At the beginning of this year, community advocates celebrated the passage of a bill that promised to fund community crisis pilot programs in six counties.

But almost a year later, that elation has turned to frustration.

Those advocates say the state has dragged its feet in, releasing funds and delayed forming a special council, which would help guide police responses to people in a mental health crisis.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gag spoke to community groups who fear innocent lives will be lost if the state continues to delay the launch of these pilot programs.

We got a bill signed in January.

Christmas would be here in two weeks and nothing has gotten done.

Community members who applauded the signing of the Seabrooks Washington Community led Crisis Response Act in January are now putting their hands in the air, wondering why there's been so little progress on it since then.

If they have followed their own guidelines, we should be close to the implementation in a very real way.

Implementation of a law that appropriates $12 million to community response teams in six counties as a pilot program allowing existing community based organizations to launch crisis response teams.

It's not rocket science.

The communities have been identified.

The parties grantees have been identified.

The process of putting together an advisory board to oversee best practices and some some real standards.

That's not rocket science.

And yet no funds have been awarded.

The law was named in part after Andrew Washington, who was killed by police on August 27th, 2023, after his family called the hospital for help during a bipolar episode.

Instead, police arrived in Washington, was shot and killed.

His aunt, Doris Tony Ervin thought the state would have done more since January in her nephew's name.

But there would be like a pool.

The funding funding would go towards programs and people that would be more supportive to the mental health community.

But in on the ground level, where if someone is having an episode or family is experiencing that, they have someone to talk to, someone that can actually come out and talk to their loved one.

But while state leaders stagnate on taking any action on this law, including appropriating the funds, community leaders say lives are at stake.

Lives like Victoria Lee, the young woman who was shot and killed while having a mental health crisis in Fort Lee.

Based on all that we know and all that we have in here could have been we could have been closer to the goal and somebody like her could still be alive.

It was heart breaking for the family, especially the brother who called for help.

You think you're helping your family do this and the person gets killed and that shouldn't have been.

The evidence is there.

The more support that these programs get, they have had a direct response to the reduction in violence in communities and also hostile encounters between members of the community and law enforcement.

So we really want to support these programs.

The law also calls for the creation of a community advisory council to advise and oversee law enforcement's response to mental health crisis calls.

So far, only five of the 13 appointments have been made.

The legislature still needs to appoint eight more.

We reached out to Senate President Nick Scutari for an update, but haven't yet heard back.

Meanwhile, the state is leaning on its Arrive Together program that pairs law enforcement with mental health professionals.

But these advocates want what's promised in the law a response that does not include police.

Community led models grow out of work that is more indigenous to the communities themselves.

And one of the things that law enforcement has a real hard time accepting is that because of the racial violence of the law enforcement and people of color, that they don't realize that even in unintended ways they can be triggering for somebody in a crisis.

Because it is led by the community?

What you what you're not having is, number one, you're not having a one and done situation.

That means that the people who are responding to these situations live within the community.

They're not seeing them on their worst day and then never again.

They are uniquely invested in the holistic health of members of the community.

But for now, those response teams are still not in place, and family members remain anxious that their next call for help could be their last.

In Newark, I'm Joanna Gaddis and Spotlight News.