New Hotline Hopes to Divert Calls from the Police

<p>Relationships Evolving Possibilities (REP) is an abolitionist group that runs a crisis hotline which responds to non-violent emergencies such as neighbor complaints or welfare checks. </p><p>--</p><p>Tiffany Bui reports:</p><p><br></p><p>It was a summer night when Rivianna Zeller and their team got a call from the hotline from the dispatch center in Minneapolis.</p><p><br></p><p>The caller said their neighbors across the street had been evicted from their home multiple times, and were now squatting in the house. The Hennepin County Sheriff's office wouldn’t do anything about it, so could they respond?</p><p><br></p><p>Zeller is a volunteer with <a href="https://www.repformn.org/">Relationships Evolving Possibilities</a>, an abolitionist group that runs a crisis hotline which responds to  non-violent emergencies, like neighbor complaints or welfare checks. <a href="https://twitter.com/REPforMN/status/1453434734361649157?s=20">The hotline operates twice a week, from 7 p.m. until 12 a.m. </a>Volunteers carry first aid kits, snacks, condoms and even cigarettes, which they offer to people when situations are especially tense. </p><p><br></p><p>In this case, Zeller was surprised; the caller didn’t consider themself an abolitionist at all.</p><p><br></p><p>“That was really exciting, honestly, to be like: “People are trying other things,” they said.</p><p>“I was just really  glad that they called us and that we got to go check on these neighbors … rather than the sheriff or the cops showing up and kicking them out of their house again.”</p><p><br></p><p>Though Zeller’s team was not able to talk to the people squatting, they did what they came to do: to offer help with consent and without force. </p><p><br></p><p>“A lot of people call us because they just want someone to listen,” Zeller said.</p><p><br></p><p>REP was formed during the summer of 2020 at the height of protests by a group of activists working in mutual aid. Their central tenant is “Black love and liberation.” Roxanne Anderson, a core member of RE