It was a gratifying moment for Hicks and all of the others who have played a crucial role in making the upstart program, which began in 2021 and currently employs two social workers who are embedded within the Marshalltown Police Department (MPD) to handle non-emergent, non-criminal calls for service, such a rousing success thus far.

“When MPACT started in 2021, it was a pilot project. We didn’t know what we were doing, but sometimes you jump off a cliff and build your wings on the way down. So we did,” he said.

Tannin once again hosted “An Evening with MPACT,” and it gave Hicks, YSS Clinical Supervisor Ryan Keller, MPACT Advocates Tiffany Beadle and Suzy Reed, and MPD Lt. AJ Accola and Chief Mike Tupper a chance to highlight the collaborative work they’ve been doing in the community to connect people with the help they need.

Hicks thanked the Marshalltown City Council for its initial investment of $150,000 in the program along with other civic organizations like 100 Women Who Care and Men of Faith that have continued to make contributions since MPACT’s inception. He provided several examples of how they’ve been able to buy bus tickets for those facing transportation barriers and paid the first month’s rent for a formerly homeless man moving into his first apartment thanks to the generosity of said groups.

Marshalltown Police Chief Mike Tupper speaks about the MPACT program during an event at Tannin on Wednesday evening.

One key focus he sought to highlight is how the program can save taxpayers money in the long run — monetizing their data, so to speak — and through the first three months of 2024, Hicks said his advocates have prevented seven emergency room visits and five arrests. The program, he added, should be thought of as an investment rather than a cost.

Keller spoke next and shared an example of an individual who had been cited for trespassing on several occasions before it became apparent that he was struggling with dementia/Alzheimer’s and simply believed he was returning to a home where he used to live. A former advocate was eventually able to connect him with housing and help him realize he needed to stay there.

“It took a lot of effort and a lot of follow ups, so the follow up part of it, in terms of what we do clinically, is the most important part because we have a lot of people that care and that initial contact is the way we do that care,” Keller said.

Major issues like homelessness, substance abuse and mental health, he added, can’t be solved in a single conversation and require ongoing solutions. Many of the people MPACT advocates encounter want to change and forge a new path in life, but they need the tools to make it happen.

Beadle, a Marshalltown native and East Marshall alum who was featured in a recent T-R story on the program, has been with MPACT for about two months, worked at the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office for a year and a half before deciding she wanted to do something more in the mental health field.

“Jail isn’t always a place to be rehabilitated, unfortunately, so if we can maybe avoid that stop altogether, that would be great,” she said.

Reed has been with MPACT for almost a year now and said that her goal is not just to help people facing some of the aforementioned issues but also to free up the officers of the MPD and allow them to focus on more pressing criminal matters. The last week, she said, has been “rough” with an uptick in calls involving suicidal teenagers, and she and Beadle do their best to let them know they have support when they need it.

Homelessness was a recurring theme throughout the presentation, and after sharing a success story about helping an individual get approved for housing, Reed’s mention of the “Tent City” in Marshalltown prompted an audience member to ask where it was located.

It drew a quick response from Beadle, who declined to disclose where it is.

“It would be like me giving your address out. You don’t want people coming over to gawk at your house. We’ve worked really hard to build rapport out there for them to trust us, and we’re not going to do anything to (jeopardize that),” she said.

She said the advocates are out there every day working tirelessly with the small group of inhabitants, and Hicks later clarified that the area is on private property. Another major concern the advocates discussed is domestic violence, and Reed said she has actually worked with more male victims than women. They also credited other nonprofits in the area like Bridge Home, United Way, ACCESS, Big Brothers Big Sisters, The Salvation Army and more for their partnership in providing necessary services.

Reed was happy to share a few success stories, including a homeless woman escaping a domestic violence situation who found a full-time job, walked to work and now lives in a two-bedroom house with her dogs and cats. Another involved a child believed to be missing who was hiding inside their own house and is now set to receive services and therapy.

Of course, the MPD has also played a crucial role in the formation and growth of MPACT, and Accola thanked the Marshalltown community for its continued support of law enforcement. Cops like himself, he said, do not have the skills and training to deal with social service calls the way the advocates do.

“If it’s just a police officer showing up, I’m not getting them the services they need. I’m keeping the peace for the night, and I’m moving on,” he said. “So this has really helped us, and that’s what all of our officers really appreciate. We got into the business to drive cars really fast and fight bad guys… We don’t want to be stuck on mental health calls for four hours trying to talk to somebody. That’s really not what we’ve even been trained for. We can do it and we have been doing it, but we’re not doing it very well, whereas they’ve got the training, the experience and the expertise to get the services to those people and the help that they truly need versus law enforcement.”

The ultimate goal, he said, is to avoid writing tickets and throwing people in jail as opposed to putting people into a cycle they can’t escape. Tupper echoed Accola’s sentiment about entering law enforcement because he wanted to drive fast cars and do police work, and he noted just how busy the MPD has become — last week, officers responded to over 700 calls for service.

While he certainly hears complaints about the use of traffic cameras and license plate readers, Tupper said there’s currently too much work for the number of cops on the force, and the MPD strives to be innovative in its approach to solving community problems.

The vast majority of the 700 calls he referenced were crisis and social service matters, and that’s where MPACT makes a difference.

“When (officers) show up to a crisi call or a social service call, they show up like me, dressed like me, and they bring a law enforcement solution to a complex problem that needs something a little more subtle,” Tupper said. “And AJ hit it on the head, we can’t spend hours. We have a few minutes, and then we have to leave and guess what? We get called back because it wasn’t enough time. And we get called back and we get called back, and eventually, police officers have to arrest somebody for something, and now we’re failing.”

Services like MPACT help to divert them from the criminal justice system, and Tupper does not believe that “scared straight” is an effective mindset to steer young people back on the right track.

“We need to keep people out of jail. We need to keep people out of the emergency room, and we need to help people with the issues that they’re having so that they don’t have to call 911. You shouldn’t have to call 911 because you’re dealing with a mental health issue,” he said. “Our MPACT team is doing a great job and they’re making an impact in our community. We’re reducing unnecessary arrests, I’m convinced of it. Now the problem is, how do I prove something that didn’t happen? That’s the problem with the data that we’re asked to collect.”

Arrests for petty crimes like disorderly conduct, public intoxication and trespassing are declining, Tupper noted. Funding MPACT remains a long-term concern, and the chief urged those who support the program to contact their elected officials at the city, state and federal level to advocate for it in the future.

He recalled, along with Hicks, presenting an original request of $25,000 to get MPACT off the ground, and the city council liked the idea so much that they provided $150,000. They’ve since obtained other grants, including one for $200,000 through the United States Department of Justice, but Tupper expressed frustration with property tax reform bills passed by the Iowa Legislature that he feels are “suffocating” cities and counties and making it harder to balance budgets.

In closing, Tupper was proud to show that a program like MPACT could work in rural Iowa and not just large metropolitan areas.

“If you think it’s a good idea, please talk to your elected representatives. If you think it’s a horrible idea, I don’t know why you’re here,” he joked. “But if you think it’s a horrible idea and there’s something that we should be doing differently, it’s my job to hear that and have those tough conversations, and that’ll help us improve. I appreciate MPACT, I appreciate the cops, but most importantly, I appreciate the community because they really do support us.”

The speakers spent the last five minutes or so answering questions from the sizable audience. Currently, MPACT employs two full-time advocates, Beadle and Reed, who work six days a week from 2 p.m. to midnight, and Hicks said he would love to have overnight coverage in the future if the necessary funding can be secured.