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What You Should Know About the New 9-8-8 Suicide Prevention Line

The number “9-8-8 is now active across the United States. This new, shorter phone number will make it easier for people to remember and access mental health crisis services,” the hotline’s website reads.

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When the 9-8-8 hotline launched, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office tweeted “help is closer than you think” before tweeting the new number.
When the 9-8-8 hotline launched, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office tweeted “help is closer than you think” before tweeting the new number.

By Aldon Thomas Stiles, California Black Media

On July 16, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline hotline officially became the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

The service also launched a new quick dial hotline number for California residents. Californians can now call or text 9-8-8 any time of day, seven days a week, to reach trained counselors who can help with mental health or substance abuse crises.

Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, a Los Angeles-based mental health services provider and a leader in whole-person mental health care and suicide prevention for nearly 80 years and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) were the two organizations central to implementing the new hotline.

The number “9-8-8 is now active across the United States. This new, shorter phone number will make it easier for people to remember and access mental health crisis services,” the hotline’s website reads.

Formed in 2005 and led by SAMHSA, the hotline has over 200 crisis centers that callers are routed based on their area code.

When the 9-8-8 hotline launched, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office tweeted “help is closer than you think” before tweeting the new number.

Aside from rhetoric promising a commitment to mental health, Newsom proposed $7.5 million for one-time startup costs and $6 million in ongoing funding for the 9-8-8 hotline. In this year’s state budget, $1.4 billion is proposed for mobile crisis teams to serve people with Medi-Cal health coverage.

The previous number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, (800) 273-8255, will still be available for an unspecified amount of time.

Jennifer Christian-Herman, from Blue Shield of California, believes that the change to 9-8-8 is a “powerful indication of how seriously we’re taking suicide and mental health as a country.”

Christian-Herman said that the 9-8-8 phone/text line will “help save many lives.”

One of the goals of this quick-dial hotline number is to divert people in crisis to mental health specialists as opposed to going through the 9-1-1 emergency line and potentially dealing with responders who might not be as equipped to address mental health related episodes.

California has alternative options for people suffering from a crisis but who do not feel like they are at the point of committing suicide.

One such alternative is California’s mental health “warm line.” Operated by CalHOPE and the Mental Health Association of San Francisco, the service is designed to assist people in non-emergency situations.

The peer-run warm line (Call 855-845-7415 to speak to a counselor) began in 2014 and has received over 185,000 calls since 2019, according to the Mental Health Association of San Francisco

This organization is currently looking to secure annual funding for this program through 2027.

“We provide assistance via phone and web chat on a nondiscriminatory basis to anyone in need,” the organization’s website reads. “Some concerns callers share are challenges with interpersonal relationships, anxiety, pain, depression, finances, alcohol/drug use, etc.”

Activism

Oakland Post: Week of July 24 – 30, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 24 – 30, 2024

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Oakland Post: Week of July 17 -23, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 17 -23, 2024

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Community Celebrates Historic Oakland Billboard Agreements

We, the Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition, which includes Oakland’s six leading community health clinics, all ethnic chambers of commerce, and top community-based economic development organizations – celebrate the historic billboard agreements approved last year by the Oakland City Council. We have fought for this opportunity against the billboard monopoly, against Clear Channel, for five years. The agreements approved by Council set the bar for community benefits – nearly $70 Million over their lifetime, more than 23 times the total paid by all previous Clear Channel relocation agreements in Oakland combined.

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The Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition.
The Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition.

Grand Jury Report Incorrect – Council & Community Benefit

We, the Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition, which includes Oakland’s six leading community health clinics, all ethnic chambers of commerce, and top community-based economic development organizations – celebrate the historic billboard agreements approved last year by the Oakland City Council. We have fought for this opportunity against the billboard monopoly, against Clear Channel, for five years. The agreements approved by Council set the bar for community benefits – nearly $70 Million over their lifetime, more than 23 times the total paid by all previous Clear Channel relocation agreements in Oakland combined.

Unfortunately, a recent flawed Grand Jury report got it wrong, so we feel compelled to correct the record:

  1. Regarding the claim that the decision was made hastily, the report itself belies that claim. The process was five years in the making, with two and a half years from the first City Council hearing to the final vote. Along the way, as the report describes, there were multiple Planning Commission hearings, public stakeholder outreach meetings, a Council Committee meeting, and then a vote by the full Council. Not only was this not hasty, it had far more scrutiny than any of the previous relocation agreements approved by the City with Clear Channel, all of which provide 1/23 of the benefits of the Becker/OFI agreements approved by the Council.
  2. More importantly, the agreements will actually bring millions to the City and community, nearly $70M to be exact, 23 times the previous Clear Channel relocation agreements combined. They certainly will not cost the city money, especially since nothing would have been on the table at all if our Coalition had not been fighting for it. Right before the decisive City Council Committee hearing, in the final weeks before the full Council vote, there was a hastily submitted last-minute “proposal” by Clear Channel that was debunked as based on non-legal and non-economically viable sites, and relying entirely on the endorsement of a consultant that boasts Clear Channel as their biggest client and whose decisions map to Clear Channel’s monopolistic interests all over the country. Some City staff believed these unrealistic numbers based on false premises, and, since they only interviewed City staff, the Grand Jury report reiterated this misinformation, but it was just part of Clear Channel’s tried and true monopolistic practices of seeking to derail agreements that actually set the new standard for billboard community benefits. Furthermore, our proposals are not mutually exclusive – if Clear Channel’s proposal was real, why had they not brought it forward previously? Why have they not brought it forward since? Because it was not a real proposal – it was nothing but smoke and mirrors, as the Clear Channel’s former Vice President stated publicly at Council.

Speaking on behalf of the community health clinics that are the primary beneficiaries of the billboard funding, La Clinica de la Raza CEO Jane Garcia, states: “In this case, the City Council did the right thing – listening to the community that fought for five years to create this opportunity that is offering the City and community more than twenty times what previous billboard relocation agreements have offered.”

 

Oakland Billboard Economic Development Coalition

Native American Health Center La Clínica de la Raza West Oakland Health Center
Asian Health Services Oakland LGBTQ Center Roots Community Health Center
The Unity Council Black Cultural Zone Visit Oakland
Oakland African American Chamber of Commerce Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce Oakland Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce
Oakland Latino Chamber of Commerce Building Trades of Alameda County (partial list)
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