Despite its many achievements, the Freedom House Ambulance Service was shut down in 1975. According to Atavist Magazine, Mayor Flaherty had already announced a plan a year earlier to train police officers into being paramedics, with the implication being that Freedom House wouldn't be funded once that existed.

In October 1975, the funding for Freedom House Ambulance Service was officially stopped. The City of Pittsburgh established its own paramedic system and although Dr. Nancy Caroline made the city agree to hire the Freedom House EMTs, the city soon found ways to get rid of all of them. EMS World reports that the Freedom House EMTs were subjected to new tests, sometimes on a weekly basis, on completely new material. Those who failed were fired, as were those with criminal records. Some were re-assigned, though typically to non-medical jobs. Some also quit in response when white coworkers with no experience were promoted over them. As a result, 99 Percent Invisible writes that up through the 1990s, 98% of the people working at the Pittsburgh EMS were white.

Unfortunately, after the Freedom House Ambulance Service was disbanded, Dr. Peter Safer focused his attention on national EMS standards rather than continuing to prioritize community-based care. According to The New England Journal of Medicine, this prioritization "set the tone for subsequent national structuring of police and emergency response systems, which relegated these functions to mostly White male professionals from outside the communities they serve."

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