Since its inception in 2017, the Policing Alternatives & Diversion Initiative (PAD) has garnered national attention for its innovative approach to crisis response in Atlanta.
Instead of relying on police to arrest individuals facing mental health crises, causing disturbances due to substance abuse, or homelessness, PAD provides an alternative model — one that focuses on community-based care and support.
When PAD’s long-standing contract with the city expired this year, Mayor Andre Dickens requested the new contract be awarded based on a competitive bid process. PAD was the only agency that submitted a proposal this spring. In July, the city awarded PAD the $5 million contract for a two-year extension with options for more renewals.
The organization planned how it would use the money to hire more staff, expand its services and broaden community engagement with the recent opening of the Center for Diversion and Services. The money didn’t come, though.
Dickens and his team stalled legislation to authorize the contract. The administration opened a special, closed-door procurement process for the same contract. PAD was not invited to participate. Dozens of community members and criminal justice reform advocates pleaded with council members to fund PAD’s work.
When no agency responded to the closed-door request for proposal, the council pushed back against the mayor and approved the contract extension at its Nov. 18 meeting.
“For us, this is so much bigger than any one contract. It’s really about what our vision for how Atlanta can serve people,” said PAD Executive Director Moki Macías. “There’s so much more weight to it because of that.”
PAD’s foundations rooted in LGBTQ+ activism
The model the nonprofit uses to assist some of the city’s most vulnerable residents traces its roots to queer and transgender activists of color.
In 2013, when the the city council was set pass an ordinance “banishment ordinance” targeting trans sex workers in Midtown, local groups including Racial Justice Action Center, Women on the Rise, LaGender, and Trans(forming), came together to form Solutions Not Punishment Collaboration (SnapCo).
They rallied a broad coalition of Atlantans to demand criminal justice reform and propose more effective approaches to public safety, said Macías, who identifies as a queer femme.
“It is relevant that PAD evolved from a vision by Black, Brown, queer and transgender people seeking safety in their communities and that their vision could include all people who are deeply marginalized and criminalized,” Macias said.
The “banishment ordinance” eventually died. But the vision remained.
In 2015, community leaders, legal system partners and elected officials traveled to Seattle to learn about Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD). That year, the Atlanta City Council and Fulton County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted to establish the PAD Design Team.
In 2016, the team launched an 18-month process to design the local pilot of a diversion and care navigation strategy, based on the LEAD model. The next year, in 2017, PAD began accepting diversion in four Atlanta Police Department beats.
In 2020, the LEAD Bureau selected PAD to serve as one of seven sites nationally as a model site for Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion and the Atlanta City Council unanimously approved a substantial funding increase to expand PAD citywide.
The same year, PAD led a design process for the expansion into Community Response Services with ATL311. The group studied more than three years of 911 call data, co-hosted three virtual listening sessions with 15 other organizations, surveyed city of Atlanta residents and convened six stakeholder working groups.
And in 2021, PAD partnered with Atlanta’s non-emergency 311 city services line to begin its community response services for quality of life concerns related to mental health, substance use, or extreme poverty.
Since launching the citywide mobile response teams in 2021, PAD has responded to 6,275 calls which diverted people from law enforcement contact or arrest.
“It’s not just about us providing these services day-to-day. It’s also about the fact that we really built this model with with the people who are served by it,” Macias said.
So far in 2024, PAD has:
• received over 1,300 calls through ATL311;
• diverted more than 250 people from being booked in jail;
• provided 752 people with case management, including housing, transportation, food, and healthcare assistance.
The new contract is slated to go into effect Jan. 1. Macias said PAD’s focus will be on raising public awareness about raising public awareness that people can call 311 — and not 911 — to ask for assistance when they see someone in crisis.
“We work for the city of Atlanta, we serve the people of Atlanta, and we work in partnership with the city of Atlanta’s 311 line. We were designed to do this work,” she said.