Credit: Getty Images.

Last year in the city of Buffalo, the 911 call center dispatched a police car or ambulance, and sometimes both, to someone experiencing a mental health emergency at least 10,000 times. That averages out to more than once every hour.

This striking data point is from a recently published analysis commissioned by top officials in Buffalo and Erie County. The analysis may well be unprecedented in New York for its depth and scope, but when we presented this finding to first responders and people living with mental illness and their families, they weren’t surprised. If anything, they believed it was a significant undercount.

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Like many other communities, Buffalo has relied too heavily on a traditional lights-and-sirens response to care for people experiencing a mental health crisis. The result is a revolving door, with individuals in distress cycling in and out of the Erie County jail and Erie County Medical Center’s emergency room. Many return again and again.

This approach doesn’t help people recover. And it doesn’t use public safety resources effectively. An officer who brings someone to the psychiatric program often may wait with the patient for three hours or more to see a specialist. That’s time the officer spends away from public safety and other critical duties.

All of this comes at a significant cost to taxpayers. And Buffalo is not alone: Similar scenarios play out in communities across New York and

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