Funding wins in Colorado, a cautionary tale in New York, a California diversion law under siege, and Travis County jail diversion data that should turn heads but the program is capped at 25 beds with 50+ people waiting. All that and more below.

Mesa County's Sheriff's Office Co-Response Unit — which paired deputies with clinicians to handle over 1,500 crisis calls last year and divert more than 300 people from hospitals and detention — just landed $300,000 in state funding to sustain 2.5 clinician positions.

The Chaffee County co-response program secured $561,919 from Colorado's opioid settlement fund to hire an additional clinician and deputy, extend operations to seven days a week, and deepen the follow-up work that program manager Sara Briggs calls "the bread and butter" of what makes co-response actually work.

California's 2018 mental health diversion law allows defendants with qualifying diagnoses to receive treatment instead of prison and have their records cleared upon completion, and more than 17,000 people were granted diversion between 2019 and 2025. Now, Assembly Bill 46 is moving through the state Senate, backed by law enforcement, and would lower the standard for judges to deny diversion from "unreasonable risk of danger" to a "substantial and undue risk" to physical safety, giving judges significantly more power to block people from treatment.

Supporters of the change point to high-profile cases where people reoffended after being granted diversion, while opponents argue that recidivism rates for diversion participants are comparable to those leaving state prison, and that LA County's program sees fewer than 10% of graduates with new cases filed after release. Public defenders warn that the bill shifts decision-making power away from mental health clinicians and toward judges who are more vulnerable to political pressure, putting treatment access most at risk for people of color and lower-income Californians without private attorneys.

Co-responder spotlight

When the DOJ grant funding their co-response program expires June 30, the Putnam County (NY) Sheriff's Office will withdraw its deputy from the joint crisis response team, citing the $250,000 annual cost of a full-time deputy and the fact that the CRT was only handling about 3% of the county's mental health calls.

Travis County's mental health diversion program, launched in October 2024 in partnership with Integral Care, was born out of research showing at least 40% of people in Travis County Jail carry a mental health diagnosis and many were repeatedly cycling through the system after low-level offenses. After one year, the data is promising: within 30 days of discharge from the program's 24-hour psychiatric clinic, 94% of participants were not arrested, 66% had no repeat crisis episode, and 72% did not return to an emergency department.

The longer-term therapeutic diversion track, where people can stay up to 90 days while getting help with housing, insurance, medication and job training, showed even stronger results, with 99% having no repeat crisis episode and 80% not arrested in the 30 days after discharge. The program's biggest constraint is capacity: only 25 beds are available, more than 50 people are currently waiting for admission, and a search for a permanent larger facility continues after a bill to purchase land at the Austin State Hospital site failed in the last legislative session.