LANSING (AP) — It’s 7 p.m. on a Thursday night and Jan Bidwell is cautiously walking through ankle-deep snow in a grove of trees in south Lansing.

She’s heading for an area where she knows a man who is homeless has set up camp.

He’s not there.

Bidwell tosses her business card into one of the tents set up in a clearing.

Although the card is emblazoned with the Lansing Police Department’s logo, Bidwell is not a police officer. She’s a social worker embedded within the department, the first of her kind in Michigan, according to the city.

She carries a radio and wears a bulletproof vest embroidered with the words “social worker” instead of the typical “police” label. She’s clearly not a regular social worker, she said, but she’s also clearly not a police officer.

It’s her job to close the gap between police and community services and the people who are mentally ill, homeless or fighting a substance abuse disorder.

“Those are the people no one else ever sees,” Bidwell, 68, told the Lansing State Journal. “They’re the ones who suffer the most…and they’re left on their own for whatever reason.”

For issues that may have been resolved by arrest in the past, Bidwell now helps connect people to needed mental health or substance abuse services, LPD Chief Daryl Green said.

That may mitigate some crimes in the future.

“When it comes down to it, we have people being arrested for issues that spin from homelessness, substance abuse and mental health issues,” Green said. “We know just arresting people and putting them in jail doesn’t solve the problem.”

A study on mental health in Michigan county jails done at Wayne State University found that 54% of individuals booked into the jails reported a substance abuse problem, 45% said they were housing insecure and 34% had some indication of mental illness.

Counties where more mental health treatment was given saw a reduction in recidivism rates, according to the study.

Green is hopeful about Bidwell’s future with the department, and hopes others will follow in the department’s footsteps.

“She’s been able to really establish rapport with a host of different people that us in uniform haven’t been able to,” Green said. “If we can get social workers to develop relationships with people, move them out of the criminal aspects of things and more into the treatment side of things, then it benefits not only the police department, but the entire community.”

It’s something that hasn’t been easy, Bidwell said. Since she was hired in March, Bidwell said she’s found the job is a heavy lift for everyone.

“Nobody sees what the officers see every day,” Bidwell said. “It’s more than what (Community Mental Health) sees, it’s more than what hospitals see, it’s more than what homeless shelters see.”

LaShawn Erby, tri-chair of the Michigan Poor People’s Campaign, an organization that fights against systemic racism and poverty, said Bidwell brings heart to her position. She truly cares about what she does, Erby said.

A social worker herself, Erby said she knows first-hand that many people who call the police don’t need to be arrested.