Launched in November 2025, the Safe City Initiative is a pilot program combining existing city resources with new targeted strategies and measurable performance indicators to address homelessness, substance use, and violent crime.
Between January and early April, Tucson Police made 806 arrests — a 67% increase over the same period across the previous three years. Of those, 106 were drug-related.
Councilmember Nikki Lee said the numbers prove officers are doing “a lot of work.” “They’ve been very responsive to what the community has been concerned about,” she said. (RELATED: Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs Vetoes Wave of Bills)
Three Safe City deployments in February and March offered arrested individuals and those engaged in criminal activity the same menu of services: shelter placement, housing intake, detox, and medication-assisted treatment. The city says the acceptance rate for those services jumped from 10% to 58%.
A city-sanctioned sleeping site that opened in October 2025 has already cut crime in the surrounding area by 35%. A co-responder program pairing officers with licensed clinicians has logged nearly 400 engagements with zero arrests since launching in 2024.
Not everyone is celebrating. Community Care Tucson, a mutual aid group, called the initiative an “agenda of mass arrest and incarceration.” Councilmember Miranda Schubert echoed concerns on social media. “This stat concerns me because as the last 50 years of the failed war on drugs has demonstrated to us, we cannot arrest our way out of a public health problem,” she said.
City goals include increasing deflections to treatment over jail by 20% and reducing gun-related violence in high-incident areas by 50%. A Safe City Dashboard tracking progress is expected by August 2026.
Jefferson Park neighborhood board treasurer Joan Daniels said working with the city has made a real difference, though navigating the shelter system remains daunting. A real-time shelter bed availability dashboard, developed in partnership with Pima County, is expected to launch in late April 2026.
