The San Diego City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to declare a behavioral health bed crisis in the city, a move aimed at increasing mental health resources.
“There are not enough beds to take patients who are in crisis and who need immediate help,” said District 6 City Councilmember Kent Lee, adding that it’s “creating bottlenecks in psychiatric patient care.”
The resolution directs city staff to push for more money and policy changes at the county, state and federal levels. The measure also paved the way to explore zoning options to minimize hurdles for behavioral health facilities.
According to the city, first responders went to more than 53,000 mental health crisis calls in 2022, spending more than 130,000 hours handling them. The city said this is equal to 36 first responders spending their entire shifts every single day, for an entire year, responding only to mental health calls.
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“Instead of fighting fires or helping our community respond to natural disasters, we are asking our public safety officers to be the community’s front-line mental health workers,” Lee said.
Councilmember Raul Campillo, who represents District 7, was the driving force behind the resolution. He said the City of San Diego alone can’t fix this crisis – other levels of government need to step up and do their part. Campillo said they’ll also need buy-in from the community and mental health providers.
“We’re gonna be collaborative about it, and fundamentally, the people providing the care – whether it’s McAlister Institute, or Scripps, Hospital Association, Kaiser and Sharp, all the hospitals that are involved--we’re gonna be listening to them to say, what do you think is the right way to move forward on this. We’re not gonna get anywhere without doing it together.
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The move comes in the wake of Gov. Gavin Newsom's push for voters to approve Proposition 1, which would build more than 11,150 behavioral health beds and 26,700 outpatient treatment slots, when it appears on the ballot in March 2024.
