Say you’re a Detroit transplant living in Los Angeles, and your house just went up in flames.

Like many

Newer Angelenos

you never bothered to throw yours away

old

area code. But if you call 911 from your cell phone, your call will go to the dispatch center in Los Angeles. Luckily it’s not going to Detroit.

The same cannot be said for 988, the national mental health crisis hotline. Callers struggling with suicidal thoughts or a drug crisis are directed to a call center based on their area code.

For some

callers

, this doesn’t matter. A trained counselor sitting in a call room in Detroit could very well offer the same words of comfort

and help

like a

based

in Los Angeles.

Except in Los Angeles

district

the professionals do more than talk. They can also help you connect the caller with a team of mental health professionals

can meet them in person.

At least, as long as you’re calling from a phone number with a local area code. Otherwise you’re probably out of luck.

For this reason, employees say the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health has refrained from full promotion

are

988 line, concerned that a significant number of Angelenos will not have access

provincial services

. Suggest caller information

S

About 15% of the province’s residents who would call 988 are routed elsewhere

because of their area codes

.

That’s what county officials say

it’s a strange problem with an obvious solution: have the federal government pass a law requiring the Federal Communications Commission to route calls based on the nearest call center rather than by area code.

On Tuesday,

the province

regulators voted to send a letter in support of legislation introduced last month by Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) that would force the FCC to route calls to the nearest call center.

We did all this work and then we went, wait a minute, said Supervisor Janice Hahn, who said she was advocating for a legislative solution at rallies in Washington, DC. They could be in a real mental health crisis

[or]

bad luck, and the call goes to Minneapolis.

Technically, an out-of-town call center could transfer the caller to LA County. But local officials believe

Many call centers would not do that because they would not be aware of the personal services offered by the province

. When calls are transferred, advocates say, valuable minutes are lost.

Hahn said the letter was intended to send a signal to the county’s legislative team in Washington that it needed to start walking the halls of Congress to lobby for a federal solution, which was especially urgent in a region where transplants take place.

Padilla said he believed the bill to fix this problem would easily pass with bipartisan support.

It’s a no-brainer, he said.

LA County rolled out the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in the summer of 2022. At the time, local politicians came up with the three-digit number as a way to help callers in crisis avoid a police response and a potentially deadly confrontation. Instead, callers would be connected to a professional who could help them through their mental health crisis

and help them get personal help if necessary.

The province currently has 47

full time

teams, which will be deployed 24/7 from December, according to a spokesperson for the Ministry of Mental Health.

The teams make 1,200 to 1,500 calls a month, the spokesperson said.

A Times investigation in April found the rollout has been completed

bumpy as politicians fail to deliver on many of their early promises about what 988 could do for voters in crisis

. The waiting times were extremely long

mobile teams

it usually takes more than an hour to respond. About half the time, teams took more than five hours to respond.

Nine months later, Traute Winters, executive director of LA County’s department of the

National Alliance on Mental Illness

, said she doesn’t hear much about long wait times anymore. Instead, she said, the problem of misrouted calls has become one of the biggest problems.

“I’m happy with how things are progressing,” she said of the hotline. But it’s still a work in progress.

Winters said the problem extends beyond newer Angelenos who cannot reach the county hotline staff.

shaper

LA residents who have

since

who have left the region are sometimes also stuck with a call center that cannot fully assist them.

Rachel Stankus, a shift supervisor who takes 988 calls routed to LA County, said she once had a caller from out of town who appeared to have overdosed and was about to take more prescription pills.

His Los Angeles area code meant he was her responsibility, even though she had no idea where he was calling from

.

We lost valuable time in determining his location, she said. Every moment counts when a caller is in crisis.

Call 988

will direct callers to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, accessible throughout the US