiction, but has anything changed?

The Vancouver Police Department says officers have responded to more mental health calls in the first three months of this year than last year and if things don’t change soon, they’ll be on track to make about 3,000 mental health apprehensions. That’s not technically an arrest; it’s when a person is taken into custody and held there until a hospital bed opens up for them to get treatment.

Constable Brian Montague says they work with outreach teams, but the mental health crisis is really taking its toll.

“We’re looking at one-fifth to one-quarter of the calls we go to have some sort of mental health component. One of the things I want to mention though is the cases we hear about; the homicides, the serious assaults and the stabbings but most of the time it’s also someone suffering from severe mental illness is the victim of a crime. We don’t want to stigmatize people with mental illness, it’s those that are suffering from severe mental illness that we’re trying to raise awareness of.”

Many of the apprehensions typically involve someone who’s harming themselves or someone else and that includes things like suicides, weapons calls and suspicious circumstances.

“We work very closely with individuals in the community that are suffering from mental illness to try and make sure they’re getting the care they need. We have a mental health worker that’s embedded with our patrol officers to assist with calls where mental health is a component. The bottom line is our job is public safety. We want to do everything we can as police officers to ensure the public is safe, but we’re not mental health workers,” adds Montague.

The VPD is working with Vancouver Coastal Health to figure out a solution.

Last year, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu asked the province for help following a string of random attacks on the streets and emergency room visits involving those with severe mental illnesses.

It was the third time in five years the department has asked for help, despite the provincial government spending millions of dollars into mental health and supportive housing every year.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson says he is increasingly concerned with the mentally ill being left untreated, many of which end up on the streets. “In Vancouver we’ve seen a lot of tragic incidents on our streets and it continues to be all too prevalent in our homeless population.”