The California Peer-Run Warm Line, a free phone line offering call or text non-crisis mental health support, is requesting $58 million in state funding over the next five years once its current funding expires, the San Francisco Examiner reported June 6.
Since 2014, the Warm Line has offered free 24/7, 365 days a year mental health support to Californians to prevent situations escalating to a crisis-level emergency.
The line averaged about 7,900 calls and chats per month and altogether answered more than 187,000 calls from 48,000 Californians during the pandemic. The line has Spanish- and English-speaking counselors, and a telephone interpretation service capable of translating about 200 languages.
The line is operated by the Mental Health Association of San Francisco and received three years of state funding through the Department of Health Care Services to operate statewide.
The group aims for $58 million in state funding over the next five years to build call centers that would include training, technical support and grant funding for local communities to create their own Warm Lines.
"We are grateful for the (extended) funding. And at the same time, having our own separate funding would allow us more freedom over a longer period of time," Peter Murphy, outreach manager and former Warm Line counselor at the Mental Health Association of San Francisco, told the San Francisco Examiner. "Otherwise, we will be coming back sooner to do this all again."