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AUSTIN (AP) – Thousands of Texans in need are abandoning the state’s suicide hotline mid-call every month as call centers struggle under a $7 million funding deficit and a growing suicide rate statewide.

The 988 number — a federally mandated, state-run service that connects callers to crisis counselors — fills an essential niche in the behavioral health care system because it gives catered mental health services in an emergency where 911 might not be appropriate. The hotline has been used thousands of times in two years, but its federal funding is declining, and with a workforce shortage, the system is starting to bend under the demand.

“To be very clear, we’re doing way more work than we’ve ever been able to do,” said Jennifer Battle, supervisor of the 988 system at the Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD. “If you want us actually to meet the volume of Texas, then somebody’s got to decide to increase the resources that are made available to centers so that we can increase the number of people we serve.”

Since launching in 2022, Texas’ five centers that answer calls to the 988 suicide hotline have received more than 380,000 calls, the second highest call volume in the nation, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness Texas. One-third of them occurred from January to June of this year.

Currently, less than 85% of calls in Texas are answered in-state, with some 200 other centers across the nation serving as backup. Although much improved from the 40% in-state answer rate in 2021, the year before the state’s crisis hotline was integrated into the federally-mandated 988 hotline, Texas’ latest rate falls short of the 90% standard set by the national 988 administrator Vibrant Emotional Health. The more a caller is transferred in and out of state, the more likely he or she will hang up before reaching a crisis counselor. Between January and August, 18,500 calls to Texas’ 988 system were abandoned. In August, the most recent data available through the 988 website, more than 12% — or 2,446 — of received 988 calls in the state were abandoned, tying Texas with Tennessee for the fifth highest rate in the nation.

Across the five Texas call centers, 166 staff members are responsible for responding to 988 calls, texts and chats through the 988 website. In May, this equated to an average of 95 calls per person with most calls lasting about 15 minutes, according to the mental health alliance. To fully implement the text and chat component into the state’s 988, the state would need to at least double the number of crisis counselors across the entire system. It also needs an additional $7 million — the projected cost in 2023 to operate the state’s five call centers was $21 million, but the state only allocated $14 million in fiscal year 2024, according to the mental health alliance.

In 2022, Texas Health and Human Services Commission also recommended more resources for the state’s crisis call centers. In 2023, Texas lawmakers did not address developing the 988 call center capacity.

In the upcoming legislative session that begins Jan. 14, Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, has filed Senate Bill 188, which would create a more reliable and robust funding source for the 988 hotline — a state trust fund, similar to how 911 is helped funded. The 988 trust fund would be supported by a surcharge collected from cellphone bills, allowing call centers to expand capacity, increase counselor pay and ensure that technology like text and chat is always available, Galvan said.

“Nationwide, there are currently 20 states that have already passed some type of legislation related to 988 funding,” Galvan said. “This trust fund aims to put 988 in parity with the 911 funding mechanism and ensure we treat all emergency services the same.”

Florida has 13 call centers handling 988 calls, compared to Texas’ five. These tightened resources are occurring as Texas’ suicide rate has jumped 37% from 2000 to 2022.

“It’s time for Texas to step up and ensure that when a fellow neighbor faces a mental health crisis, help is ready and waiting for them,” Galvan said.

For some people, this simple question starts the most important conversation of their lives.

“‘Are you thinking about suicide today?’ ‘Are you thinking about killing yourself right now?’ That’s a severe question, and it’s possible that we could be the first person ever to ask that question,” said Battle, a social worker who has worked at crisis lines for more than 20 years. “Sometimes you’ll hear people pause or take a breath because they haven’t had the opportunity yet to answer that question honestly and vulnerably. We train what to do during that breath.”

When people call a 988 call center, they first hear an electronic greeting that will give them a series of choices, including for Spanish speakers, veterans, and LGBTQI+ youth. Depending on what callers select, the system could transfer them to an organization that fits their needs, including the Trevor Project and the Veterans Crisis Line.

