The Brief

On an early spring evening in Glendale, a 37-year-old woman is withdrawn and weak from refusing food and water for several days. Her mother calls for help. She tells a crisis counselor her daughter has been hearing voices, and has expressed needing to “kill” those voices. She will not go to a doctor.

That’s when James Gonzalez and Katerina Cabello pull up. They’re in casual clothes – khakis and jeans, paired with sweatshirts. They sound no sirens in an unmarked white minivan.

Gonzalez and Cabello are one of 75 mobile crisis response teams Los Angeles County runs around the clock. Licensed and trained as first responders for behavioral health crises, these teams of two respond – in person, with backpacks and clipboards – to calls from 988, the crisis lifeline, or the county’s mental health helpline. Gonzalez and Cabello work for Sycamores, a nonprofit agency that contracts with the county.

Across California, demand for these teams — an alternative to badges and sirens for people in their darkest moments — is surging. But just as they’re proving their worth, federal funding that supercharged their growth is set to end. Lacking that boost, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget blueprint proposes changing the service from a required benefit to an optional one, meaning the state does not have to cover the funding gap.

Counties that choose to keep this service will have to pay for it themselves at a price tag of $150 million to $200 million a year. Where counties cannot afford it, crisis teams could decrease or disappear entirely, if the Legislature approves the governor’s budget proposal.

A boost in mobile crisis services

Convincing a person in crisis to accept help is a skill. You have minutes, sometimes less, to earn trust.

When Gonzalez walks into the living room of a client in crisis, he’ll quickly scan the room, looking for family photos, religious artifacts, trophies, anything that can help him connect. He has seen people in various stages of vulnerability: a woman who feels the world on her shoulders after leaving an abusive relationship; a teenage boy feeling so much anger he attacks his father.

Knowing when to be gentle and when to be stern is a skill, too. After more than an hour in Glendale, Gonzalez and Cabello got their client to drink some water and convinced her to go to a nearby hospital for IV fluids – once there she finally agreed to a psychiatric evaluation.

“Mental health can be kind of cruel,” Gonzalez said. “I've dealt with it as a parent. I don't want our consumers to feel that. I want them to feel like we actually did something for them.”

Two days later, he and Cabello followed up on the Glendale call. The adult daughter did not meet the criteria to be placed on a psychiatric hold, but after the team shared treatment options and resources, the mother reported that she was eating and doing better.

From left, peer support specialist Katerina Cabello and clinician James Gonzalez with Sycamores’ mobile crisis outreach team in Altadena on April 27, 2026.

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Jules Hotz

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When in-person help is necessary, teams meet people where they are – homes, schools, and workplaces – and serve everyone regardless of income or insurance status. Though the program started as a Medi-Cal benefit for low-income residents, teams also respond to the uninsured and those with private insurance – counties can bill private insurers for behavioral health emergencies.

In 2023, California made mobile crisis response a statewide benefit when a federal law offered a financial incentive to do so: the federal government would temporarily cover 85% of the costs, up from the usual 50%. At the time, people with mental health and substance use disorder made up one-fifth of all emergency department visits in California – a pressure point the state said mobile behavioral health teams could help address.

Mental health advocates and counties knew the extra federal money was temporary. What caught them off guard is what came next: Rather than cover the gap when the enhanced rate fell, the state plans to make the service optional, funding it only through March 2027 before shifting the burden to counties. “It did come as a surprise to us that this program was on the chopping block given kind of unanimous support,” said Tara Gamboa-Eastman, director of Government Affairs at the Steinberg Institute.

Katerina Cabello and James Gonzalez review the details of a call from the Los Angeles County dispatch in Altadena on April 27, 2026. The pair review the information, begin paperwork and confirm whether a crisis response is needed.

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Jules Hotz

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CatchLight/CalMatters

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Gonzalez and Cabello drive towards the location of a crisis call in the Los Angeles area on April 27, 2026. This particular call is approximately a 30-minute drive, but the team can get sent anywhere in the Los Angeles County area.

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Jules Hotz

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CatchLight/CalMatters

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State officials say the timing is unavoidable. The expiration of the enhanced federal match coincides with a projected state budget shortfall of nearly $3 billion for the upcoming fiscal year, and $22 billion the following year.

“The Administration has proposed redesigning this as an optional benefit, to be offered at counties’ discretion, as the most sustainable path for the program going forward,” said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the California Department of Finance.

