Tacoma is facing a crisis. Lack of affordable housing, jobs, and mental health resources create barriers for people who seek stability. The obvious and humane solutions to these problems, namely providing those things people lack, are dismissed. Instead, city leaders and business owners keep investing in the police to solve these problems, leading to catastrophic results.

Even many police officers acknowledge they cannot respond to the issues that our community is facing. Yet they remain the most reliably funded and firmly defended department in the city government. While these are major, difficult crises, we know that well-funded prevention programs and social services can help address them.

Tacoma’s elected leaders have made numerous statements about anti-racism and transformation over the last few years, but little has changed. Our communities are constantly underfunded and lack basic resources. It is past time to invest in our community instead of relying on the police to solve issues they are not equipped to handle.

Community safety comes by providing stable, supportive, and permanent housing. It comes by providing healthcare, including mental health care. Community safety is meeting people in crisis and putting them in contact with someone who can help them, rather than arresting or assaulting them.

We have a right to meet our needs, to have healthcare and resources to take care of ourselves. We don’t have to keep following the status quo. We demand a say in how our community functions. We can change the way Tacoma treats the people who live here and thus help break cycles of intergenerational trauma that primarily impacts Black and Brown people, LGBTQ+ folks, and others facing historical oppression.

We must ensure that our money is spent on the things that actually promote community safety. Fully funding crisis and trauma response teams is one important step to meet people’s needs and preventing further crises from happening.

We have long demanded that the city create a fully funded mental health crisis response team, and council members have ALL signaled their personal support. The time to invest is now.

Join us in calling for our city to lead with compassion, to prioritize care for our community, and to create the transformation that we need to survive. We urgently need the political will to establish this NOW, in the 2023-24 budget biennium, to work toward a better future for everyone.

In solidarity,

350 Tacoma, the Conversation 253, Home in Tacoma for All, and Tacoma & Pierce County Democratic Socialists of America

Other overall crisis response campaign endorsers include: the Black Panther Party of Washington, Decriminalize UWT, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Tacoma Chapter, Lawyers Against Systemic Racism (LASR), Serve the People Tacoma, Tacoma Raging Grannies, Tacoma Tenants Union, and Veterans for Peace #134!

If your organization would like to endorse this petition or campaign, please email outreach@tacomadsa.org