If callers do not pick any of these options, they are usually transferred to their closest 988 call center and if nobody is available there, they are transferred to another until they reach a crisis counselor, sometimes out of state. It is during these multiple transfers when people often hang up. If a call is connected, crisis counselors ask a series of questions to gauge the risk level of the caller to hurt themselves or others. Counselors must try to be empathetic and nonjudgmental while casually talking the caller through breathing exercises and anti-anxiety measures over the phone.

“Most of our callers have had some thoughts of suicide, off and on, but don’t have a plan or don’t have access to anything that can harm them, but they feel overwhelmed, and sometimes, and some days, it feels like life would be easier if they weren’t here,” Battle said. “This is our moment to enter into a conversation with them.”

More than 80% of the time the caller is not in an active crisis situation, Battle said, but he or she just needs someone to speak with for a few minutes. She said an additional 10% of calls require services like mobile crisis referral and then there are 1% to 2% of calls where law enforcement needs to get involved because the caller or someone else is in imminent danger. Sometimes a call ends without a resolution, which can wear on a crisis counselor, who has to be ready for the next call. Battle remembers picking up the phone at the Houston crisis call center before 988 was created, and what awaited her was a disoriented, suicidal person who was standing on train tracks in an unknown area.

“I had years and years experience, and I was [still] feeling kind of scared and overwhelmed,” Battle said. “I could hear the train, and they were still pretty intent on dying.”

In the span of a few minutes, Battle was able to talk the person off the railroad tracks just as she heard the train whistle by on the phone.

“They were still on the phone. After the call was over and they found them, all I could do was breathe. And then get ready for the next one,” Battle said.

Battle said experiences like this have taught her to ensure that her staff, which experiences high turnover akin to what other behavioral health positions experience statewide, have resources that include being available to conduct debriefs with crisis counselors after calls or to regularly check in with them to see how they are doing. Crisis counselors are also allowed to work from home to help balance stress levels.

“There are all kinds of different things that we do as an agency to try to wrap around our amazing crisis line counselors to try and help with the natural levels of stress that they’re going to feel doing a highly impactful job,” Battle said.

Battle’s center covers 59 Texas counties including those in Houston and Dallas and has a monthly average call volume of 6,000. While the center’s answer rate for calls is 80%, it struggles with text messages — the center could only respond to 335 of the 7,427 texts received in September. The rest were handled by backup call centers.

“The state wants us to meet all these targets, and absolutely, we want to do that. But ultimately, if you’re only funding half of what we need to make it happen, we are still over-performing for what we’ve been provided,” Battle said.
While 911 has been in place for decades, with dedicated funding and trained health care personnel available 24/7, the 988 hotline infrastructure is still in its early stages.

Emergency medical services for other types of health crises are routinely reimbursed by Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance. Still, Texas has not allowed Medicaid to cover crisis intervention services, such as 988. Texas mental health advocacy organizations support adding these services to Medicaid, similar to what 23 other states have done. Due to the lack of Medicaid reimbursement, 988 call centers in Texas rely on federal funding.

The federal government directed nearly $1 billion through the American Rescue Plan to launch the 988 hotline. However, with that money running out this year and until the federal government decides whether they will continue funding 988, states will need to pick up the tab for the call centers. Galvan, the public policy director for the Texas mental health alliance, said without changing the way Medicaid operates in the state, the only option to supplement a potential federal funding decrease for 988 is a trust fund for these call centers. SB 188 provides funding for coordinated crisis services systems, including the 988 hotline, through a 50 cent fee surcharge through telecommunication companies, which often appears on customer’s monthly phone bills.

“There has been clear recognition of the need to have our crisis continuum continue to expand, but we still have much further to go,” Galvan said. “This won’t use the state’s general revenue dollars either. We are creating the best way.”

Ten states have already approved such fees to provide more sustainable funding for local 988 crisis call centers. This helps the centers keep up with rising call volumes and provides other community mental health resources like crisis respite units, which provide short-term crisis services for people at low risk of harming themselves or others.

