A city grant has finally come to the Holistic Emergency Assistance Response Team, the community group organized in 2021 to provide an unarmed alternative to police – three years after city councillors first voted in favor of city funding. Heart will get $150,000 with three other local groups getting the same amount, the city’s Community Safety Department announced Tuesday.
The department chose Heart after it applied for the grant “under the umbrella” of a Jamaica Plain nonprofit, Community Service Care, the department said in a press release. Heart described Community Service Care as its fiscal sponsor, an arrangement that allows an established nonprofit group to oversee and help smaller charities.
The other grant recipients are Inner City Weightlifting Inc., which helps people affected by racism and mass incarceration develop careers “in and beyond personal training” and become experts in fitness; My Brother’s Keeper, an organization established by former President Barack Obama that aims to end “chronic social, mental, economical and educational barriers for youth, young adults and parents;” and Transition House, the Cambridge organization that prevents and combats domestic violence.
All four grantees have until June to begin operating the programs they promised to establish.
The grant announcement said Heart will use the money to staff a telephone number called the Heartline and provide mobile response and followup to crises.
As the group repeatedly tried and failed to get a city grant, some city councillors questioned why it had no phone number. Leaders of the organization said they didn’t want to offer the service until they were sure they could support it.
The website for the group now lists a phone number – (617) 902-0102 – but says it operates only from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, that the team can offer only telephone counseling and that callers may have to leave a message. The group continues to invite people to request help in an email.
Leaders of the organization didn’t immediately answer a message asking for details on its plans now that it has received a city grant. The group also faced a setback when the foundation that owns The Democracy Center, a building at 45 Mount Auburn St. that rented low-cost space to progressive organizations, ordered the space emptied because it planned to renovate. The Holistic Emergency Assistance Response Team was a tenant.
The group has found another space at 60 Gore St., East Cambridge, and moved in in June, according to its Facebook page. “While we are excited to move into our beautiful new space, it is still approximately $6,000 more than what we were paying at the Democracy Center,” the group said in a June 4 email. The organization launched a fundraiser to pay for the rent increase.
Meanwhile, the Community Service Department has its own unarmed response initiative, the Community Assistance Response and Engagement team, which also started answering non-violent mental health calls only recently. The team also notifies people in emergencies that don’t involve criminal matters.
This post was updated Aug. 28, 2024, based on suggestions from the Holistic Emergency Assistance Response Team. The group had not responded to requests for comment before publication.
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I’m so glad to see the city finally gave a grant to Heart! The funds are well-deserved and have been a long time coming. I hope Heart can continue to grow and expand its offerings to help residents.
HEART has exceptionally well-trained responders (and other staff) with lived experience and deep roots in the community. It is an incredibly valuable resource, including for people who may not want to reach out to a “government” department but still need emergency and other support. I urge the City to fully recognize what HEART has to offer by providing substantially more funding for HEART going forward.