SAN ANTONIO \u2013 Could mental health be added behind police, fire, and EMS as an option for San Antonians calling 911 for an emergency?<\/p>\n
The city, Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council, and the Center for Health Care Services are exploring a pilot program to help triage the mental health calls that come through the 911 system, possibly handling \u201clow-acuity\u201d calls over the phone, without having to dispatch emergency response.<\/p>\n
Jessie Higgins, the city\u2019s chief mental health officer, said that could include a parent calling about their struggling teenager who won\u2019t get out of bed or go to school. It could be someone struggling with suicidal thoughts but no immediate plan.<\/p>\n
Those types of calls do come in to 911, she said, and deserve immediate action, though they might not need police or emergency medical services.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so we want to be able to take calls like that and send them to a person who could hear them and listen to them and maybe help that person without that public safety response,\u201d Higgins said.<\/p>\n
The details for a pilot program still need to be worked out, including whether callers would select mental health as an option, or if the initial call taker would transfer them to someone trained to handle the call, possibly even a clinician.<\/p>\n
The resulting call would be longer and possibly use video technology, Higgins said. The call taker could connect the caller to a quick appointment time or other resources. <\/p>\n
They could even decide the call does need a response and dispatch someone.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimply put, this is necessary because people who are struggling, people who are in a crisis don\u2019t know where to turn. We don\u2019t have enough resources in our community, and they\u2019re deserving of a compassionate response,\u201d Higgins said.<\/p>\n
SAPD Mental Health 911 calls from a Jan. 20, 2026 Public Safety Committee presentation (City of San Antonio)<\/p>\n
The San Antonio Police Department saw mental health calls spike after the start of the pandemic. Though the number of calls has begun to decline, the department still received 28,800 in 2025. <\/p>\n
About a third get answered by specialty units like the multidisciplinary San Antonio Community Outreach and Resiliency Effort (SA-CORE) teams or SAPD\u2019s mental health unit, but patrol officers or other units respond to more than half of the calls. <\/p>\n
The remaining 12% are canceled or duplicated calls.<\/p>\n
The SA-CORE teams \u2014 each made up of a mental health unit police officer, paramedic and clinician \u2014 are popular with city council members, who have eagerly expanded the idea from a 2022 pilot program to three teams providing 24-hour coverage. <\/p>\n
But before the city considers expanding the program further, Higgins said they want to look at how they can pull out the \u201clow-acuity\u201d calls first, looking at the beginning of the 911 call instead of the response to it.<\/p>\n
The city and its partners need to come up with a plan for the pilot as well as a budget. Higgins said there are other Texas cities with models they could follow.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have to totally reinvent the wheel, but we do want to leverage existing technology that we have,\u201d she said. \u201cWe want to make sure this is as collaborative as possible with our partnerships and with other jurisdictions that may want a similar service line in their 911 call centers.”<\/p>\n
Asked about a timeline for actually rolling out a plan, Higgins said she would hope it\u2019s within the city\u2019s current budget year, which runs through September.<\/p>\n
Read also:<\/p>\n
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