“It could help us have a long-term solution,” Galvan said.

Despite the challenges and resilience needed to work at a 988 call center, Battle wants to reassure Texans in need that someone will always answer their call — with or without additional funding.

“I never say we save somebody’s life. I always say the person decided to save their own life. Because everybody has the power to make that choice for themselves, but we can be a part of that story,” Battle said. “We can be a part of somebody’s story to decide that they will live.”

Original article published by The Texas Tribune. To read the originally published article, click here.

SAN ANTONIO – Security at Joint Base San Antonio, the largest joint military base in the nation, was heightened Friday as it suspended a program that made it easier for federal employees to enter its installations.

JBSA’s X account posted a notice Friday afternoon stating both personnel and visitors would need to submit to ID checks to enter the base, suspending the Trusted Traveler policy common at military bases. The security restrictions come after two violent, but unrelated, attacks were committed on Jan. 1 within hours of each other by an Army veteran in New Orleans and an active-duty Green Beret in Las Vegas, one of whom was from Texas. The notice from the base did not specify whether the heightened security was related.

In New Orleans, 42-year-old Houston resident Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a rented truck into a crowd early New Year’s Day before shooting at police, killing 14 and injuring dozens before he was killed by officers. The FBI said in a statement it was investigating the attack as an act of terrorism, and that Jabbar had rented the truck in Houston before driving it to New Orleans. Jabbar was a U.S. citizen and served in the Army until 2020.

In Las Vegas, authorities said Master Sgt. Matthew Alan Livelsberger drove a rented Tesla Cybertruck to the front entrance of the Trump Hotel and shot himself before explosives in the vehicle’s truck ignited, injuring seven. Livelsberger suffered from post-traumatic stress, and officials with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department explicitly stated the explosion “was not a terrorist attack” during a press conference Friday.

Prior to the suspension of the Trusted Traveler policy, security was required to verify at least one Department of Defense credential per vehicle during the day, according to the base’s website. The policy still required all passengers’ IDs be checked after 10 p.m. JBSA, which includes Camp Bullis, Fort Sam Houston, Lackland and Randolph Air Force bases, employs over 68,000 direct employees including 22,000 civilian employees and contributes over $51 billion to the state’s economy, according to the Texas Comptroller’s office.

The notice from the base did not specify when the added security checks would be lifted. A representative from the base could not be immediately reached for comment. It was not immediately clear whether other bases in the state were required to suspend the Trusted Traveler policy. At least two other bases outside of Texas suspended its Trusted Traveler policy, as two Space Force installations in Colorado Springs announced they would suspend the program. Livelsberger was from the city, according to authorities.

Story originally published by The Texas Tribune. You can read the original article by clicking here.

DALLAS — Buying or renting a home in Texas used to be relatively cheap. Amid the state’s economic boom, its once-celebrated housing affordability has slipped.

Texas renters now spend more on keeping a roof over their head than ever. As home prices have vastly outpaced incomes, home-ownership has become a distant fantasy for many Texas families.
The state’s high housing costs have caught the attention of state officials — who worry that Texas could lose its competitive edge with other states if it doesn’t get a handle on home prices and rents. Here’s how Texas lawmakers may address housing costs when the Texas Legislature returns to Austin later this month — and how the debate could unfold.

Texas needs about 320,000 more homes than it has, according to a recent estimate by housing policy organization Up For Growth. That deep shortage, housing advocates argue, drove up home prices and rents as the state’s economy boomed and competition increased for a limited supply of homes — even though Texas builds more homes than any other state.State lawmakers must find ways to address that shortage, real estate experts and housing advocates warn, if they want to keep housing costs in check as the state grows.

“Our population is going to continue to increase in the next 30, 40 years,” said Scott Norman, Texas Association of Builders CEO. “All of those people have to live somewhere.”

