SAN ANTONIO – Mental health first responder teams will be available around the clock to help San Antonio residents, starting this July.

The SA Community Outreach and Resiliency Effort, or SA CORE, is made up of mental health units. It started as a one-team pilot program a few years ago and expanded to three teams last year.

These teams consist of a police officer, a paramedic, and a clinician.

“It was kind of an experiment a few years ago, but there’s been a lot of success,” said Councilwoman Melissa Cabello Havrda, who leads the Public Safety Committee.

Police officers tell us that these mental health response units help with all the 911 calls that come in, allowing officers to respond elsewhere.

“CORE coming in and taking over, it helps us out a lot because it leaves us back in service to handle other things, more specifically like shootings, robberies, things like that,” Officer Gilbert Guzman told us last year.

The teams also allow community members to get help they may not have otherwise had access to.

Havrda says the emphasis is more on the care of the caller than on a typical 911 call.

Data shows that these teams have been busy, responding to over 900 calls in the first four months this year.

To meet the growing demand, the city has expanded SA CORE over time.

In September of 2023, the city council approved three teams to eventually begin 24/7 coverage across the city.

In January, the citywide coverage began. Now, in just a few months, the all-day coverage will begin with those teams.

The city allocated about 7.2 million in the budget for this expansion, covering FY 2024 and FY 2025. They also increased staff, adding five clinicians, nine paramedics, and twelve police officers.

Documents show the results are promising.

Every team’s typical result is resolving the situation on-site. Other times, they make an emergency detention or take the individual to a clinic to better help them. They also provide follow-up care to ensure the person has what they need moving forward.

But Havrda says the need is still high, “Three SA Core Teams is great, but it’s not nearly enough for the number of mental health calls that we’re getting to 911.”

Last year, there were nearly 32,500 mental health calls to 911 in San Antonio, up from each year since at least 2019.

We’ll learn more about this program expansion in June from the city’s Chief Mental Health Officer.