Part 2 of a series featuring Eliot’s Lynn Calm Team
A new model of community care is changing how the City of Lynn responds to its residents in need.
Since launching in early 2025, the Lynn Calm Team — a partnership between Eliot Community Human Services and the City of Lynn — has been quietly rewriting the script on what a public safety response can look like. No sirens. No uniforms. Just trained, compassionate responders showing up with empathy, language skills, and a deep knowledge of the community they serve.
The seeds of the Calm Team were planted in 2020, when the Lynn Racial Justice Coalition — a network of nonprofits, faith organizations, and community groups — called for a new kind of response in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis, MN. They envisioned something different: an unarmed, community-led team that could stand alongside, not in place of, traditional public safety infrastructure.
That vision found champions in city leadership, and under Mayor Jared Nicholson, the program moved from concept to reality. Eliot, with its deep roots in behavioral health across the North Shore and extensive footprint in Lynn, became the operational home for the team.
How It Works
The Calm model is built around a simple but important distinction: not every call to a dispatcher is a law enforcement or emergency responder matter.
When a resident reaches out for help, calls are triaged through Eliot before they ever reach a responder. Eliot’s intake team screens each call to confirm it is non-emergency, non-urgent, and nonviolent. Only then is a Calm responder dispatched — and they go alone. No police escort. No co-response model. Just a community member trained to listen, de-escalate, and connect.
“We don’t respond with anything or anybody else but ourselves,” says Javier Valdez, the Calm Team Program Manager. “The difference is that we meet people where they are.” Calm fills a different lane — the space between crisis and stability, where what people often need most is someone who will simply hear and advocate for them.
The Work, Up Close
The calls Calm responds to don’t always make headlines. Neighbor disputes. Landlord-tenant conflicts. Residents experiencing homelessness or sleeping outside a business. A tenant without heat. Someone who can’t figure out where to turn for essential needs for their family.
Javier describes a recent call that illustrates the work well. A woman had grown frustrated with her neighbor, who kept leaving notes on her car about a parking space. The friction had escalated — trash bins moved deliberately, tensions mounting. When Calm arrived, they listened to both sides. What they found beneath the conflict was grief: the neighbor leaving the notes had recently lost her husband and was struggling to navigate daily life.
“We just needed to be the middle person,” Javier says. “Let one neighbor know: give her a little time. She’s going through something really hard right now.”
No tickets. No reports. Just resolution — and a little more understanding, shared humanity and connection between neighbors.
De-escalation in Practice
Ask Javier what de-escalation actually looks like in the first sixty seconds of a call, and he doesn’t reach for jargon. He reaches for coffee.
“One of the best things I’ve used when people are a little agitated is: ‘Hey, let’s sit down. Let’s go grab a cup of coffee and just talk things over.'”
The approach is grounded in validation, acknowledging what someone is feeling before trying to identify a potential solution. Javier describes it as peeling back layers: understanding someone’s lived experience, their trauma, their cultural context. Trying to strip all of that away at once doesn’t work. Sitting with someone, and genuinely listening, does.
“When clients see that our approach is very chill, very laid back,” he explains, “the barriers start to fall. The walls come down. And then they trust us and can really hear what we have to say.”
Built for This Community
One of the Calm Team’s quiet strengths is how well it reflects the city it serves.
Lynn is a majority-minority city with large immigrant populations — Spanish-speaking, Arabic-speaking, and others. Three of the four current Calm responders are immigrants themselves. The team carries Arabic, Spanish, and English language capacity, along with a substance use disorder specialist from the City of Lynn. That’s not incidental. It’s the model.
“The community trusts someone who knows they’re not going to ask for their legal status,” Javier says. “We don’t ask for their name if they don’t want to provide it. People feel a lot more comfortable calling because of that.” This intentional stance has become one of Calm’s most meaningful features.
The program has been accepting community calls since June 2025, and the team is candid that they’re still learning and growing. Javier spent his first months mapping Lynn’s nonprofit and community resource landscape — building the network that lets Calm do more than just respond to a moment. When someone needs English classes, help obtaining a GED, after-school activities for their kids, or connections to food and housing support, Calm bridges that gap with humility.
“Lynn is a gem of nonprofits and wonderful organizations,” he says. “And a lot of residents just don’t know about them.”
A Community Advisory Board meets monthly, with Javier presenting every three months to gather feedback from stakeholders, nonprofit directors, and community members. The team is also developing a resident survey to better understand how the program is working — and where it can improve.
What Success Looks Like
In the near term, a good outcome is two neighbors who leave a conversation with better understanding. A tenant who gets their heat fixed. Someone who called feeling overwhelmed and ended the call with a next step, and an advocate to help them access what they need.
A week later, success might look like that same person following through on a referral — showing up to an appointment, returning a call, taking one step toward stability.
Looking further ahead, Javier’s vision for the program is expansive. He imagines a dedicated three-digit number Lynn residents can call. A larger staff. A case manager who can stay with clients over longer periods of time, assisting them in navigating multiple systems. Maybe even a nurse on staff for calls that are non-life-threatening but could use clinical eyes.
“Calm is a reimagining of public safety,” he says. “That’s what I want people to understand.”
For Anyone Who Needs It
If you or someone you know in Lynn is dealing with a conflict, feeling overwhelmed, or just unsure where to turn, the Calm Team wants to hear from you.
“Maybe you’re having a really tough day and you just need someone to talk to,” Javier says. “Maybe you’ve tried to reach an organization and they haven’t called back. Give us a call. We’ll respond with compassion, with empathy, and try to find a solution.”
To reach the Lynn Calm Team, call 781-905-Calm (2256) or email Calm@lynnma.gov.
The Lynn Calm Team is a partnership between Eliot Community Human Services and the City of Lynn.
