So how do you feel the first time you like got behind the wheel and you're ready to take it out?

I think like this has been something that like I said we've been working on.

It's been an idea and a dream.

What would it look like to be building an alternative to policing in Miami.

So when we got the van and got the decal on and got behind the wheel it felt like wow it's

been a long time coming.

This is Rachel Gilmer, the director of the Healing and Justice Center in Miami, Florida.

We're driving around Liberty City and historically black neighborhood in Miami.

In the Freedom House mobile crisis for Sponsor Man, which is outfitted as an ambulance.

I remember I was at a community event and this little boy came up to me and he's like are you the police?

I'm like no but where people you can call if you need help and you don't want to call the police.

He was like wow your van looks really impressed. He's like that looks so official.

So it's people have a really warm response when they learn about what we're doing.

And it's what it's about right offering the community an option right and a choice.

Yeah people know 911 is an option. They know what they're going to get when they call 911 and we're out here trying to offer an alternative to that.

Leslie left the light right.

17.

Rachel and other members of the Healing and Justice Center who work from this van are trying to build a new community response to mental health crises.

Last year they launched a pilot program that would dispatch a medic mental health professional and person trained and violence the escalation whenever someone called.

Studies have estimated that between 10 and 20% of all 911 calls are mental health related and the people with mental illnesses are more likely to be killed by police.

Plus we know that black people are more likely to be killed when police are called period.

So in a black person who is suffering from a mental health crisis encounters the police often through 911 it can be disastrous.

...