Crisis Team Funding at Risk in San Jose

Santa Clara County’s non-police mental health crisis team could lose a major funding stream in November, putting its current model at risk. (sanjosespotlight.com) The program is called TRUST, short for Trusted Response Urgent Support Team. It launched in 2022 with state and Mental Health Services Act money to send behavioral-health workers into low-risk crises without police. (sanjosespotlight.com) (momentumforhealth.org) County leaders told San José Spotlight the state funding that gave TRUST four years to develop expires in November 2026. One option under discussion is billing more of the program’s work to Medi-Cal, but Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has not made that path easy. (sanjosespotlight.com) The stakes are practical, not abstract. TRUST drew more demand than the county’s other crisis-response programs, while the Mobile Crisis Response Team logged 847 calls and the police-linked Psychiatric Emergency Response Team logged 122, according to the same report. (sanjosespotlight.com) TRUST is available 24 hours a day through 988 or a direct line, and its field teams can meet people at home, at work or in public spaces across Santa Clara County. The responders are behavioral-health staff, not police officers. (momentumforhealth.org) That setup has become part of a broader fight in San Jose over who should answer psychiatric emergency calls. On April 17, the American Civil Liberties Union and local advocates pressed the city to expand civilian response and warned they could sue over continued police use in mental-health calls. (mercurynews.com) The funding squeeze is hitting as Santa Clara County’s Behavioral Health Services Department faces a $100 million deficit for fiscal year 2026-27. County officials have tied that shortfall to federal Medi-Cal cuts, state funding changes, the end of one-time COVID-19 aid and rising costs. (sanjosespotlight.com) County Executive James Williams said the county still plans to protect core behavioral-health programs, but supervisors have already been told they will have to scale back services. Supervisor Susan Ellenberg said in February she would rather keep “skeletal programs” than eliminate them outright. (sanjosespotlight.com) San Jose has already put city money into TRUST before. In 2024, officials approved about $450,000 to fund another mobile crisis team for a year, after advocates argued San Jose generated a disproportionate share of county calls. (sanjosespotlight.com) The unresolved question is whether county, state and city officials can replace startup money before November. If they cannot, one of Silicon Valley’s main alternatives to a police-led mental-health response will enter the next budget season on weaker footing. (sanjosespotlight.com)