Some Local Mental Health Crisis Calls To 988 Are Being Routed Outside LA County — And That’s A Problem

It’s no surprise to Angelenos that many people who move here keep their cell phone numbers with out-of-county or even out-of-state area codes.

It turns out that’s causing headaches for 988, the national suicide and mental health crisis lifeline.

Right now, calls to the national lifeline get routed to call centers based on area code. So if you live in L.A. but kept that New York number, you could end up talking with a counselor across the country.

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That may be fine if you need someone to talk with or help getting resources.

But if you or a loved one needs an in-person response from trained mental health professionals, you’ll have to go through an L.A. County call center.

988 is supposed to be more than just a new number to call for mental health crises. It’s ultimately a rethinking of how we respond to psychiatric emergencies, with someone to call, someone to physically respond and somewhere to go.

Kyla Coates, justice and mental health deputy for Supervisor Janice Hahn, told LAist the out-of-county call routing is a “huge” issue.

“We don’t want people being confused because they call 988 and get routed to a different call center and are told ‘this isn’t L.A. County, we don’t do mobile crisis response teams,’” Coates said.

'Georouting' vs. 'Geolocation'

In August, county supervisors voted to support newly introduced federal legislation from Congressman Tony Cárdenas, which would require cell phone carriers to start what’s known as “georouting 988” calls to the nearest center based on the person’s location rather than area code.

The county letter supporting the measure (H.R. 4974) points out that the proposed georouting method is different from the “geolocation” technology that 911 call centers use “because it would not identify someone’s exact location but would route their phone call to the nearest call center.”

The county said some 15% of calls made annually to the Department of Mental Health’s help line are from out-of-county area codes, which could be similar for 988.