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Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis speaks during the dedication of 1111 Fannin after Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee in Houston on Thursday, May 15, 2025.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Conley\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis is seeking to expand and centralize a trio of programs into a new department designed to alleviate strain on the county\u2019s overburdened criminal justice system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ellis\u2019 Community Safety Department would cost an additional $4.5 million next fiscal year \u2014 a modest request that comes at a precarious time for Harris County financially. While the county\u2019s budget is expected to top $3.1 billion<\/a>, commissioners and budget officials are currently working to bridge a projected $181 million deficit for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, and have already approved cuts to other county programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n The department would serve as an umbrella for the county\u2019s crisis-response<\/a>, violence-intervention and domestic violence-support programs. All three have existed for several years but would expand within a new, centralized hierarchy.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The goal, Ellis said in an interview, is to boost programs that stop crime at the source.<\/p>\n PREVIOUS: More Harris County 911 calls to see mental health crisis team instead of police<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cFor too long, public safety systems have been structured to respond only after a harm has occurred,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cWhere we fail to address the root causes of crisis and violence, such as poverty, people get trapped in the same cycle again and again. Families and entire communities suffer, and that suffering comes at a tremendous human and financial cost.\u201d<\/p>\n Ellis\u2019 proposal is a Houston spin on an idea recently adopted by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who launched the city\u2019s Office of Community Safety in March.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Ellis\u2019 fellow Democrats on Commissioners Court have generally been supportive of the programs that would form the core of the new department, but concerns about the viability of small departments and the bureaucratic load they add have been mounting in recent years. None of the other court members have publicly pledged to support Ellis\u2019 idea.\u00a0<\/p>\n The county currently spends $10.8 million on the programs the new department would house. A report Ellis commissioned recommended growing that to $15.3 million in the coming fiscal year, then to an additional $18.2 million in fiscal year 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it\u2019s a model that experts and law enforcement officials say could save taxpayer money. More than half of the county\u2019s $3 billion budget is allocated to law enforcement, courts and the jail. Housing an inmate in the county jail costs taxpayers $105 per night and securing a conviction costs more than $2,000, according to estimates included in the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n Coupled with indigent healthcare and legal costs, the report claims the department will more than cover the cost of Ellis\u2019 proposed investment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nancy Sims, a political science lecturer at the University of Houston, said any program that helps take pressure off of the county\u2019s criminal justice system is worth exploring.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the most expensive items in public sector budgets right now is public safety,\u201d said Nancy Sims, a political science lecturer at the University of Houston. \u201cAnything that will help shift those costs or lower them is a positive.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Best of both worlds\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n In this undated photo, two members of a Holistic Assistance Response Team (HART) pose in front of a vehicle.<\/p>\n Bailey Gallion<\/p>\n Roughly $1.4 million of the county\u2019s initial investment would go toward creating the new department, and the remainder would expand its core programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Among them are the county\u2019s Holistic Assistance Response Teams, which dispatches unarmed first responders to nonviolent police reports, such as those involving homelessness and mental health crises. Building on a similar initiative first launched by the City of Houston in the early 2000\u2019s, officials and experts have touted the program as an effective deescalation tool that also frees law enforcement to pursue violent offenders.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said there has been \u201ca growing interest in alternative response models,\u201d like HART \u2014 a program he\u2019s watched grow from a small pilot initiative into a robust countywide service.<\/p>\n Not everyone in law enforcement views these programs as effective, said Jay Coons, an assistant professor at Sam Houston State University. But he said research shows they have utility when paired with traditional police.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cResponding together is the best of both worlds,\u201d he said. \u201cThis way, you can have a trained mental health technician that does the heavy lifting on a call, unless the situation calls for an arrest or use of force.\u201d<\/p>\n CONTRACT CONTROVERSY: Harris County pauses program that diverts 911 calls to mental health crisis team<\/a><\/p>\n The report Ellis commissioned recommends hiring 15 additional staff in the coming fiscal year: five additional two-person teams and five more support staff. The program could be expanded again the following year to nearly 100 employees and a total annual budget of $8.8 million should demand keep pace, according to the report.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The report also recommends expanding the county\u2019s violence interruption program, which embeds specialists in high-risk areas and hospitals with the goal of preventing revenge shootings and breaking cyclical patterns of violence.\u00a0<\/p>\n The program currently has 20 staff members and a roughly $2 million budget. The report recommended allocating an additional $617,734 next fiscal year to fund nine more staff and supplies, along with a second investment of $761,712 the following year to bring its headcount up to 36 employees.\u00a0<\/p>\n The final component is a $1 million allocation to a fund managed by the Harris County Domestic Violence Coordinating Council, which is distributed to local nonprofits or as direct assistance to victims of domestic violence.<\/p>\n Barbie Brashear, the coordinating council\u2019s director, said the funding would help determine whether effective but temporary programs become permanent.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have built and tested innovative approaches,\u201d she said. \u201cNow we have to decide whether successful innovations remain temporary projects, or become part of how Harris County does the business and work of ensuring public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n Support unclear<\/p>\n The four Democratic members of Commissioners Court have consistently supported programs like the county\u2019s crisis intervention teams, but it\u2019s unclear if Ellis has the three votes needed to create the new department.\u00a0<\/p>\n The court\u2019s Democratic majority has, since the 2018 Blue Wave that brought them to power, created a suite of new departments that have seen varying levels of success. The Office of County Administration, the Department of Economic Equity and Opportunity and several other small offices created since 2018 still exist, but others folded amid budget constraints and concerns about administrative burden.\u00a0<\/p>\n Two departments \u2014 the Office of Justice & Safety and the Commissioners Court Analyst\u2019s Office \u2014 were both absorbed by the county administrator\u2019s Research and Analysis Division, which itself was eliminated in budget cuts last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n The county administration office itself remains a point of controversy \u2014 Commissioner Adrian Garcia, a Democrat, joined Republican Commissioner Tom Ramsey last year in a short-lived bid to shutter the department<\/a>, which serves as a centralized authority over the dozens of departments that report to Commissioners Court.\u00a0<\/p>\n Garcia, who did not respond to a request for comment, said at the time he was concerned with what he saw as a bloated bureaucracy taking root in Harris County. Although Ramsey supported naming Erica Lee Carter county administrator earlier this year, he has opposed the department since its inception.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ramsey also opposed the proposed Community Safety Department, a spokesperson said in a statement, arguing that some of its components overlap with services provided by the city of Houston and Harris Health.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n