Community Relations Section

Park Safety

The mission of the Park Safety Specialists is to provide professional, friendly service to everyone who visits Pasadena’s city parks. Our goal is to maintain a welcoming, family-friendly environment where all visitors feel safe and comfortable enjoying our community’s green spaces.

Park Safety Specialists help create a safe and enjoyable park experience by maintaining a visible presence and working closely with park visitors and community members. Through ongoing communication and community feedback, we continue to improve safety and the overall park experience for everyone.

Pasadena’s parks are among the city’s greatest treasures, offering residents and visitors opportunities to relax, play, and connect with nature while appreciating the city’s cultural and natural heritage.

Park Safety Specialists are available seven days a week during varying hours. If you would like assistance or wish to speak with a Park Safety Specialist, please call (626) 744-4501.

For emergencies or situations requiring immediate police response, please call 9-1-1.

Homeless Outreach (H.O.P.E.)

Mission

The Mission of the Pasadena Police and Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health’s Homeless Outreach-Psychiatric Evaluation (HOPE) team is to provide effective, collaborative, and compassionate mental health and law enforcement emergency response to those in need of mental health, housing, and related social services.

The HOPE Team will utilize proven, creative, and innovative methods of street-level, residential, commercial, and public mental health crisis response, while entering into mission-oriented, problem-solving partnerships with mental health and social service provider agencies.

Program

The Pasadena Police Department created the HOPE Team on January 8th, 2002. In keeping with its core values and commitment to excellence, innovation, and integrity, the police department entered into a partnership with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health to better handle homeless issues and to provide cooperative, compassionate, mental health/law enforcement teams to assist those in need of accessing mental health and social services. This unique police officer-civilian clinician team-approach pioneered the “HOPE” model of mental health crisis response.

What makes the HOPE Team different from similar units in other departments is that HOPE Team members are first responders to emergency mental health crisis calls, and are proactive by continuously seeking out contact with people who are in need of services prior to potentially volatile situations occurring. The team’s target population are street-level and sheltered homeless, as well as mental health consumers within the city limits.

Another major aspect of the HOPE approach is working on relationship building and “planting the seed” of trust for the next contact. This is critical in convincing people to accept services prior to them being in a crisis and critical in being able to de-escalate a situation when they are in crisis. This applies to anyone in our target groups that we contact.

Community Partnerships

The HOPE Team has forged many working community partnerships with a host of public and private social service organizations throughout the city.

The HOPE Team also provides leadership to the Pasadena Mental Health Advisory Committee (PMHAC).

HOPE Team Officers are specially trained in crisis communications, Violence Threat Risk Assessment (VTRA), Suicide-Homicide Bomber Terrorist response, and are graduates of Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) Training Academies throughout the state. HOPE Teams also specialize in multi-agency, long-term psychiatric problem solving, often involving suspected suicidal/homicidal subjects.