By Nick Grabbe
The Community Responders for Equity, Safety, and Service, or CRESS, have been active for several years now, but few people know exactly what they do.
CRESS was conceived as an alternative to the police for calls that do not require a response from an armed officer.
The program has been scaled back since it began in 2022 and now operates only Monday to Friday from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm. There are currently five trained responders, plus a director and administrative assistant. The budget is about $500,000 this year.
That amount of money may be scrutinized as Amherst officials expect a budget crunch that will be debated in the first few months of the new year. So we thought it would be helpful to give the public some specific information about what CRESS does with this description of one recent month of activity.
These narratives of September activity, modeled after the Amherst Bulletin’s police report, are strictly factual and are not intended to be supportive or critical of CRESS. They were described to the Amherst Current by CRESS responder Tim Durocher, based on the program’s narratives, and were reviewed and amended by him.
To read a question-and-answer interview with CRESS Director Camille Theriaque, click here.
Sept. 2
- Responders facilitated the use of a conference room phone to make administrative and medical phone calls.
- Transported person from apartment to appointment at Amherst Community Connections.
Sept. 3
- Connected person with free legal aid before court appearance.
Sept. 4
- Transport from Bangs Center to District Court
- Wrote Salvation Army voucher good for emergency food at Big Y and clothes and other items at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. (When writing vouchers, CRESS also provides information on other resources, including the Survival Center.)
- Wrote voucher after it was misplaced.
- Wrote Salvation Army voucher.
- Person came to CRESS office, and used conference room to make phone calls while looking for housing; responders helped with call.
- Wrote Salvation Army voucher.
Sept. 5
- Elderly person had difficulty using cell phone; Responder helped him turn off airplane mode and explained how to do it.
- Wrote Salvation Army voucher.
- Person called asking for basic necessities and was given bag of toiletries and hygiene products, provided outside Bangs Center.
- Wrote Salvation Army voucher.
- Transported person to court.
- Wrote Salvation Army voucher.
- Assisted with Salvation Army voucher.
- Attempted mediation between neighbor and certified nursing assistant, had to reschedule.
Sept. 8
- Transported person from apartment to housing court, assisted in mediation over potential eviction.
- Visit to temporary Jones Library location, met with community members and staff.
- Assisted families who had to vacate apartments due to fire, wrote Salvation Army vouchers and provided applications for Red Cross and FEMA benefits.
- Checked on well being of person having mental health crisis.
Sept. 9
- Transport from apartment to meeting at Community Connections.
- Helped with completing application for Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT) due to eviction and loss of utilities.
- Assist with Salvation Army voucher.
- Person came to CRESS office wanting to speak about housing; Responders related affordable options.
Sept. 10
- Responders attended Wednesday market at Senior Center.
- Used CRESS vehicle to assist Senior Center in picking up items for the market.
- Responders handed out information at fair organized by UMass off-campus student center.
Sept. 11
- Visited Puffton Village and temporary Jones Library location.
- While visiting Craig’s Doors, staff asked about how to get their client into detox for drug use.
- Referred person to DEI department to file a human rights complaint.
Sept. 12
- Spoke to property management company to secure housing for someone referred by DEI department.
Sept. 15
- Person came to office seeking help ordering medical supplies over the phone; was allowed to use the conference room to place order.
- Spoke to staff at Clinical and Support Options.
Sept. 16
- Attended Morning Movement and Mentoring at middle school.
- Responders present for interaction between Police Department and person with complaint.
- Helped person who lost phone on PVTA bus; picked up phone and returned it.
Sept. 17
- Took part in Rolling Green pizza party and resource fair; shared information about CRESS and made slime with children.
- Attended naturalization ceremony and spoke with new citizens and families.
- Followed up at coffee shop about an unhoused person improperly disposing of trash.
- Helped senior having problem with health care proxy; referred to Senior Center.
Sept. 18
- Helped person injured in a fall, responded with Police and Fire Department as person appeared in altered state and refused medical care.
Sept. 19
- Responders assisted CRESS veterans outreach volunteer Eugene Herman with setup and breakdown of the twice-monthly veterans breakfast at the Bang Center.
Sept. 22
- Wrote Salvation Army voucher.
- Returned keys left in CRESS vehicle during a prior call.
- Assisted person in using SNAP card.
Sept. 23
- Helped person needing emergency shelter; referred to Craig’s Doors, which provided tent and sleeping bag.
- Visited Puffton Village, talked to residents.
- Helped person and son who was having tooth pain but were unable to receive care at Musante Health Center without an appointment; transported to Cooley Dickinson Hospital.
- Tried to contact person facing eviction but couldn’t locate.
Sept. 24
- Attended breakfast at Unitarian Universalist Society.
- Assisted person seeking free phone; Responders went over options.
- Wrote Salvation Army voucher.
