OAKLAND, Calif. — The Anti Police-Terror Project announced Dec. 3, 2025, that it is relaunching MH First, a community-driven and community-run crisis response program, and opening the First Responders: Survivors Line, a new hotline aimed at supporting people harmed by law enforcement across Northern California, according to a press release from the organization.
The relaunch by the Anti Police-Terror Project, known as APTP, expands non-police responses to mental health crises while providing a new, trauma-informed reporting and support option for survivors of law enforcement violence, the organization said.
APTP co-founder Cat Brooks said in the release, “Too often, when someone is in the middle of a mental health crisis, the police show up instead of trained community responders — and those encounters too often end in tragedy.” Operating Wednesday through Sunday from 8 p.m. to midnight, and reachable at a new number, (510) 999-9641, MH First dispatches trained civilian responders to mental health emergencies, substance-use crises and domestic violence situations in place of law enforcement.
APTP said it previously paused MH First to improve long-term sustainability and strengthen its infrastructure, and has now resumed operations to better serve community members in Oakland and Sacramento. Brooks added that the program “proves that our communities can keep each other safe with care, compassion, and connection, not cops and cages.”
During the pause, APTP partnered with Health in Partnership to evaluate and enhance MH First’s internal operations, the release said, with the goal of expanding the program’s capacity for “prevention, healing, and collective care.”
In addition to relaunching MH First, APTP announced the creation of the First Responders: Survivors Line, which allows survivors to safely report incidents and connect with trauma-informed resources. According to the organization, those resources include The People’s Clinic and the NADA Clinic, as well as navigation support for legal and community-based assistance.
The relaunch of MH First and the introduction of the Survivors Line reflect what APTP described as an urgent need for an “abolitionist, community-based alternative to police intervention,” consistent with the group’s broader commitment to non-carceral crisis response and survivor-centered support.
“The Survivors Line is an extension of our mission to protect and heal our people from the trauma of state violence,” Brooks said in the release, emphasizing the importance of “building real safety — safety that centers survivors, not systems that harm them.”
APTP said its work seeks to model “what real public safety looks like: care, not criminalization,” and that the new initiatives are part of its broader effort to end state violence while building community-based systems of safety.
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This is powerful work. Community-based crisis response is something every city needs. Too often, police end up handling mental-health emergencies, and things escalate unnecessarily.
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