911 will mean more than an emergency number in Mayor Brandon Scott’s Baltimore

After the city secured more than $400 million in settlements from various opioid companies, it now plans to use the funds to expand its mobile crisis program and help those in need without punishing them through incarceration.

Baltimore has already undergone a historic transformation under Mayor Brandon Scott. Now the city’s mobile crisis program, a non-profit which has led individuals who are calling the 911 emergency number for mental health inquiries that do not require police intervention, is set to grow, thanks to nearly $400 million the city acquired via opioid-related legal settlements.

According to WYPR, the funds will be used to build out a more robust service that operates 24/7 to help people with issues that include poverty, addiction, and mental health, situations that don’t always have the immediate need of police presence.

Per city data, nearly 1.7 million 911 calls were logged in Baltimore in 2024, but thousands of them did not require EMTs, fire or law enforcement officials. When similar programs that utilized specific response teams over the police were implemented in cities such as Durham, North Carolina, they led to fewer arrests of Black men ages 25-39, according to a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Over the last four years, Baltimore’s homicide rate has decreased by nearly 60 percent, a historic pace that counteracts how the city was viewed more than a decade ago. At the same time, the opioid crisis led to the deaths of more than 1,000 Baltimoreans from 20202 to 2023.

In 2018, the city decided not to partner with other jurisdictions in suing opioid companies and instead sued independently, resulting in significant settlements. The judgments resulted in several landmark victories and settlements, securing more than $400 million.

A $152 million settlement with Cencora and McKesson was vacated after the Maryland Supreme Court in 2025, and the city dropped its lawsuit against the company in May.

“It’s my responsibility and those that are here now who are living in a time where we have done stuff that they said was impossible,” Scott told theGrio during the 50th anniversary of the city’s AFRAM in June. “We really have the lowest amount of violence that Baltimore has ever seen. In a city led by Black people, pushing the narratives that they say about us to the side and just focusing on.”

Additional uses for the funds include placing boxes containing the overdose-reversal drug naloxone at all 14 of the city’s subway stops. In total, $15 million of the funds has been utilized to improve city services, with the expansion of 911 being chief among them, according to Baltimore’s director of overdose response, Sara Whaley.

The aim is to get people the help they need without punishing them through incarceration.

“What are the wraparound services and support that can help prevent them from being involved in this, in that emergency system?” she said.