State lawmakers who support preserving this service challenged the department in a recent hearing. “We've invested so much money into creating and uplifting an infrastructure to not fully continue with it,” Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a San Fernando Democrat said. “Is that a waste of our money?”

Counties weighing options

In San Joaquin County, when a young woman was in mental distress because she couldn’t afford her rent, the local crisis team visited her multiple times to stabilize her. They also helped her find affordable housing. “No other team can be as persistent as a mobile crisis team,” said Fay Vieira, San Joaquin County’s behavioral health services director.

The funding changes could force San Joaquin to revert to fewer teams available only from 8 a.m to 5 p.m. Her biggest concern is losing credibility with a community the county has spent the last two years courting.

“We made vehicle purchases and put money into advertising,” Vieira said. “You can tell from our referral numbers that people are using this.” Crisis calls in the county have increased 15% this year compared to last, she said.

In Monterey County, the story is similar. The county started limited mobile crisis services in 2015 but struggled to grow them until the federal boost. “We had been trying to look at expanding for years because we saw the value,” said Melanie Rhodes, the county’s behavioral health director. “We saw the people we were helping.” Without continued funding, she said, the county could be forced to scale back.

Rural San Benito County rolled out its mobile crisis program just last year – it took officials there months to find an outside provider who could come in and offer the service. The program there is just starting to gain steam.

“We know that we cannot afford it without the federal dollars,” said Rachel White, San Benito County’s behavioral health director.

The pressure is hitting counties that are already absorbing other rising healthcare costs. Starting in July, counties will have to direct a third of their mental health budget toward housing chronically homeless people. In the coming year, they will also have to restart health programs for people who will lose their Medi-Cal coverage under rules related to the federal spending law President Trump signed in 2025.

Even for the state’s biggest county this is a pinch. Since the state mandate took effect just over two years ago, Los Angeles County has doubled its mobile crisis teams.

Officials at the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health said they do not know yet if they’ll have to make cuts, but having to absorb the additional costs will stifle their plans to expand and better meet demand.

“It's definitely going to hurt,” said Reuben Wilson, head of alternative crisis response at Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. “We've been trying to reduce our response time so we can get there quicker; law enforcement becomes more and more reliant on us. We're really in a growth period, and it seems really premature to be pulling the support.”

A promising alternative for help

National research has shown that behavioral health professionals responding without police – like county crisis teams – do a better job than law enforcement of keeping people out of emergency rooms and connecting them to mental health care.

“Involving clinical teams in the community can prevent expensive emergency department care and get people connected to mental healthcare after the crisis incident is resolved,” one small-scale study of crisis response teams in Michigan found. A separate California analysis found that alternative crisis response programs reduced the number of unnecessary psychiatric holds.

A bulletin board with staff photos hangs in the office of Sycamores’ mobile crisis outreach team in Altadena on April 27, 2026.

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Jules Hotz

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CatchLight/CalMatters

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California’s own data is incomplete. Since January 2024 the Department of Health Care Services has approved more than 73,000 claims for in-person mobile crisis encounters through Medi-Cal alone – and because of typical claims lag, actual use is likely higher. Counties collect volume and some demographics data, but no statewide analysis of outcomes exists. That won't be possible until the state begins collecting results data, something expected to start later this year.

As counties await the Governor’s final budget, the calls keep coming in.

Gonzalez and Cabello had not heard of the proposed funding change. They’re not sure what it would mean for Sycamores, or teams like theirs. What they do know is that people are hurting.

At one recent call, Gonzalez and Cabello found a dad and uncle restraining a 19-year-old man who had been experiencing outbursts of rage. Police responded first, but couldn’t resolve it. The situation called for help like Gonzalez and Cabello. They talked the young man down.

“Dad called and thanked us,” Gonzalez said. “He said no one has been able to help him like that.”

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Southern California was built on radio.

"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote  Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”

Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.

The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.

Radio, a daily ritual

The construction of KNX

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Herman J. Schultheis

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Michael Jackson, a well-known KNX, personality

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.

“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”

Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:

A love for radio, then and now  

A pilot of KMPC's traffic alert helicopter pictured with his daughter and grandson.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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A 1963 picture of Valley State College (now Los Angeles Valley College) preparing to launch KVCM

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Larry Leach

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Los Angeles Public Library

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“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said  Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.

 Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”

 Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."

"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said  Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."

"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations —  Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said  Carrie in Desert Edge.

“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”

The question remains…

An 11-year-old winning a car in a KMPC contest in 1963.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.

As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.

Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…

“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.

After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.

According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.

The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.

Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.

"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.

But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.

But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.

" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.

The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.