Most trips that lawmakers take to “listen and learn” about “best practices” in other states usually amount to nothing more than poorly disguised vacations, but every once in a while there’s an exception that proves the rule.
Washington State legislators Manka Dhingra and Tina Orwall led one such excursion this month when they took a group of local elected officials to Phoenix. They organized the trip to hear how service providers in Arizona successfully stood up a compassionate and effective crisis response system independent of local police departments. I spoke with Senator Dhingra and King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay to find out what they learned and why Washington trails Arizona when it comes to unarmed crisis response systems.
But first, we need to cover some background on why our elected officials made the trek to Arizona in the first place. As part of the nationwide effort to install a centralized hotline for people experiencing mental health crises, Sen. Dhingra and Rep. Orwall passed a bill in 2021 to fund Washington’s implementation of the new 988 system. In the near term, that law provided funding for hiring additional staff to handle a projected increase in call volume once the new program goes live on July 16th.