State lawmakers, backed by a coalition of outside groups that span the political spectrum, will likely look for ways to build more homes and put a dent in the shortage. One avenue they may go down: addressing local regulations that critics say prevent the state from adding enough homes to meet demand.Cities restrict what kinds of homes can be built and where using rules called zoning regulations. Research shows those rules limit how many homes can be built and contribute to higher housing costs— and relaxing them can help cities add more homes and contain housing costs. Texas lawmakers considered ways in 2023 to relax cities’ zoning rules, but those ideas went nowhere. Some are certain to make a comeback.

“The starting point is to make sure that we don’t have obstacles like regulatory issues and local government that are making things worse,” said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston-area Republican.

Lawmakers could make it easier for homeowners to build accessory dwelling units — also known as ADUs, granny flats, mother-in-law suites or casitas — in the backyard of single-family homes, considered a relatively low-cost housing option. Texas House lawmakers shot down a bill during the 2023 regular session that would have overridden any city bans on ADUs or regulations that researchers have found can prevent ADUs from getting built. Out of 11 major Texas cities surveyed by the Tribune, most allowed ADUs but also had rules that hindered development.
State Sen. Bryan Hughes, a Mineola Republican, and state Rep. Cody Vasut, an Angleton Republican, have each filed bills that essentially revive the ADU proposal that died during the last regular session.

Lawmakers also may consider reducing how much land cities require single-family homes to be built on. Those rules, known as minimum lot-size requirements, drive up the final cost of a home by encouraging larger, pricier homes and leaving less land behind to build other homes. The most common minimum lot-size requirements among major Texas cities the Tribune surveyed last year is between 5,000 and 7,500 square feet. Vasut’s bill would also reduce lot-size requirements to 2,500 square feet — though it would only apply to cities with more than 85,000 residents or those that sit in counties with at least 1 million residents.

Whether the Legislature should force cities to reduce their lot-size rules across the board, including in existing neighborhoods, will likely be a major point of discussion. Advocates have said state lawmakers should at least encourage smaller lot sizes in new developments outside of existing neighborhoods. Another idea would allow homes to be built in places that now only allow commercial businesses — a practice not allowed in Texas’ largest cities. And as Texas’ urban areas see high office vacancies, housing advocates are also crafting ways to encourage developers to convert empty office buildings into residences. Both ideas hold some appeal for homeowners who may not welcome other types of housing in their neighborhoods — and will likely put up stiff resistance to any proposal that attempts to allow more housing there.

A likely point of contention is whether statewide changes to boost the housing stock will apply to neighborhoods that only allow single-family homes — and mostly don’t allow other kinds of housing.

Texas cities tend to allow standalone single-family homes to be built nearly anywhere dwellings are allowed. But it’s usually illegal to build denser, cheaper housing — like townhomes, duplexes and smaller apartment buildings — in many of those places.

Proposals to allow more kinds of homes in existing single-family neighborhoods can draw stiff resistance from existing homeowners and neighborhood groups. Doing so, they often argue, will upset their neighborhood’s character.A bill filed by state Rep. Carl Tepper, a Lubbock Republican, seeks to shield predominantly single-family neighborhoods from attempts by cities to allow more housing in those places. The bill is in direct response, Tepper said, to a measure passed by the Austin City Council in 2023 that allows developers to build up to three units in most places where detached single-family homes are allowed. If passed, the bill would reverse the Austin reform and effectively give homeowners across the state greater authority to resist such changes.

“The problem we have is that many of these homeowners put their life savings into these homes with the expectation that they would be single-family neighborhoods,” Tepper said. “I think it’s really an overreach of the cities to allow a major sea change to these neighborhoods that would completely change the face and the intent and the design of those neighborhoods.”

The idea baffled Austin City Council Member José “Chito” Vela, a strong proponent of the three-unit reform. Austin’s high home prices and rents have been a core if not dominant theme in recent city elections — in which the capital city’s voters elected a supermajority of members to enact such reforms.

