Atlanta’s own red tape is holding back the Policing Alternatives and Diversion Initiative (PAD) from providing mental health services, respite housing, healthcare, and legal services, according to the organization’s director.
One of the first diversion programs in the country, PAD was established in 2017 to respond, address, and provide long-term management for individuals without a safety net.
But it’s been an uphill battle: renewing contracts with the City of Atlanta and Grady Health Systems about every two years, PAD is currently in a contract dispute with the city and fighting to do its job, according to PAD Executive Director Moki Macias.
Despite PAD’s two-year, $5 million contract being adopted by Atlanta City Council, effective Jan. 1, 2025, and renewal options for a potential six-year partnership, the nonprofit has remained severely under-utilized.
“From our analysis, there are about 30,000 calls a year based on the coding and the priority level that could potentially have been sent to PAD,” Macias said. “People are diverted pre-arrest because we all agree that some violations do not need to be handled by the criminal justice system at all. They need to be addressed by supportive services.”
A dashboard created by PAD looked at about three years’ worth of 911 calls made in the City of Atlanta. Over 95 percent of non-emergency calls were designated as high priority by the call taker, but there were no weapons, no threat of physical violence, and no threat of property being taken, Macias said.
“Callers are only reporting a disturbance, yet the default response continues to be sending the police over and over and over again to extremely low level calls, making them less available for more serious incidents,” Macias said.
Data shows that only 1,514 diversions in 2025 were handled by PAD compared to projected numbers seven times that amount. Macias told the Atlanta City Council in March that PAD’s goal is to continue scaling up the use of diversion so it becomes a default response.
The available data reflects only how often the center is used – not who or why.
“Understanding the number of arrests and citations for low-level violations is critical,” Macias said. “Understanding officers’ rationale for not diverting is also critical.”
The Atlanta City Council unanimously passed a resolution in March asking the Atlanta Police Department to examine its procedures, emphasizing community-based diversion for low-level offenses through PAD.
Fast forward three months: PAD has stopped accepting clients at the 24-hour Center for Diversion Services in Downtown Atlanta, but they’re still responding to 311 calls, according to Axios.
Macias told Rough Draft Atlanta that her “dream” is that no matter whether people call 911, 311 or 988, call takers will be able to assess what’s the most appropriate response and deploy that team.
“Because an individual may make a decision to call a few times a year, if any, whereas 911 call takers are getting these calls constantly,” Macias said. “They are getting hundreds of calls a day. They are listening for and assessing each situation.”
“Responders also need to be communicating with each other … We have to also make sure that people are getting the right response based on the situation, and not put all of that burden on the caller,” Macias said. “We’re not going to counter 50 years of education of calling 911 for everything.”
PAD is activated by callers dialing 311. Macias said PAD has not “gotten the green light from the police department to be dispatched directly,” despite the data showing the number of calls that could be handled by the agency rather than APD.
“It’s a city policy issue. It’s council, it’s the police department, it’s the city administration. All it would take is the green light to say, ‘It is appropriate to send specific calls to PAD.’
Macias is frustrated because Atlanta was one of the first cities in the country to dispatch community responders, and peer cities like Durham, NC, Dayton, OH, and Denver, CO, have embraced and expanded similar services.
While PAD, the City of Atlanta, and Grady Health work out the details, what can the average person do?
Be a good neighbor. Stay engaged and aware of your surroundings when you’re out and about. Get to know the people in your neighborhood, whether they live in a house or on the street, so that you can recognize when something is off, Macias advised.
Trust your gut. It’s the old adage, “See something, say something.” Macias noted that often people are waiting for someone else to take action. Call 311 for a non-violent, public disturbance. Leave the rest to 911, for now.
Learn de-escalation techniques. PAD’s two-hour training class teaches strategies to engage with people who are in a heightened state. When someone feels comfortable with deescalation, there is an opportunity to distract the behavior that’s making people uncomfortable, Macias said.
“[PAD is] focused on situations of disturbances, people in distress, people acting in ways that make other folks uncomfortable. When you see somebody who’s clearly suffering or clearly making a law violation that’s related to getting their basic needs met, that is a symptom of a much larger problem – and people are shut out from getting their basic needs met,” Macias said.
Tanesha Dorr was once a client of PAD. She spoke at the Atlanta City Council meeting about PAD’s contract renewal.
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New data shows that 30,000 calls to Atlanta’s 911 operators could have been answered by the city’s deescalation department rather than dispatching Atlanta Police.
