This is something that would be a great idea. For instance, my wife was in the middle of a mental health crisis so I called 911. That's what you do in this scenario. What she needed at the time was a trained psychiatric professional, not armed police officers that arrived at the door, clueless as to how to deal with her condition. Maybe armed officers are necessary in some of these scenarios, I can agree with that, but they shouldn't be the only ones at the door.

The problem is: how do you get this off the ground? Well the obvious way would be to take the money that the police spend on mental health calls and use some of that to fund the helper force. The problem is when you take money away from one group to give to another, there's always going to be objections, and that's what I think happens a lot of the time. I think the police like their role in society, and don't want to give it up quietly.