OKPOLICY.ORG
Oklahoma City’s new Mobile Integrated Healthcare (MIH) program represents a meaningful step toward the justice reform envisioned by Oklahoma voters nearly a decade ago. But expanding similar services beyond metro areas requires sustained commitment and investment from the state.
Launched by the Oklahoma City Fire Department, MIH deploys trained professionals directly to behavioral health emergencies through existing 911 dispatch systems. In doing so, it shifts the response away from law enforcement and toward specialized, compassionate care. This approach not only frees up first responders for true emergencies but also embodies the core intent behind State Questions 780 and 781, which voters decisively passed in 2016.
SQ 780 reclassified low-level drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, while SQ 781 aimed to reinvest savings from reduced incarceration into the County Community Safety Investment Fund, which helps pay for community-based mental health and addiction services. However, for years, SB 780 savings weren’t reliably measured or reinvested. The recent passage of SB 251, expanding funding for community-based mental health and substance abuse treatment, signals modest progress. But due to state funding issues, many communities still lack crisis units, diversion programs, or wraparound care, revealing a patchwork system that leaves vulnerable Oklahomans behind – particularly in rural areas.
Despite the lack of state funding, in urban centers, these programs have been gaining traction – not just in Oklahoma City, but also in Tulsa. Tulsa’s Alternate Response Teams (ARTs) operate similarly to MIH, dispatching trained professionals to crisis calls instead of police. Together, the two Tulsa ARTs responded to over 1,000 calls in 2023, averaging 8.87 responses per day.
This approach isn’t just promising in theory – we’ve seen it work. Nationally, programs like CAHOOTS in Eugene and STAR in Denver have reduced crime rates, police workload, and unnecessary arrests while connecting people to long-term care. The model is proven. What’s missing in Oklahoma is scale.
In communities outside the metro areas, we have seen the County Community Safety Investment Fund – funded through SQ 780/781 funding – support local efforts designed to help people in crisis. In McAlester, the Carl Albert Community Mental Health Center works with local police to refer individuals after a crisis, but lacks mobile, on-scene teams. Across southern Oklahoma, Lighthouse Behavioral Wellness Centers provide stabilization beds and a 24/7 hotline – but no outreach linked to dispatch. These examples show that rural Oklahoma has some infrastructure to respond after a crisis, but still lacks the proactive, co-responder, and dispatch-integrated models seen in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Bridging this gap will require intentional investment in frontline crisis response – not just treatment after the fact.
Without real state investment, community-based crisis programs will remain city-based stopgaps instead of evolving into a statewide solution. And with Oklahoma ranking 39th in access to mental health care, it’s clear piecemeal programs can’t compensate for systemic underinvestment statewide.
Our leaders must recognize that budgets are moral documents reflecting our collective values. Right now, Oklahoma’s budget choices undermine the very services communities need. The state’s chronic underfunding of crisis response alternatives betrays both common sense and voter intent.
Oklahoma’s path forward is clear: legislators must fully commit to funding comprehensive crisis response statewide. MIH exemplifies what voters intended – care, not cages. Now lawmakers must fund the future Oklahomans voted for.
