Is Berkeley’s Specialized Care Unit working? The city wants to hear from you

A city consultant is asking for feedback on the city’s Specialized Care Unit, a behavioral health crisis team designed to operate separately from the Berkeley Police Department.

The unit is coming to the end of its pilot phase at the end of June. Berkeley hired Oakland-based RDA Consulting to review the unit’s work so far, and the consultants have put together an anonymous survey to that end. The survey is open until March 16.

The Specialized Care Unit has been taking calls for just over 18 months, since Sept. 5, 2023, but it was slow to staff up, and started operating with just 10 working hours a day. It has gotten incrementally closer to its target — 24-hour, seven-day availability — over the last year and a half. It now has 24-hour coverage Sundays through Tuesdays, but does not take calls between 4 and 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays.

The same consultants ran a feasibility study on whether, or how, this sort of unit could work in Berkeley as part of the city’s larger Reimagining Public Safety effort. RDA Consulting has worked for the city on other projects as well, including training health department staff on homeless outreach.

The original contract to evaluate the program, hashed out in March and April 2023, was $150,000. Two amendments later, the new contract cap is $290,000, according to city records.

The consultants’ contract, and that of Bonita House, the Berkeley-based nonprofit running the pilot, both run through the end of June.

The city has amended Bonita House’s contract as well, from an initial $4.5 million to just under $5.4 million for the two-year pilot.

If you have experience of, or views about, the Specialized Care Unit, you take the anonymous survey online until it closes on March 16.