24/7 Mobile Assistance Program has ceased operations as of October 1, 2015.
A revised, integrated crisis diversion service has been launched by REACH Edmonton and other partners and the community can still call 2-1-1 to dispatch a crisis diversion team around the clock. Partners in that service hope to increase even further on the successful results of 24/7 MAP, and we wish them well in their endeavours.
Bissell Centre withdrew from plans to launch the post October first service in order to focus our energies on expanding services that are more fully aligned with our mission and vision – in particular expanding our capacity to house more homeless people (e.g. our recently launched outreach housing team), prevent homelessness through our Community Bridge service, expand our drop in centre to provide services to street involved people in order to help them get off the street, and undertake work to expand our capacity to employ more people.
We are proud of the work done by our 24/7 MAP team over the past 30 months and appreciate all of the partners we worked with on this service.
This prototype proved that many calls to the police and emergency medical services about vulnerable people actually can be addressed by crisis diversion workers, thus being able to provide more relevant interventions while avoiding the higher costs of police and EMS crews.
Over 30 months, Bissell’s 24/7 MAP team worked with more than 2,200 unique individuals and diverted approximately 5,500 calls away from the police and other emergency services. As well more than 50 homeless individuals were housed directly by the team and even more were referred out to Housing First teams for housing.
This was a difficult decision to make, but sometimes to say “yes” to new opportunities you have to say “no” to others.
Please continue to call 2-1-1 when you see a person on the streets who is in distress.