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Restoring Safety, Order, and Compassion in Pima County

OUR ongoing 3 Year Journey of Advocating and Educating

A Comprehensive Framework of Treatment, Enforcement, and Accountability (2022–2025)

TCFC Priority Solutions

Since our inception in 2022 we have created and advocated for these clear, actionable Steps the City and County Must Take Immediately

1. Enforce the Laws and Ordinances Already on the Books

Tucson does not need new laws — it needs to enforce existing ones.
Public safety collapses when laws are optional. Consistent enforcement in parks, washes, transit corridors, and neighborhoods is essential to reducing crime and restoring order. 

Public safety must be adequately funded rather than being a budget line item that is consistently reduced.

2. Fully Fund and Expand the Transition Center into a 24/7 Model

The Transition Center must become the central hub for stabilization, treatment navigation, and coordinated service delivery.
A 24/7 model ensures people are not released back to the street at night and connects individuals to detox, mental-health services, case management, and court-ordered treatment.

3. Restore Safety to Buses and Bus Stops — THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT SOLUTION

The city’s transit system has become the primary engine spreading fentanyl, crime, and victimization throughout Tucson.

Free fares and no enforcement turned buses into mobile encampments and drug-consumption sites as well as distribution hubs.

TCFC calls for immediate action:

• Re-implement bus fares and require passes
• Subsidize low-income riders so those who truly rely on the system are not burdened
• Add transit police (not “just for show” security) on buses, at stops, and major transit centers
• Use the bus pass as a treatment access point by having nonprofits become distribution hubs, connecting riders to detox, mental-health care, and services
• Hold repeat offenders accountable by revoking passes when necessary

If the City of Tucson will not, at minimum, restore transit safety, they are not truly committed to reducing drug-related harm in this community.

4. End the Tiered Encampment Protocol & End Deflection

The current protocol sanctions encampments, delays enforcement, and creates major crime spikes in surrounding neighborhoods.
TCFC calls for:

• Eliminating tier classifications
• Consistent enforcement in all public spaces, ending encampments and the need for sweeps
• No more “deflection to nowhere”
• Ensuring the Pima County Attorney prosecutes possession charges, eliminating the revolving-door dynamic
• The City of Tucson must stop enabling chronic homelessness, ending the practice of distributing tents, tarps, sleeping bags and other items that allow people to live on the streets

5. Pass SB 1257 — Make Pima County the Pilot Site for a 5-Day Stabilization Model. TCFC has worked on this bill for the last two legislative cycles. 

TCFC supports state legislation enabling a 5-Day Stabilization window at the Crisis Response Center (CRC) for individuals in acute crisis.
This creates meaningful time for:

• Detox,
• Mental-health evaluation,
• Treatment planning, and
• Safe handoff into longer-term services.

Pima County has volunteered to be the state pilot site.

6. Create the Fentanyl / Opioid Command Center

To reduce duplication and increase efficiency, TCFC calls for a multi-jurisdictional Command Center that brings together:

• County & City leadership
• Law enforcement
• Public health
• Treatment providers
• 911/988 integration
• Data tracking
• Overdose surveillance
• Settlement fund alignment

This improves communication, eliminates silos, and ensures that all agencies work together rather than duplicating efforts.

I. Opening Philosophy: The Three Pillars

The Tucson Crime Free Coalition (TCFC) was founded in September 2022 during a period of rapidly escalating fentanyl overdoses, chronic repeat criminal activity, untreated mental illness, neighborhood decline, and visible disorder across Tucson and Pima County.

From the outset, TCFC worked closely with then-Chair Sharon Bronson, Supervisor Steve Christy, Supervisor Scott, and county administration.
TCFC also met extensively with law enforcement, justice-system partners, judges, public defenders, nonprofit agencies, and most importantly, the individuals living in encampments, navigating addiction, or relying on public transportation.

Our leadership has spent hundreds of hours directly inside the encampments, on the streets, on buses, and at transit centers, navigating people into services and seeing firsthand the failures, and opportunities, across the entire continuum.

This real-world perspective, paired with extensive conversations with residents and businesses, gives TCFC a uniquely comprehensive understanding of the crisis and its solutions.

From day one, TCFC organized its work around a clear, humane, and effective framework: The Three Pillars.

THE THREE PILLARS

1. Treatment for Those Who Are Receptive

People suffering from Substance Use Disorder (SUD), Serious Mental Illness (SMI), and chronic homelessness deserve immediate access to stabilization, detox, long-term care, and recovery services.
No willing individual should be turned away, delayed, or lost in a fragmented bureaucracy.

2. Enforcement of Laws and Public Safety

A functioning community requires consistent enforcement of laws.
Parks, washes, transit corridors, and neighborhoods must be safe and orderly.
Law enforcement must be empowered to do its job without political interference or systems that enable chronic lawlessness.

3. Accountability for Those Who Refuse Services

Help must always be offered first.
However, when individuals repeatedly refuse services while engaging in dangerous or criminal behavior, meaningful consequences are necessary — both for the individual’s safety and the community’s stability.

This balanced philosophy — Treatment, Enforcement, Accountability — underpins every TCFC solution.