May 13 2021 The pilot program is underway in Lents, and members of the Portland City Council are split on what to do next. In 2019, the Portland City Council created a new branch of first responders called Portland Street Response. Instead of sending armed police officers to 911 calls involving a houseless person experiencing a mental health crisis in a public space, the city sends out a team of mental health specialists who will try to connect the person in crisis to the services they need. But Mayor Ted Wheeler, with Commissioners Mingus Mapps and Dan Ryan, want the pilot to play out, and for researchers at Portland State University to study how well or poorly it worked, before expanding the pilot elsewhere.