“There’s just no reason for the Texas Legislature to step in and try to undo any of this,” Vela said.

Proponents of changes to allow more housing hope the severity of the state’s housing crisis will push lawmakers to overcome “not-in-my-backyard” sentiments and enact laws that will meaningfully address the state’s high housing costs.

“I don’t think 1,000 NIMBYs showing up at a hearing [at the Texas Capitol] will get a sympathetic ear,” said Jay Blazek Crossley, executive director of the nonprofit Farm & City, an urban planning advocacy group.

Another likely flashpoint: how much state lawmakers may override cities’ zoning regulations in order to allow more homes to be built.

Republican lawmakers over the last decade have aggressively sapped authority from the state’s bluer urban areas, culminating in a sweeping bill during the 2023 session aimed at preventing cities from enacting progressive policies. Democrats in the Legislature have been on guard against any attempts to further erode cities’ authority — which propelled a majority of House Democrats to lead the charge to defeat the ADUs bill.

Texas Democrats have since shown openness to allowing zoning reform at some level — adopting a party platform this year that calls for rolling back local zoning regulations that get in the way of adding more homes. But it’s unclear to what extent Democrats in the Legislature will embrace those ideas — and skepticism toward state intervention remains.

“If we’re going to try to create a blanket law for the entire state, can we craft something that fits everyone’s needs and fits everyone’s community?” said state Rep. Gene Wu, a Houston Democrat who leads the Texas House Democratic Caucus. “I don’t know the answer to that.”

One reform floated by advocates may please enough people on both sides of the local control argument: making it harder for neighbors to object to new housing.

An obscure state law gives landowners the power to make it harder for cities to move forward with proposed developments near them. If a proposed development requires a rezoning and 20% of neighboring landowners object, the city council needs a supermajority to advance the new building. A group of Austin homeowners deftly wielded the law in recent years to convince a judge to kill a series of changes aimed at allowing more homes to be built.

The law saw renewed attention this year when neighbors near a proposed affordable housing development in San Antonio used the law to help stop the development — which then failed to get enough votes on the City Council to move forward.

That vote has fueled a new push to defang the law, creating unlikely alliances. The Texas Municipal League, an interest group that lobbies on behalf of cities, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the highly influential conservative think tank, are among those who want lawmakers to raise the petition threshold to 50% of neighboring landowners and reduce the required council vote to approve the project as a result of the petition to a simple majority.

Tweaking cities’ zoning rules isn’t a silver bullet for the state’s housing woes, housing advocates and experts caution. And lawmakers will likely look at other ways to reduce housing costs.

After enacting more than $12 billion in property tax cuts in 2023, tax-cut hawks in the Legislature have eyed the state’s projected $21.2 billion surplus to deliver a new round of cuts. The skyrocketing cost of homeowners’ insurance also will likely get lawmakers’ attention.

Lawmakers have also filed proposals aimed at speeding up cities’ building permitting processes so homes can hit the market more quickly.

Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have indicated they’re concerned that so-called institutional investors — or investors and corporations that buy single-family homes to rent them out — may be crowding would-be homebuyers out of the state’s home-buying market.

Institutional homebuyers own a small slice of the country’s overall housing stock, estimates show, though their buying activity noticeably ticked up during the COVID-19 pandemic. Economists and housing experts have shown skepticism that laws curtailing investors’ home purchases would give first-time homebuyers a better shot at finding a home and improve housing affordability.

Texas has a dire shortage of housing affordable for the state’s poorest families — and the state spends little on housing for low-income families, housing advocates note. That’s unlikely to change in the GOP-dominated Legislature, they acknowledge, even with the state surplus.

Still, state Sen. Nathan Johnson and state Sen. Royce West, both Dallas Democrats, have each filed bills intended to encourage the construction of housing specifically for poorer families. Another West bill would require many cities and counties to identify land they own that could be suitable for affordable housing development.

Article originally published by The Texas Tribune. You can read the original article by clicking here.