Thousands of calls are being abandoned as Texas’s suicide hotline faces a $7 million funding deficit, according to a new report from The Texas Tribune.
From January to August, 18,500 calls to the state’s 988 suicide hotline were abandoned by callers, according to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. That’s an average of more than 2,300 abandoned calls each month.
Abandoned calls happen when a caller hangs up before reaching a crisis counselor. Texas’s hotline currently relies on several out-of-state centers to answer the calls they can’t get to — and the more a caller is transferred in and out of state, the more likely they are to abandon the call, the Tribune reports.
The hotline provides an essential service to people experiencing thoughts of suicide and mental health crises in Texas. However, the state’s 988 system has nowhere near enough funding, hotline employees and mental health advocates told the Tribune.
“To be very clear, we’re doing way more work than we’ve ever been able to do,” Jennifer Battle, supervisor of the 988 system at the Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD, told the Tribune. “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.”
The state’s hotline, which has five centers, needs double the number of crisis counselors as well as an additional $7 million to operate at full capacity and reduce the rate of abandoned calls, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness Texas.
In comparison, Florida — which is home to roughly 700,000 fewer people — has thirteen centers for their 988 hotline, while New York has fifteen. However, Texas’s 988 hotline is the second-busiest in the nation, receiving more than 380,000 calls since launching in 2022.
Many advocates are calling on Texas lawmakers to support Senate Bill 188, which would create a state trust fund for the hotline, the Tribune reports.
The state’s hotline will continue to do its essential work and answer calls from everyone – regardless of whether they get the funding they need, Battle said.
“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 told the Tribune. “We can be a part of somebody’s story to decide that they will live.”
If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you. In the UK, people having mental health crises can contact the Samaritans at 116 123 or jo@samaritans.org
