Chicago’s Crisis Assistance Response & Engagement Program (CARE), once a promising model for coordinating public health and safety in response to mental health crises, has been reduced to a siloed and opaque existence. Around the country, other cities are deploying coordinated responses to mental health emergencies with collaboration and transparency.
In Durham, North Carolina, crisis teams have responded to over 25,000 calls since 2022. In a jarring contrast, Chicago’s CARE teams have responded to fewer than 3,000 calls in about as much time. Yet recent rhetoric from City Hall characterizes CARE as a success.
It’s not. But it can be.
First, the city must build capacity at 911 to better assess and identify behavioral health calls. Chicago’s 911 identifies fewer than 2% of calls as involving a mental health or substance use crisis, significantly below what national studies suggest. If we cannot identify the callers who are experiencing behavioral health emergencies, we cannot deliver an alternate response such as CARE.
Second, the public needs transparent and accessible safety data, including CARE’s response statistics, to understand whether the program is operating as intended. At one point, CARE had a public dashboard, but it was removed.
Third, building capacity that adds behavioral health responders to our traditional emergency response options is essential to reimagining crisis response so we reduce harm and save lives. Our Fire and Police Departments remain the primary responders to crisis calls in Chicago, in part because of the responsibilities placed upon them by law and regulation. Given this, increased collaboration and support of those personnel is necessary. The goal should be not to replace those responders, but to make sure they have the necessary capacity and training and that CARE is available alongside them.
Lastly, CARE should not be treated as a stand-alone program, but as a critical component of Chicago’s broader mental health and crisis response system. Any investment in CARE is amplified when it is braided into the larger crisis continuum and alongside 988 and federally and state funded mobile crisis teams.
CARE is a sorely needed service and a worthwhile endeavor. But our city’s approach to mental health crises remains anemic and insufficient, and thousands of people remain without the right response. More vans and increased hours are not going to solve the fundamental gaps.
All of the needed improvements are within reach, and if integrated, Chicago can truly reimagine how we respond to people experiencing crisis.
— Matt Davison, CEO, NAMI Chicago
Permanent leader for NITA
Interim Northern Illinois Transit Authority Executive Director Jamie Rhee will receive an annual pension of more than $213,000 while earning $350,000 to run NITA, it was reported.
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They say history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. It’s hard not to think of former CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. (NITA now oversees the CTA, Metra and Pace.)
Five and a half years before he took over the CTA, Carter retired from city employment. During that time, he received over $750,000 in pension payouts while earning six figures working full time in then-President Barack Obama’s Transportation Department.
Carter returned to the CTA in 2015, and his final retirement came in January 2025. He left as the city’s highest paid employee. With Carter off the payroll, Rhee became the city’s highest paid employee. Three months later, she retired.
Carter became notably embattled in his final years at the CTA. Two particularly salient lines of attack were that Carter didn’t use the CTA and spent more time on international tours than in CTA stations while service suffered.
It’s unfair to judge Rhee because she’s retired. She served the city of Chicago for over three decades, has an impressive resume and seems like a very strong fit for the interim role. However, it does seem fair for northern Illinois transit users and taxpayers to ask for a permanent leader who isn’t already retired.
As the NITA board kicks off a wide-reaching search for a permanent executive director, I recommend someone who isn’t already receiving a six-figure pension at the end of a multidecade career.
This critical leadership position, like Carter’s position at the CTA before the creation of NITA, shouldn’t be a cushy seat for a celebrated civil servant to have their ring kissed in the twilight of their civic life.
The permanent leader of this newly created agency should be someone with enough experience, yes, but with the hunger and career runway to build a legacy: a world-class agency serving the people of northern Illinois, a model for other large metros.
— Chris Curme, Chicago
Demand for luxury rentals?
Regarding the story “Demand high for downtown luxury rentals” (Oct. 5), something is wrong here. Very wrong! Our farmers cannot afford gas to fill their tractors so they can grow the food for all of us. The ill cannot afford insurance that may save their lives. The schools for our beloved children are disintegrating and failing their bright futures, which each and every one of them
deserves. Meanwhile, demand for luxury rentals is high?
Something is very wrong here, folks. I implore you to take a stand to change this by voting. Will you stand by our farmers, our sick and our precious children? Vote. Vote. Vote.
Only then will change come and those now invisible be recognized.
— Bonnie Smith, Big Rock
Grateful for the broadcast
Wow! Thank you to UniMas-Ch. 60 for broadcasting the first game in the American League Division Series between the White Sox and the Cleveland Guardians. Nice that somebody cares about Chicagoans who do not have — or cannot afford — cable or streaming services.
— Arlene F. Gottardo, Chicago
Let us enjoy the Sox
On Oct. 5, 1921, the World Series went out live on the radio for the first time, featuring the New York Giants versus the New York Yankees at the Polo Grounds. Fans without a ticket could follow the game as it happened. Did team owners or the Polo Grounds lose any money because of this gesture to the national pastime? Doubtful. Rather, interest in baseball burgeoned.
Today, with the White Sox doing so well, fans are casting about for ways to follow the game without busting the budget as access is proprietary. You need the right equipment and the right streaming subscription to watch or hear the action on the field. Aren’t those owners wealthy enough to throw a bone to the future fanbase they may need in years to come?
Even offering it on public radio would leave rural people out, since many small public radio stations have had to fold. If the game is the national pastime, there has to be a way to let the nation enjoy it.
— Margaret Sents, Glenview
Note to readers
With Halloween coming, we’d like you to share your most memorable experience related to the holiday, either as a child or as an adult. A costume that you’ve never forgotten? A trip to a haunted house that scared you silly? Neighbors who went above and beyond to make things fun for the kids? Send a letter, of no more than 400 words, by Friday, Oct. 23 to [email protected]. Be sure to include your full name and your city/town.
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