A reporter’s deep dive into LA’s broken mental health system reveals a troubling lack of transparency

While reporting my first story for the Los Angeles Times’ mental health initiative, I was let in on what I later learned was an open secret among those invested in L.A. County’s mental health crisis system: mobile teams dispatched to help people experiencing emotional emergencies took so long to show up that many dismissed them as a viable resource. 

The source who first told me this, in May 2022, was Sam Blake, who operates a home for adults with severe mental illness. At one point, he said, he called county mental health professionals when his residents became disruptive or destructive. But he gave up after enduring wait times that stretched four to six hours — if they showed up at all.

Instead, he reaches out to the police. Officers show up within minutes. Blake has good relationships with some of them. 

It seemed like an opportune moment to investigate the service. Two years before Blake shared his experience, George Floyd was murdered by police, and L.A. County leaders promised to explore alternatives to 911 for situations that don’t require armed responders. Two months after I spoke with Blake, a national hotline known as 988 launched. It was portrayed as that sought-after alternative — scaled way up and backed by millions in federal funding. 

County leaders identified mobile teams as a “key component” of the hotline and promised they’d ramp up the service in a matter of weeks. A news release expounding this optimistic vision for the near future offered no hint of the problems plaguing the teams for years. 

Yet I had reservations. 

Befriend discomfort

The hotline and its related services were viewed by many policy leaders and mental health professionals as a positive development. It’s largely considered the first step in a long, slow journey toward overhauling a broken system. Many of the transformative changes it promises aren’t expected to come for years.

The program had barely gotten out of its crib and I was potentially going to start exposing its dirty laundry. 

However, I was troubled by rhetoric used to describe the hotline that conflated what could be and what currently was. Often I had to stop sources to clarify what was in place at the moment as they espoused an optimistic vision for the future. 

I felt it was important to provide the public with a realistic view of the system, and hold local leaders accountable to their bold promises. 

To do so, I talked through my anxieties with my then-editor Jaclyn Cosgrove. We’d do this again and again throughout the months-long reporting process. Rather than hold concerns close to my chest, I realized it was best to air them, debate them and defeat them. 

Maintain stamina when seeking data 

Data reflecting how long it took mobile teams to respond to crisis situations would offer a non-subjective means to evaluate an important aspect of their performance — if I could get it. 

Perhaps naively, I thought I could get it without going to war. A brief conversation with a spokesperson at the L.A. County Department of Mental Health, where the data lived, seemed promising. 

A colleague at the Times told me the Mental Health Department was notoriously secretive. He said I might find myself deciding, along with legal counsel, whether it was worth filing a lawsuit over.

Thankfully, it didn’t come to that, though I did need to consult with an attorney. But it took many months and a lot of nerve-steeling to push for the data we were finally able to get. 

My initial informal requests for the data were not answered at all. My first public records request was met with a response that didn’t match what I asked for. I had to recalibrate. 

We held a meeting with Mental Health Department personnel to get a sense of what existed and how it was stored. We were told the data was cataloged in a convoluted system and wasn’t being routinely analyzed internally. Still, it seemed like progress.

Yet when I rephrased my request based on what I now knew, I was told releasing it would violate state and federal laws protecting patient privacy. 

Department staff claimed they were barred from providing any patient information, interpreting the rules to extend to all data collected at their call center — including when mobile teams were dispatched and arrived at their destination. 

It sounded fishy and, drawing on legal advice, we argued that it was possible to provide this data without revealing sensitive patient information — by removing names, age, location, etc. — and that the public has an interest in investigating the timeliness of these teams. 

By now, we were firmly in November and I still didn’t have data in hand. Deadline anxiety kicked in. 

Around this time, I looped staffers for an L.A. County Supervisor’s office in on our unsuccessful attempts to get the Mental Health Department to hand over the data. After hitting our head against the wall for months, we were looking for creative ways to turn up the heat. 

Not long after that, the supervisor co-authored a motion asking for similar data — though I didn’t find this out until after I filed a new records request and was told they were gathering the information.

While I felt triumphant knowing I would get enough data to answer some of my top research questions, the process exhausted me. It rattled my faith in public institutions and California’s public records laws, which I learned lacked teeth. 

The Board of Supervisors’ motion seemed to override the department's defenses against releasing the data, but it also gave the powerful policymakers a means to get ahead of the findings — and potentially allow another reporter to scoop me once the findings were made public.  

I constantly had to remind myself not to see the department’s foot-dragging as reflective of my ability, or lack thereof, to obtain records. Instead, I believe it was indicative of the common walls public agencies put up to obscure what’s happening behind the scenes.

Because it bears repeating: Support is crucial. In addition to leaning on my editor Cosgrove, I frequently – and sometimes frantically – reached out to my Data Mentor MaryJo Webster for advice. 

Letting go of the perfect ‘main character’    

Going into my project, I knew it was going to be hard to identify people who were harmed by long wait times for mobile crisis teams. Many health providers won’t connect reporters to patients, and many patients do not want to broadcast the worst day of their lives to newspaper readers. 

Partially to connect with potential sources, I created an online survey where people could rate their experience of the county’s mental health emergency services, including 988 and mobile teams, and opt in to answer additional questions. 

While the response wasn’t as robust as I had hoped, the survey did allow me to connect with several people who shared informative, often painful, experiences. Their stories helped imbue the data with flesh, bones and tears. 

However, none of the stories I heard perfectly fit the narrative I imagined building the story around. Eventually, I let that go. 

Accepting this reminded me that sometimes a character is the story. Those are often the most powerful and visceral. Sometimes, however, the numbers (or other information) will be the main character. 

Catalyzing a conversation

To conclude the project, I moderated a virtual panel focused on whether Los Angeles County can tackle its mental health crisis without police. 

Given the Mental Health Department’s integral role in developing a crisis system separate from law enforcement, it made sense to invite a representative. But I was anxious. I wasn’t sure if they’d participate in the discussion following the publication of my investigation.

They did send a speaker — the manager of their alternative crisis response efforts. 

The discussion was lively, illuminating and educational, and the panelists gelled well. Dozens of people tuned in to the live talk and many asked questions. 

It warmed my heart to come together for a constructive dialogue. I reconnected with the initial goal of the series, which wasn’t to tarnish the reputation of a service or agency but to shine a light on a serious problem in the hopes of effecting change.