What the Texas Suicide Hotline Crisis Means for You

The Texas suicide hotline, although federally mandated, can often be THE wakeup call for struggling Texans who feel they have no other options. The problem, however, lays within funding and staffing.

Understaffing on the Hotline

The Texas Tribune noted that there has been a major struggle for hotline centers to continue operations under a $7 million funding deficit. Not to mention the fact that suicide rates have increased in Texas by nearly 30% in the past 20 years.

This upward trend has placed stress on the already shrinking call center workforce.

The suicide hotline in Texas, which can be reached by dialing 988, "provides free and confidential support for anyone experiencing mental health-related distress," the Texas Health and Human Services website says. This support line will connect the caller to a trained crisis counselor any time of the week, 24/7.

The Tribune also includes that, since their launch in 2022, the five call centers in the Lone Star State have received more than 380,000 calls. This is actually the second highest crisis call volume in America.

As of right now, less than 85% of all calls received through the hotline are answered inside the state of Texas. That means that 15%, or about 200 calls, are transferred to out-of-state centers.

Here lays the problem. There are multiple steps that must occur in order for someone to speak with a crisis counselor. First, they are prompted by an automated voice to indicate the reason for the call. Once they make their way to the correct topic (veterans, LGBTQI+ youth, non-English speakers, etc.), they must wait for an available counselor. If nobody in the state is available, they will be transferred to an out-of-state call center.

Many callers will hang up during the transfer process.

Call centers in Texas must rely on federal funding because emergency medical services for the hotline are not yet covered by Medicaid, despite many mental health advocacy group's push for it to be done.

Because the crisis call centers in Texas rely on federal funding, they experience a multitude of roadblocks.

One of which is that the $1 billion put towards the startup of the 988 hotline will run out by 2026, so the hotline's future is at the mercy of the federal government to decide if they will continue funding or not.

You can read more about the state of the 988 suicide hotline and their future funding issues from The Texas Tribune's website.