A Mobile Crisis Response Team offers 24-hour, non-police response to mental health crises in Santa Cruz County. (County of Santa Cruz)
SANTA CRUZ >> Nearly a decade after two Santa Cruz County residents were killed by law enforcement officers during separate mental health crises, a Mobile Crisis Response Team now offers 24-hour, non-police response to mental health problems by calling 1-800-952-2335.
The team’s hours were ramped up in recent months, and 24-hour service started Dec. 7.
Advocates said the non-police response is important in part because roughly 1 in 4 deaths during law enforcement responses in the U.S. involve people who suffer from severe mental illness, according to a 2023 study. A goal of the Mobile Crisis Response Team is to reduce police response to mental health crises, and another aim is to reduce unnecessary emergency room visits and hospitalizations by providing mental health care in homes, parks and other places.
“It could potentially be a game changer, and it has been in communities that have been doing it a lot longer,” said Bill McCabe, CEO of the Family Service Agency of the Central Coast. The agency has partnered with Santa Cruz County behavioral health staff on the project. McCabe said it was crucial to get the word out about the service.
Many Santa Cruz County law enforcement leaders also have been supportive, in part because police officers have limited training in mental health response and have other work to do.
“We’re happy the program is launched, and hopefully it’s helpful for those in our community who need those sorts of services,” Santa Cruz Police Chief Bernie Escalante said this week.
Escalante said there are often mental health-related 911 calls that get a response from three firefighters, a police officer and two paramedics — when maybe it just needs trained civilians.
There are times when you see people who are in a great deal of pain, and their problems seem so overwhelming in the moment. Just being with them and listening to them and holding their story for a while, it’s amazing how sometimes in certain circumstances that connection can help that person turn a corner.
—James Russell, director of access and crisis services at Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency
The Mobile Crisis Response Team has responded to more calls in recent months.
- October: 68 daytime responses.
- November: 59 daytime responses.
- December: 90 daytime responses.
- January: 97 daytime responses.
The separate evening shift is averaging about 15 calls per month, said James Russell, director of access and crisis services at the county’s Health Services Agency, and only one call has come in so far overnight.
Russell partly attributed the lack of overnight calls to the weather because some clients are homeless. “When it hits nighttime, people are hunkering down right now because it’s freezing,” he said.
How it works
Santa Cruz County already had two non-law enforcement teams that responded to mental health crises: The Mobile Emergency Response Team (MERT) and the Mobile Emergency Response Team for Youth (MERTY). They are now folded into the 24-hour Mobile Crisis Response Team.
When a person calls 1-800-952-2335, an operator in English or Spanish will gather information and assess the situation, and may also provide de-escalation tips. If needed, a Mobile Crisis Response Team of at least two family therapists, social workers or behavioral interventionists will then be dispatched in a car or van to the site. They can respond to homes, businesses, streets and many other places.
“You want to approach it that this is a unique person with a unique set of circumstances,” Russell said. “There are times when you see people who are in a great deal of pain, and their problems seem so overwhelming in the moment,” Russell said. “Just being with them and listening to them and holding their story for a while, it’s amazing how sometimes in certain circumstances that connection can help that person turn a corner.”
A licensed family therapist who sometimes participates in mobile crisis interventions, Russell said that in addition to connecting people to mental health and other community services, it can be helpful to let them vent and to find something that gives them hope.
Call takers for Santa Cruz County’s Mobile Crisis Response Team are trained to diffuse and direct callers to mental health resources and responses. (County of Santa Cruz)
Santa Cruz County behavioral health staff respond to calls 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the Family Service Agency of the Central Coast responds at all other hours. “It’s basically both of us doing the same thing under the same umbrella,” McCabe said. They have the same training protocol, he said.
Calls to the national Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 and calls to 911 may also be re-routed to the Mobile Crisis Response Team through dispatchers, though the criteria and guidelines for doing so are still being worked out, McCabe said.
The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline also has a text message service.
Though responders have the authority to take people against their will to the Telecare psychiatric health facility on Soquel Avenue, Russell said “ideally we’d like someone to go to that voluntarily.”
Russell said the mobile teams will go to peoples’ homes, parks and other locations unless they’re deemed unsafe for responders. If someone is holding a weapon, for example, they would receive help over the phone. Law enforcement can be called in some cases.
Police and mental crisis response
Some Santa Cruz County mental health advocates have pushed for 24-hour non-law enforcement responses to mental health crises since 2016. That year, 32-year-old Sean Arlt on the Westside of Santa Cruz and a 15-year-old boy in Corralitos were shot to death by law enforcement during separate mental health crises.
Sean’s father, Jeffrey Arlt, has joined other activists since then in asking for 24-hour non-police response.
Police are trained to deal with crime, Arlt said. “To burden them with also having to understand human psychology and to recognize mental health crises, the word ‘unfair’ doesn’t quite capture it,” Arlt said this month. “It’s disrespectful to the officers, actually.”
The risk of being killed during a police interaction is 16 times greater for people with untreated mental illness than for other civilians approached or stopped by officers, according to a report from the Treatment Advocacy Center.
Arlt and others credit a long-running Eugene, Ore. mobile crisis intervention service for inspiring other cities around the nation to adopt similar programs. Momentum for a Santa Cruz version grew in 2020 during calls for national police reform.
In 2021, Congress adopted the American Rescue Plan Act, which allowed for mobile crisis intervention services to be covered by Medicaid — and by extension California’s Medi-Cal.
Mobile crisis services must be available at all hours to claim Medi-Cal reimbursement. This aligns with best practices put forth by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, which says crisis services are for anyone, anywhere and anytime.
Mental health services are available in person 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday at county behavioral health offices at 1400 Emeline Ave., Santa Cruz, and 1430 Freedom Blvd., Watsonville. (County of Santa Cruz)
In June 2023, Santa Cruz County supervisors approved 24-hour mobile mental health crisis services, paid for with about $5.2 million in state and federal money across three years. Police chiefs in Santa Cruz, Capitola, Watsonville and Scotts Valley had all backed the idea, according to a 2021 report from the county’s Criminal Justice Council. The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office was neutral.
“It’s essential to ensure that the service is available whenever needed,” Rodger Butler, a spokesperson for the California Health and Human Services Agency, wrote in an email. He added that mobile teams can “divert individuals in crisis from inappropriate systems, and effectively link [them] to ongoing services and supports.”
Arlt said he was grateful for the new Mobile Crisis Response Team. He said that if his son were alive today, he would have become part of the behavioral health services system, not the criminal justice system.
McCabe said having a 1-800 number could potentially limit the number of calls. “988 is much easier to say and remember,” McCabe said. However, state Medi-Cal regulations require that mobile crisis intervention services maintain a separate toll-free number. “The hope is to get rid of that down the road because it’s cumbersome,” McCabe said.
In addition to calling 1-800-952-2335, those seeking help for a mental health or substance use crisis can show up in person from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday at county behavioral health offices at 1400 Emeline Ave. in Santa Cruz or 1430 Freedom Blvd. in Watsonville.
What do you think?
Read more:
- Mental-health crisis care gets overhaul in Santa Cruz County — June 29, 2023
- Expansion of mobile mental-health services lags in Santa Cruz County — Aug. 12, 2022
- Podcast Ep. 81: Reducing harm in Santa Cruz County law enforcement — July 15, 2020
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Jesse Greenspan is a freelance journalist who writes about history, science and the environment. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Scientific American, Audubon and other publications.
