Crisis counselors are being hailed as police alternatives. It’s too heavy a burden, some say.

Manuel Calero was looking through patient files when his shift partner knocked on the desk divider and handed him a notepad. With the phone still squeezed between her ear and her shoulder, Mary Brough nodded in a way that, Calero knew, meant they would be heading out shortly. He scanned the scribbled notes — a woman calling about her 21-year-old son with bipolar disorder who had recently checked himself out of the hospital and was now home, emptying bags of trash in the living room.