NORTHAMPTON — Donaven Gibbs remembers the first time he heard about Northampton’s Division of Community Care, the agency that acts as an alternative response unit to assist people experiencing mental health crises or homelessness in the city.

Gibbs, who previously worked in human services roles at Behavioral Health Network and at the Center for Human Development, was scrolling the job site Indeed late at night when he saw a posting for a community responder position at the DCC.

“I’m like, wow, this is something new, something that’s needed, something that’s never been done before. And it really caught my eye,” Gibbs recalled. “I applied right then and there, and then I got a call back at 7:30 in the morning. I just came in for the interview, and the rest was history.”

Gibbs became part of the original cohort of community responders at the DCC, which opened in 2023 under the umbrella of the city’s Department of Health and Human Services, following a recommendation from the Northampton Policing Review Commission. The commission itself was formed in 2021 following the killing of George Floyd in 2020 by a police officer in Minneapolis, setting off nationwide protests and calls for change to traditional policing. Two protests in Northampton drew thousands of people that summer.

Now, Gibbs looks to lead the organization, currently consisting of 12 staff members, as it stands on the cusp of full integration with emergency dispatch services next month, having been named director of the DCC on Feb. 11, replacing outgoing director Kristen Rhodes, who stepped down citing personal reasons.

Originally from New York City and a graduate of UMass Amherst, Gibbs emphasized in an interview that he saw the DCC not as competing with local police, but rather as a resource that complements police and social services in the city.

“We’re not an alternative to police. We’re just more of an addition to the city,” Gibbs said. “People needed somebody to talk to, needed resources they never knew existed. I had never seen that before, especially coming from New York — New York City doesn’t have that. There are so many people with crisis and mental health issues just roaming around and there’s no answers for them.”

When the DCC first formed, Gibbs said, there were tensions with local law enforcement regarding how the two would interact. But Gibbs said those tensions have since smoothed over, and he credited Northampton Police Chief John Cartledge, who was a captain in the department until being named interim chief in January 2024, for working collaboratively to build trust between the DCC and NPD over time.

“In the beginning, like, I think it was a lot of confusion, and we did get pushback from a lot of agencies, with the police like, ‘oh, you guys are taking our funding,’” Gibbs said. “My biggest thing when I first spoke to the whole Police Department was, ‘do you guys want to get called to two ladies arguing about a casserole? You want to deal with the guy that’s drunk and naked downtown? Or do you want us to go deal with it?’”

Gibbs also responded to complaints by former DCC employees, who have publicly criticized the organization over a perceived lack of clarity with regard to responsibilities and what role the division should actually play in the community.

“I don’t listen to background noise,” Gibbs said. “You got to understand a program like this that never existed before, it’s going to be a lot of ups and downs. We’re literally building a plane as we fly it.”

According to an impact report put out by the DCC in January, the agency logged more than 5,600 total engagements in 2024, with 4,800 total visits to its community space in Roundhouse Plaza. It also stated that the DCC worked to offer navigation support for emergency housing and shelter, as well as helping community members access resources such as health insurance, nutritional benefits, employment assistance and mental health services as part of its mission.

Gibbs also said that next month, the DCC will become fully integrated with dispatch services in the city. Dispatchers will receive “qualifiers” for whether any call that comes in can be given to the DCC, and route the call accordingly, according to Gibbs. He added a significant qualifier would be whether the call was for a nonviolent incident, which would warrant more of a DCC response.

“That was a big, big obstacle we just completed,” Gibbs said. “Basically when dispatch picks up a call, they’ll look at the qualifiers and say, ‘hey, I believe this is something DCC can handle.’”

With dispatch integration ready to go live, Gibbs said the next big challenge for the DCC would be to secure grant funding, such as Equitable Approaches to Public Safety (EAPS) grant from the state’s Department of Public Health, which provides a significant portion of the DCC’s financial support. The city received a $450,000 EAPS grant last year to help fund the DCC.

“Keeping the ship afloat is the biggest [responsibility] right now,” Gibbs said. “Just thinking out the box to find more grants, especially now, since a lot of federal grants are being canceled.”

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.