Mental health support centers are reeling from California budget cuts, with layoffs expected

Phone lines that provide mental health support to tens of thousands of Californians say they are on the verge of shutting down or dramatically scaling back as a result of cuts in the state’s new budget. 

Representatives from the support lines, which are distinct from hotlines that serve people in crisis, say they help thousands of Californians with mental health needs each month.

And with more people than ever calling or texting for help, they say, the so-called warm lines are falling victim to both the budget shortfall and, in some cases, the roll out of Proposition 1, a 2024 ballot measure that redirected some tax revenue from mental health services toward housing.

“We save lives every day,” said Dr. Lisa Pion-Berlin, chief executive of Parents Anonymous, whose California Parents & Youth Helpline serves about 24,000 people a year. “Without that safety net there, where are people going to go?”

Pion-Berlin said the organization had requested $3 million a year from the state; the budget Gov. Gavin Newsom signed last week didn’t provide any of it. Layoffs have already begun.

The landscape of state-funded mental health services has been shifting in California. In 2022, the state rolled out 988, a free mental health crisis line that has a dedicated funding stream and is not dependent on the state general fund. Then, last year, the state launched free mental health apps for youth and families through private companies Soluna and Brightline. 

But organizations that operate the phone support lines argue their services are different, and critical, in a state still reeling from the effects of the pandemic, the Los Angeles fires and a political climate targeting transgender people and immigrants. 

Antonia Rios, a mother of seven in Pomona, said she reaches out to the Parents’ Anonymous Helpline between four and seven times a week. Rios lives with anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, addiction and PTSD from years of trauma and abuse in the foster care system. Prior to finding the helpline, she said, she often felt judged or cut short when she tried calling other places.

“The helpline was a safe haven for me,” she said. “It saved my life on many occasions.”

The helpline has also provided her friends and family with life-saving support on many occasions, she said.  “It breaks my heart they want to cut it.”

The San Francisco Peer Run Warm Line, which serves people all over the state, managed to hold onto $5 million this budget year. That still marks a significant drop from the $10 million a year they received previously and the $15 million they had requested. 

H.D. Palmer, the Department of Finance spokesperson, said that because the previous funding was one-time and due to sunset last month, there is technically no reduction in funding for the support line.

Meanwhile, the support line’s numbers have been spiking in recent months. This spring, they received about 40,000 calls a month; with their new, smaller budget, they anticipate connecting with the same number of people in an entire year.

Mark Salazar, chief executive of the nonprofit that operates the support line, said the group also runs a Spanish-speaking line that will now need to be shut down. 

In addition, it provides infrastructure support, training and technical assistance to a variety of other warm lines serving Chinese, Ukrainian, Russian and Black communities. The San Francisco Peer Run Warm Line is also the exclusive operator of a statewide service that Gov. Newsom has promoted, called CalHOPE, which targets young people and families on digital platforms. 

“With the budget cuts we’re not sure where these folks are going to go, honestly,” he said.

Amy Durham, chief executive of the Orange County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said her warm line fields 900 calls a day and provides support to the sheriff’s department and local hospitals. 

She now has to lay off 127 people, many of them former warm line callers who never worked in the past and were now thriving as peer counselors.

She said she’s trying to rally donors to help keep some semblance of a warm line operating, even if hours would be scaled back.

“Now we’re going to wait until everyone’s in crisis,” she said. “I can’t imagine it’s cost effective or humane.”