The Health One mobile response unit will respond to people in and near downtown Seattle who are struggling with a behavioral crisis, substance abuse, or a non-emergency medical issue.

Seattle will spend $500,000 on a new pilot program to help people with non-emergency incidents, like substance abuse or a behavioral crisis.

Health One, which Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, Councilmember Sally Bagshaw, and Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins announced Tuesday, is a mobile response unit that is staffed by firefighters and specialists, like social workers.

The unit will respond to the downtown core and adjacent neighborhoods during peak hours.

“We made Seattle the safest place in the world to suffer a heart attack. We will lead on new urban health responses," Durkan said in a statement.

Seattle Fire will begin training staff in the coming months, and the city hopes to have the program in place by late 2019.

Bagshaw has allocated $475,000 in the 2019 budget for the program, and Seattle Fire will allocate an additional $25,000. That funding will pay for the program for one year.

A high number of “low acuity” calls, or calls that resulted in no action or a non-emergency transport to the hospital, sparked the pilot project.

Scoggins said nearly a dozen firefighters may respond to a call for help, tying up resources. Bagshaw said firefighters then take the impacted person to Harborview where they are treated and released, and right back into the same cyclical situation.

Under Scoggins plan, the Health One unit would take the distressed person straight to the proper office.

“(If) we get them to the proper place they need to get to instead of the emergency room, that's success,” Scoggins explained. “If someone is experiencing a mental health issue and we can get them to a crisis center, that's a success.”

In 2018, 42 percent of Seattle Fire’s medical calls were low acuity, according to the department. The most common reasons for those calls were related to homelessness, mental health, substance abuse, or chronic medical issues.

Bagshaw said the targeted approach has been used in other cities, like San Diego, to help treat public vagrancy and safety issues. If implemented, she said the service would also help streamline some traffic issues in the downtown core.

For instance, there have been multiple calls for service on 3rd Avenue near the King County Courthouse because of access to service providers. Bagshaw said a ‘normal’ fire response can shut down lanes in the transit corridor. This service would help alleviate some of those traffic blockages.

“These are healthcare needs that a typical emergency medical response unit is not well equipped to address,” Scoggins said in a statement. “We can now look beyond the traditional method of transporting patients to an emergency room, and connect them with appropriate services.”