TL: DW
Defund the police while giving them less responsibility for tasks like talking to the homeless and doing mental health checks. This is something that Denver has been doing.
Police walking the streets is at most fighting the symptoms of crimes and at times make the more structural problem worse.
Copes are expensive thus if you need less you can save money
It's not that radical of a sentiment, but I have to say that I do feel uncomfortable with the idea that a lonely nurse is being sent out to calls about a schizo with a knife being delusional, or trying to chase away homeless people from the bus station at night. Maybe it is just me being overly cautious but these people CAN be dangerous as they tend to have serious issues. Also, I wonder if it really would be much cheaper to not have cops, nurses, social workers, and crisis management (all jobs that there are underemployment) tend to be more specialized which would mean they expect more in salaries. But that is just a first thought that could be wrong.