- Musante Health Center called and asked tfor a well being check on patient potentially facing mental health issues.
Sept. 25
- Wrote Salvation Army voucher.
- Transported person to Cooley Dickinson Hospital for non-emergency medical needs at their request.
Sept. 26
- Helped with error on Salvation Army voucher.
- Transport to retinal treatment appointment in Springfield and back for person who has trouble seeing after these appointments. They were then referred to transportation options through the Senior Center.
- Well being check; unable to contact, contacted property owner.
- Assisted person searching for housing; person had holes in shoes and socks; provided with new socks and Salvation Army voucher for shoes.
- Went to Boltwood Walk parking garage after report of people sleeping there overnight.
- Tried to contact person scheduled to be evicted from apartment.
- Went to parking garage after report of people sleeping there and leaving trash behind.
- Attended two-year anniversary of Northampton Division of Community Care, a program similar to CRESS.
Sept. 29
- Person seeks help with Residential Assistance for Families in Transition application; explained that landlord needs to fill out similar application.
- Attended Morning Movement and Mentoring at middle school.
- Wrote Salvation Army voucher.
Sept. 30
- Checked parking garage to see if people in need of Craig’s Doors or sleeping bags and encouraged them not to sleep there.
- Attended Morning Movement and Mentoring at middle school.
- Partnered with sheriff’s department in connection to resources and de-escalation surrounding an eviction.
- Wrote Salvation Army voucher.
- At temporary Jones Library, spoke to person lying in hallway, who didn’t want to communicate with Responders.
- Walked around parking garage to see if any trash was left there.
- Wrote Salvation Army voucher.
Nick Grabbe, co-founder of The Amherst Current, was a newspaper editor and writer based in Amherst for 32 years.
THE AMHERST CURRENT 
Amherst’s Community Responders for Equity, Safety and Service (CRESS) was launched with the right goals — to provide a non-police option for helping residents in need and to handle low-risk situations with compassion. But after two years and roughly $500,000 a year in taxpayer funding, it’s hard to see that the program delivers enough value to justify its cost.
Your recent month’s activity report shows that most CRESS work involves writing Salvation Army vouchers, transporting residents to court or medical appointments, and helping people fill out forms or make phone calls. These are worthy services, but they duplicate what existing social-service agencies probably already do. Meanwhile, CRESS operates only weekdays from 8 to 4, leaving it unavailable for most crises that occur nights and weekends.
By contrast, similar programs elsewhere — like Northampton’s Division of Community Care or Eugene’s (Oregon) CAHOOTS — appear to respond to thousands of emergency calls each year at a fraction of the per-call cost, perhaps saving their cities a lot of money. Amherst’s version functions more like a small outreach office than a public-safety alternative.
CRESS deserves credit for its humane spirit and dedicated leadership and staff, but Amherst should either restructure it into a true crisis-response team — with full dispatch integration and extended hours — or fold it into existing social-service departments. As it stands, taxpayers are paying a premium for modest results.
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Thank you, Ray, for your polite remarks. I would be less polite. CRESS, along with our abject squeamishness about economic development, represents a surcharge on our tax dollars every year. It’s time for people who claim to care about other priorities, gee, like public education, to speak up to oppose CRESS and other initiatives that represent our hapless pursuit of collective virtue that we arrogantly wish to show off to the world, and to understand and express that these follies are sucking buying power off the top of the tax levy every single year. The most important social justice (and poverty prevention) initiatives that EVERY town undertakes are the establishment of a full-service library system that functions as a community center AND a public education system that meets and engages ALL children where they are in life and society. This other stuff is unnecessary, poorly conceived, and wasteful grandstanding. The backchannel whispering among Amherst’s residents about these mistakes is hard to miss.
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I have to agree with Ray La Raja. The services provided in September indicate that CRESS is not being used as originally planned which may mean that it is not needed in its current form. It is time for a rigorous review and possible restructuring as described in Ray’s analysis.
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Comment from Marguerite Sheehan:
I am putting in a word of thanks to Nick Grabbe for the ingenious way of answering the question “What does Amherst CRESS do?” In the article I learned more about the day-to-day activities of the public safety CRESS workers in our town and the variety of requests they receive for help from the community.
It is certainly true, as some of the previous comments noted, that many but not all of the calls for help they receive are similar to those that are also directed to local social service organizations. As someone who has worked for many years in social services and also in churches (which also respond to many of these kinds of needs) I know that many organizations are overworked, and needs are not always responded to in a way that is “up close and personal” or at all.
This article was “strictly factual and are not intended to be supportive or critical of CRESS.” What it did for me at least was put “a face” on the local needs that CRESS is responding to. I was given a window into which I could glimpse what a community of care can do when individual needs outstrip local social services.
Thank you for this day-to-day picture of CRESS responders in our town.
Marguerite Sheehan
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