YSS of Marshall County Director David Hicks has become a familiar face at Marshalltown city council meetings with his quarterly updates — sometimes with assistance from advocates Suzy Reed and Tiffany Beadle — on the latest happenings within the Marshalltown Police and Community Team (MPACT) co-responder program for non-emergent 911 calls. Hicks stepped forward to the speaking podium once again during the final council meeting of 2025 on Monday night, sharing the latest news before outgoing Mayor Joel Greer expressed his hope that the council would continue to find ways to fund the program in the future.

After several officers with the Marshalltown Police Department (MPD) were honored for years of service, Hicks noted his appreciation for the collaborative efforts with law enforcement, describing them as “fully engaged” in MPACT.

“We’re so happy to be able to help them and help the community. We’re affected by mental health, and when law enforcement gets involved, MPACT is certainly a great opportunity for our city folks to improve resources and really to save time, money and lives. I think we’ve been doing that,” he said.

From January to November, MPACT has responded to 204 calls for service involving 446 people, with 34 percent of those being under the age of 18. The top three types of calls, Hicks said, are homelessness (28 percent), mental health (20 percent) and family conflict (18 percent). Other types of calls include elderly, juvenile issues, domestic violence and other welfare checks.

The responses to those 204 calls allowed 203 officers to return to the field after the initial call (99.5 percent) to focus on law enforcement and public safety. Of the individuals MPACT gets involved with, 95 percent (195) follow through with services and/or actively engage in improving the situation. MPACT has provided 43 nights of hotel stays for 40 people and two dogs in partnership with the Marshalltown Area United Way (MAUW).

Additionally, advocates have conducted 646 follow-ups involving 1,101 people, and about 65 percent of them involve homelessness and mental health.

“Predominantly, homelessness and mental health are making up a considerable amount of time that we’re taking when police are involved with those calls. But behind those numbers are real people,” Hicks said.

One situation he shared was a response to an individual with a self-inflicted gunshot wound and multiple family members and friends on scene. Hicks said MPACT advocates assisted with diverting the family from entering the home and de-escalating the situation as emotions were running high, and they also followed up to ensure they were able to obtain mental health treatment after the traumatic event.

Along with the MPD, MPACT also worked in collaboration with the Marshalltown Fire Department (MFD) to assist a family in a home without heat using multiple space heaters to stay warm. Through the MAUW and the Housing Trust Fund, advocates were able to help the family secure another safe place to live and included them in the “Shop with a Cop” Christmas gift program in partnership with local law enforcement.

“MPACT continues to work with several different agencies — Housing Trust Fund through the United Way, CAPS, Center Associates and many others. We’re certainly not the only boots on the ground, but part of our case management is critical. We reach out to our partner agencies and get the families the assistance they need,” he said.

Once December numbers have been finalized, an annual report will be presented sometime early next year. Greer, leading his final meeting as mayor, called MPACT the “stellar program in the whole state” and recalled the unanimous vote to fund the launch of the program for three years in December of 2020.

“My last hope is that the city sees fit to increase (funding) to have a third person to cover after midnight because we know there are needs at that time as well. It just works well. We need to keep funding it,” he said.

Hicks responded that Beadle has been working some overnight shifts, and he also noted that officials in other Iowa communities have reached out to him about potentially replicating the program elsewhere, citing Denison as a specific example. Opioid settlement dollars will likely be a key funding source going forward, he said, as an agreement has already been struck with the Marshall County Board of Supervisors to make the program countywide and cover the cost of a third advocate.

“I think that’s probably where the rubber’s gonna hit the road as far as funding goes in the future,” Hicks said.

Greer also expressed optimism that incoming Councilor Sue Cahill, a former state representative, would have the contacts in Des Moines to help secure state funding for such programs, and Hicks described Marshalltown as “well ahead of the game” in terms of mental health professionals and law enforcement working together.

After some final praise from Greer and before moving on to the list of resolutions before the council, Fire Chief Christopher Cross stepped forward and offered some kind words of his own about the emerging partnership between the MFD and MPACT. Cross referenced the case Hicks had described involving the family in an unsafe situation without heat.

“The case that David referenced is a typical type of situation that my fire officers find themselves in quite frequently where we’re not doing crazy heroic things and putting structures on fire out. This is an overloaded electrical circuit type problem where we have people calling us to their residence because they were concerned about a condition that was going on, and it was called in by a family member,” he said. “When my fire officers find themselves in those positions… we’re the ones that are designated to solve those problems, and we don’t really have a good resource to be able to help with that. And MPACT got involved, and I think that really kind of shone a light as far as fire officers go to know that MPACT is impactful, pardon the pun. But I just want to say thank you, David, for your staff, and we are starting to utilize the service more and more on my side of the building. I just wanted to let you guys know that it’s being utilized on all facets of emergency services.”

——

Contact Robert Maharry

at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.