San Jose officials are voicing concern about how to keep paying for a non-police response program for mental health emergencies. Advocates doubt the city is even trying to make it work.
It’s been nearly three months since the city committed to funding 40 more hours for a mobile mental health crisis team under Santa Clara County’s Trusted Response Urgent Support Team (TRUST) program. The county launched the program in 2022 to help deescalate mental health emergencies — without cops — in family homes and public settings across Silicon Valley. But a San Jose survey published in January shows 75% of residents polled didn’t know they could call for non-police response services.
The San Jose City Council voted Feb. 4 to explore more ways to fund TRUST through opioid settlement money, after already spending $450,000 for expanded coverage within city limits through November. But it appears City Hall isn’t fully onboard with the program, as its January report continued to advocate for some level of police involvement in mental health emergencies. This is in direct conflict with a February 2024 audit showing non-police responses result in more peaceful resolutions. Mayor Matt Mahan is voicing growing skepticism about the program’s future.
“I will say I am concerned about the long-term sustainability of the city continuing to fund alternative, co-response staff positions that have historically been under purview of the county,” Mahan said at the meeting.
A lack of public awareness around TRUST and its underutilization could help San Jose’s case for pulling out. It’s also raising questions as to who should be educating the public about TRUST: The county leaders who launched it or the San Jose leaders now investing in it.
“It feels like San Jose is setting TRUST up to fail by under-resourcing it,” Andrew Siegler, a San Jose resident and organizer with Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) of Santa Clara County, told San José Spotlight.
A city spokesperson declined to tell this news organization how San Jose is helping spread public awareness about TRUST, which activated a direct crisis hotline in December. They deferred the question to the county.
A spokesperson for the Santa Clara County Behavioral Health Services Department said it continues to educate residents about its mobile crisis response services, including TRUST.
“Our unified outreach campaign — developed in collaboration with cities, county departments and local partner agencies — aims to increase awareness and utilization of these services through improved informational materials and targeted marketing strategies,” the spokesperson told San José Spotlight.
The county didn’t have a response to San Jose’s resident survey.
“We would need to know more details about the survey to understand whether the findings point to a great deficit in awareness in our county or not,” the county spokesperson said.
Mahan last week said San Jose has not historically been tasked with providing mental health services to residents, arguing it is more under the county’s purview as a steward of health and human services. But the city has increasingly taken on that role in recent years, funding a Psychiatric Emergency Response Team (PERT) unit with a San Jose Police Department trained officer and clinician on top of paying for expanded TRUST coverage. PERT is not unique to San Jose — Santa Clara and Palo Alto also have teams in collaboration with the county.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Susan Ellenberg said mental health crises are not limited by jurisdictional lines.
“What San Jose does and where they invest matters. I think they set the standard for the other 14 cities in our county,” Ellenberg told San José Spotlight.
TRUST is the county’s most used mobile crisis response team. From March 2024 to August 2024, TRUST received 2,157 calls and 1,254, or 58%, were dispatched for a field response, according to quarterly reports from the county’s 988 call center.
TRUST advocates question whether San Jose officials have been evaluating the program in good faith.
“(A) non-police alternative response is a best practice and the community supports it. The report seems to undersell it a lot,” Karen Matsueda, a San Jose resident and member of SURJ, said in public comments at the meeting.
San Jose Councilmember Domingo Candelas is one of three officials who proposed the use of opioid settlement funds to continue paying for TRUST. He said the idea could ensure TRUST remains a priority.
“At the same time, we need to raise awareness about the 988 crisis response system,” Candelas told San José Spotlight. “Targeted outreach and education campaigns, particularly in partnership with the county of Santa Clara, will ensure that more residents know how to access these vital resources for improved outcomes.”
Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X.
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