DENVER — As Denver leaders prepare to increase funding for the city’s STAR (Support Team Assisted Response) Program, the CEO of Servicios de la Raza, a nonprofit that helps provide resources to those who interact with STAR, is answering questions about how it is utilizing city funding for the program.
With the success of STAR, which is an alternative to policing program that sends a mental health counselor to non-violent emergency calls, city leaders began expanding the program and entered into a partnership with STAR to help provide wrap-around services.
“We're the largest one-stop shop in the state that is culturally responsive, and linguistically specific… STAR itself is a large program that has a lot of moving parts,” said Rudolph “Rudy” Gonzales, Servicios de la Raza CEO.
Last year, the city gave Servicios de la Raza $2.3 million in funding to provide health services to STAR patients. But during an October Denver City Council meeting where council members discussed STAR funding, Denver’s Department of Public Health and Environment (DDPHE) told the Council that $700,000 would be left unspent by the time the city’s contract with Servicios expired on Nov. 1.
“Well, the money never goes unspent... We had a few months of planning to hire people who are going to be, you know, people who could work the program, and had the experience to serve others," Gonzales said. "And so we wanted to make sure we were going to hire well, and wanted to make sure that we were going to be organized... And that takes time, it takes planning. We went into the program being very cognizant of that. And working towards that end.”
City Council gave Servicios de la Raza more time to spend the money.
Gonzales said while DDPHE is in charge of administering the program, multiple agencies play a role in implementing STAR, which can lead to challenges and delays.
“The biggest challenge, as always, is having control, being able to dictate our own success, being able to determine our own destiny in this work as a community. It's very difficult oftentimes to work with government. Government tends to take control, wants control. And as I've always said, government needs to put the gas in our tank and get in the passenger seat and trust our driving because that's community. We're here forever. Government is transitional, elected and appointed and leadership are transitional,” Gonzales said.
STAR Community Advisory Committee Chair Vinnie Cervantes said when the committee first designed STAR, it was meant to be controlled and administered by community organizations like Servicios de la Raza.
“Servicios was the intended home of STAR when we first designed this program. And it was something that we really wanted as a community, that they be the holder of this contract for wraparound services. They're culturally responsive, they have been part of this process since the very beginning. And, you know, ultimately, this is what makes the program successful,” Cervantes said. “I think it's important to recognize that, you know, Servicios wasn’t even granted the ability to go in front of counsel. It was DDPHE representing Servicios in their capacity with the contract. And so they weren't even allowed to speak for themselves.”
Cervantes said concerns over how tax dollars are spent are fair, but more funding, support and community input are needed for STAR to reach its full potential.
“There's a lot of different pieces of this program that don't always feel cohesive. And often it feels like the community is left out of it. When STAR is presented publicly, and represented publicly, often the people that created it, that designed it, to have the vision for what it should be, are left out of it. It's what we saw with this recent presentation to city council,” Cervantes said. “I know that several city council members noted that the advisory committee should have a leading role in determining those funding priorities. And so we want to see that followup. We want to see some level of codification of our committee to make sure that we can have that kind of a role.”
Cervantes and Gonzales said STAR needs to be led by the community in order to reach the intended goal of providing a community-centric, non-police response to emergency calls.
