$2.5 million is budgeted for the operation of the team, which is the city’s latest attempt to address its mental health crisis.
The Human Services Commission received an update on West Hollywood’s brand new behavioral health crisis response program, a.k.a. the Care Team, at their meeting Tuesday night.
The Care Team will provide around-the-clock behavioral health crisis response services, including on holidays. It will serve as the mobile responder for individuals who call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Hotline and need in-person support within the city limits. The program will complement the city’s existing investments in contracted social service partners and services provided by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, LA County Fire Department, and Block by Block Security Ambassadors.
This collaboration is the first city-county partnership of its kind.
The main contact for community members in crisis will be the 988 Suicide & Crisis Help Line, funded by DMH and operated by Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services. If phone counseling is insufficient, in-person services will be dispatched, with the West Hollywood Care Team being the primary responder within city limits. The Care Team will connect individuals to ongoing supportive services and, if necessary, transfer them to DMH’s mobile crisis evaluation team.
The Care Team’s funding comes from the West Hollywood General Fund, with efforts underway to secure external funding. The integration with LA County’s services is an attempt to ensure community members have access to a wide range of mental health resources without inflating the program’s budget.
The program was approved on June 26, 2023, and is a collaboration with Hathaway-Sycamores, with a total cost of $2,586,836 for the FY 24 budget.
The agreement includes $2,186,836 for the Year One contract with Sycamores, an additional $400,000 for communications and professional services support, and an option to renew for two more years. The total not-to-exceed amount of the agreement is $7,737,021. It also includes funding for one-time start-up expenses to purchase necessary vehicles and equipment.
Hathaway-Sycamores is an organization that has been serving Southern California since 1902, focusing on the well-being of underserved populations. They provide support to nearly 17,000 vulnerable children, youth, and families in underserved communities through various programs, services, and support initiatives.
How about addressing the methhead living in the stairwell of the parking structure? Its bad enough that the elevator was broken all week, but tge you had to step over the methhead
Last year the 988 program in the entire state had 280,000 calls. Doing basic math, that in a state with a population of 40 million people means about 1 in 140 people called the number, so in a town a 35,000 people, we’ll average around 250 people calls a year or less than 5 a week. With a budget of $2.5 million a year that’s a cost of over 10,000 dollars a call. The state or county can’t handle an extra 5 calls a week from WeHo? What a joke. Yes I know this program is also supposed to offer… Read more »
What this report fails to mention is that the tortured and abused boy was, indeed, tortured and abused because his mother and her boyfriend perceived the boy as gay, and the torture and abuse were retaliation for his perceived being gay. In the city of West Hollywood, that kind of thing needs to be brought out because of its broader implications on LGBT social justice issues. Further, if the city of West Hollywood is contracting with the same agency that turned a blind eye to such outrageous and egregious child abuse situations, it shows that they are collectively incompetent and… Read more »
Thanks you for your insights. This is so troubling, we need to learn from this. Rest In Peace Anthony
The first person who should call the caregiver team is Sepi Shine. She belongs in a mental hospital along with John Erickson.
Exactly. She might not be a danger to herself, with all of her self-serving, politically climbing, self indulgent activity, but she’s certainly a danger to others, meaning any constituent that she supposedly “represents“. Nearly all of the current city Council members are using and abusing the citizens of the city of West Hollywood as pawns and puppets for their own singular individual avaricious ambitions, with absolutely zero interest in being of service for the public good. Let the people of the city of West Hollywood learn a lesson that they need to elect more competent, and just plain more selfless,… Read more »