(Image: Care)
(Image: City of Seattle)
After plans to locate the facility in the heart of Capitol Hill and then on the busy Madison corridor of First Hill fell through, the city’s Community Assisted Response & Engagement Department crisis responders for the East Precinct have been sharing space on 12th Ave with the city’s Central Customer Service Center.
A CARE Department spokesperson confirmed the “Community Crisis Responders’ East Precinct hub” opened this winter in a commercial building leased by the city at 12th and Jefferson.
“While it’s not open to the public, folks will see the responders and vehicles in the area,” the spokesperson said. “They can request Community Crisis Responder (CCR) services such as welfare checks or requests for resources by calling 911 or the non-emergency line (206-625-5011).”
Officials said previously the new hub for the city’s mental health and addiction crisis responders would be funded in part by a $1.9 million federal grant and would be CARE’s “base of operations in East Precinct” where Community Crisis Responders will “utilize the location to maintain resources necessary to carry out their core job functions, such as communications equipment and supplies needed to support community members experiencing crises.”
In winter 2025, CHS reported on an announcement that CARE Chief Amy Barden had selected a space neighboring the MAD Pizza and Vietlicious restaurants along Madison on First Hill and was busy “procuring additional office spaces in several precincts.”
But a spokesperson tells CHS that the deal was not completed.
Lease costs and limited funding has been an issue. A previous plan to locate the East Precinct CARE hub at Broadway and Pike in a former CHASE bank in the Harvard Market shopping center also fell through over negotiations over price.
It has taken more than a year for the department to establish an East Precinct home.
Previous Mayor Bruce Harrell directed $1.9 million in federal funding to be used to power an expansion of CARE that has increased the size of the department and expanded it to citywide, seven day a week service starting with an expansion including Capitol Hill and the Central District.
The program began as a limited $1.5 million pilot hoped to help be the start of bigger changes in how the city responds to mental health and drug crisis 911 calls.
The new East Precinct hub comes as CARE has struggled with limitations on its work.
This winter, Barden said CARE crisis responders remain hamstrung and sidelined by the new contract with the Seattle Police Officers Guild union.
Barden says police officials have limited CARE responses to public outdoor spaces, banning interventions inside buildings, vehicles, or on private property and prohibiting dispatch if minors, drug paraphernalia, confrontational behavior, or potential crimes are involved.
SPD’s policies around 911 routing also block CARE from about half of “dual-dispatch” scenarios in which the crisis responders are authorized to be sent along with an armed officers.
The mayor’s office seems to have put the push to help CARE overcome SPD’s limitations on the back burner. In February, Mayor Katie Wilson’s public safety advisor Alison Holcomb told a council committee the mayor is working with City Attorney Erika Evans to examine the SPOG contract. “We hope to have an answer about what potential next steps could look like in the near future,” Holcomb said.
According to totals reported earlier this year, the CARE Department makes about three responses a day around Capitol Hill. While the East Precinct accounts for 18% of the department’s overall responses, about 70% of the East Precinct’s activity occurs in the densely populated areas near Broadway and Pike/Pine.
The building home to the Central Customer Service Center isn’t close to some of those East Precinct’s crisis hot spots but offers a few logistical advantages like easier street access in a less busy area. It also is more centrally located in the precinct which stretches from Montlake to the southern edges of the Central District. The building is near the King County Juvenile Detention Center and across the street from the southern edge of the Seattle University campus. The city’s Customer Service Center, meanwhile, provides access to services like utility bill or traffic ticket payment, passports, and social services including the city’s legal clinic.
Seattle’s CARE continues to grow. Earlier this year, Barden said CARE was on track to grow to 48 responders and nine supervisors this year.
According to the CARE spokesperson, the next cohort of new hires is currently undergoing training with expectations for the department to be able to increase its operating capacity later this summer.
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