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Alliance Alert: ���������� City is preparing its FY ‘26 budget, and now is the time to speak up for a $4.5 million investment to ensure that peers—people with lived experience of mental health challenges—are included and fairly compensated as part of the City’s B-HEARD mental health crisis response teams.

Despite efforts to move away from police-led crisis responses, too many ����������ers in mental health crisis are still met with law enforcement. Peers can help change that. Including peers in every B-HEARD team will make the program more compassionate, effective, and community-centered.

We’re calling on City Council leaders to include this critical funding in the final budget. Peer involvement will reduce trauma, avoid unnecessary hospitalizations, and save lives.

Please take a moment today to email the City Council Budget Negotiation Team and urge them to invest in peer-led crisis response.

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

We’re writing to ask you to take  to advocate for a ���������� City budget that invests in a mental health crisis response that includes peers (individuals with lived mental health experience), not police.

We are asking you to advocate for a baseline budget allocation of $4.5 million to include peers in the City’s “B-HEARD” mental health crisis response teams, and ensure competitive compensation for peers.

We need your help!

By , you will be able to ask City Council Budget Negotiation Team members to include the $4.5 million for peers in the FY ‘26 budget – and it will take you less than two minutes!

Thank you and please forward this email to all your colleagues and friends!

#PeersNotPolice
#MentalHealthMatters

In solidarity, Ruth Lowenkron, Disability Justice Director at NYLPI