Coordinated Response Team

Working to end outdoor substance use, address quality of life, issues for residents and businesses, and transition individuals into recovery.

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Update: Coordinated Response Team Strategy

In February 2025, the Coordinated Response Team (CRT) presented our updated Next Phase strategy to the Boston City Council, marking a significant next step in the City’s efforts to end congregate outdoor substance use following the successful implementation of the Encampment Ordinance.

Recent letters to the community:

This strategy reflects a shift toward proactive, preventative engagement. CRT has increased staffing to enhance real-time responsiveness and launched a formal co-response model with law enforcement. This coordinated approach is designed to ensure that individuals with the most complex needs are connected to appropriate recovery services, treatment options, and long-term stabilization support.

We work alongside the Boston Public Health Commission to expand access to treatment pathways across the city. In addition, through a new grant opportunity, CRT will partner with the Gavin Foundation to provide recovery navigation, substance use treatment, and transportation support as part of a strengthened continuum of care.

Learn about the Coordinated Response Team

Learn about CRT

Coordinated Response Team Background

The City of Boston’s Coordinated Response Team (CRT) is a citywide initiative that brings together multiple City departments and community stakeholders to address:

public substance use
related quality-of-life concerns, and
non-emergency requests submitted through the City’s 3-1-1 system.

The team takes a proactive, coordinated approach to supporting individuals and neighborhoods across Boston.

CRT focuses on preemptive interventions and preventative outreach. We worki alongside law enforcement to connect individuals to shelter, substance use treatment, and long-term support. The goal is to promote stability, and connection — for vulnerable individuals and for the communities around them.

CRT plays an important role in supporting the City of Boston’s Encampment Ordinance by ensuring that impacted areas are managed in the public interest. The team works across departments to provide a compassionate and timely response to complex challenges.

The Coordinated Response Team Approach

The Coordinated Response Team (CRT) follows a citywide approach that bridges public safety and public health to deliver the most comprehensive and streamlined response to all quality-of-life concerns — and to end congregate outdoor substance use and the criminal behavior it supports.

Each morning, CRT hosts a citywide huddle that convenes high-level leadership from across city departments — including sanitation teams — specialized units within the Boston Police Department, district officers, community-based providers, Public Health-Recovery Services, EMS, and other first responders.

This daily meeting is a critical space for sharing real-time information, discussing high-response locations, and coordinating immediate responses for individuals who are at elevated risk due to addiction, behavioral health, or public safety concerns.

The morning huddle ensures that Boston’s most vulnerable individuals — and the neighborhoods they impact — receive a unified, cross-agency response focused on safety, stabilization, and care.

Coordinated Response Team Advocacy

The Coordinated Response Team is committed to advancing solutions that reflect the realities of those most impacted by congregate outdoor substance use, homelessness, and cycles of system involvement. As part of this work, CRT is proud to sponsor a Lived Experience Council — a vital advisory body made up of individuals who bring direct, personal insight into the challenges facing our communities.

Lived Experience Council: Purpose and Role

The Lived Experience Council serves as a bridge between policy and individuals who bring pragmatic solutions through lived experiences, helping to shape CRT’s approach by ensuring that real-world experience informs every stage of our work — from service design to field coordination.

Key Objectives:

Elevate Community Insight: Provide structured, ongoing feedback from those who have firsthand knowledge of living unsheltered, managing substance use, or navigating the criminal legal system.
Promote Accountability and Responsiveness: Ensure CRT strategies remain grounded in the lived realities of those impacted and are responsive to their evolving needs.
Shape Service Delivery and Policy: Inform the development of humane, practical, and effective interventions that reflect both individual dignity and neighborhood stability.
Build Trust and Shared Ownership: Foster mutual respect and partnership between impacted individuals, providers, and government agencies.
Support Leadership Development: Empower members to participate in civic processes, share expertise, and grow as advocates and change agents.

The Lived Experience Council meets regularly and collaborates directly with CRT leadership. Input from the council helps shape field operations, training, resource deployment, and public communication strategies.

Recovery Campus Planning

Under the leadership of Mayor Michelle Wu, the City of Boston is working to organize a comprehensive Recovery Campus— space for addiction treatment, stabilization, and long-term support. This effort is co-led by a five-member Chair Leadership Team that includes:

Elected officials
Community stakeholders
Neighborhood leaders
The Coordinated Response Team (CRT)

Together, these co-chairs are guiding the vision, strategy, and community engagement.

Guided by Three Core Focus Areas:

Recovery and Addiction: We are working to expand access to acute treatment services, residential addiction treatment and recovery housing, that will help to support long-term, sustained recovery in the City of Boston.
Public Safety: We are strengthening preventative co-response and enhancing coordinated strategies to protect the stability and well-being of bneighborhoods and support in our public spaces.
Judicial Initiatives: We are focusing on diversion and deflection strategies to build stronger connections between the court system and addiction treatment, ensuring more effective alternatives to incarceration including a centralized, universal Recovery Court model.

Community Engagement

Public input is central to this effort. The Recovery Campus Working Group hosts bimonthly public meetings, which serve as an open forum for:

Sharing updates and hearing community concerns
Proposing real-time, implementable solutions
Offering feedback on how to improve Boston’s collective response to addiction and related safety issues

The Working Group brings together voices from across city and state government, law enforcement, service providers, and institutional partners. Through focused committees and stakeholder engagement, the group is actively developing both short- and long-term strategies to support recovery and enhance safety throughout Boston.

The goal is clear: to ensure that anyone in Boston struggling with addiction has timely access to care — and that neighborhoods have the support and coordination needed to thrive.

Our Work

Low-Threshold Transitional Housing Sites One Year Report

This document provides a snapshot of the first year of low-threshold transitional housing site reach and experience.

Data Dashboard

A dashboard with up to date metrics on 311 calls, treatment placements, transitional housing, and more.

Public Health Resource Map: Caring for Unsheltered Persons

Map of resources around Boston that contribute to caring for unsheltered individuals

Friends and Family Reunification

To request support communicating or locating a missing loved one in the "Mass and Cass" neighborhood, please review this protocol.

CRT Updates August 2023

Summer Updates from the Coordinated Response Team

CRT Update to City Council February 2025

Update on Ongoing Efforts to End Congregate Substance Use in Boston

Ways to Help

Learn how to volunteer and help by visiting the BPHC Volunteer page.
Want to donate? Email donations@bphc.org
Do you know of housing opportunities or do you have an apartment or room to rent? Please email us at Info@bphc.org
Support permanent supportive housing in your community. Learn more at Friends of Boston's Homeless and MAMH.

Do you have or know of employment opportunities? Call the Newmarket Jobs Initiative at 617-506-3983.
Learn more about substance use disorder and mental health, and share with your family and friends. Here are some resources: City of Boston’s Office of Recovery Services, MDPH Bureau of Substance Addiction Services, National Institute of Mental Health, and MAHA.