The Be Well OC Mobile Crisis Program in Huntington Beach—which responds to non-emergency mental health crises in the city—was awarded $500,000 Nov. 1 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The funds will support the program for the next two years.
Huntington Beach’s program is a part of Be Well OC—a mental health support system in Orange County made up of hundreds of public and private organizations and government agencies.
“The Be Well OC Program has been very successful within Huntington Beach and we are looking forward to the great work it will continue to provide to our residents,” city spokeswoman Jennifer Carey told The Epoch Times.
While the city is always looking for ways to refine and improve its program, the funding, which the city applied for earlier this year, will go toward supporting pre-existing operations, Carey said.
The program’s mobile mental crisis response team dispatches crisis counselors in a van to non-emergency calls to relieve local law enforcement to focus on emergency calls.
Counselors respond using de-escalation tactics, including personal counseling, and can offer transportation to other specialized services.
Last year the response team answered around 2,000 calls in Huntington Beach. Police there typically receive over 15,000 mental health-related calls annually, according to a press release earlier this month from the city.
The city’s grant for its Be Well OC initiative came from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration—a department under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services—which provides such funding to private and public nonprofits which support their mission to reduce substance abuse and mental illness in communities.
The Huntington Beach City Council accepted the grant during their Nov. 1 meeting.
Be Well OC did not respond to The Epoch Times for comment.
