San Antonio moved a step closer this week to creating a dedicated "off-ramp" from jail for people with mental illness or substance-use disorders, steering them into short-term treatment instead of a cell. The City Council's Public Safety Committee voted to advance a partnership with the Center for Health Care Services to study whether a local diversion center would work in practice.
The city plans to chip in $30,000 from the San Antonio Police Department budget toward a Center for Health Care Services feasibility study, which the agency estimates will cost between $100,000 and $120,000. Committee members also agreed to send the proposal to the full City Council in February for a deeper debate. District 5 Councilmember Teri Castillo, who has been pushing the concept, leaned on the budget math, arguing that a behavioral health diversion center costs far less per day than keeping someone in jail. Those steps and the study price range were reported by KSAT.
Center for Health Care Services President and CEO Jelynne LeBlanc-Jamison told committee members there is "an opportunity for us to take 80 to 100 individuals and put them in treatment at the right time," describing how people diverted to a center could receive up to two weeks of stabilization care, potentially avoiding criminal charges altogether. She cautioned that a single diversion center will not solve Bexar County's jail overcrowding issues, but said it could ease pressure by routing low-level arrestees into treatment and support services instead of jail. That testimony and those details were relayed to committee members and reported by KSAT.
Study, intake review and a governance push
An evaluation by the University of Texas-Houston School of Public Health of the county's Justice Intake and Assessment Annex flagged consolidation and diversion options as a logical next move in Bexar County's criminal justice system, according to the San Antonio Report.
Building on that, city staff and Center for Health Care Services leaders told the Governance Committee in December that the Center for Health Care Services board had approved releasing a request for proposals for a feasibility consultant and that the City Council could set up a joint city-county ad hoc committee to shepherd the work. Those plans were laid out in the committee transcript. (San Antonio Governance Committee).
Costs and capacity pressures
Bexar County's jail system has wrestled with capacity issues for years, and county leaders are now pursuing several strategies to expand treatment outside the jail. That includes adding residential treatment beds and building partnerships aimed at cutting down psychiatric backlogs. Planning documents and reporting show officials trying to balance quicker diversion fixes against slower, more expensive projects such as hospital renovations and expanded treatment-bed capacity. Those efforts and the underlying shortage of beds were detailed by the San Antonio Express-News, and the Justice Intake and Assessment Annex remains the central intake point for people who are arrested. (Bexar County).
Harris County's diversion center as a model
To show how the idea might play out, city staff pointed to Harris County's Judge Ed Emmett Mental Health Diversion Center, a 29-bed facility that opened in fall 2018, as a real-world model. That center functions as a hub where people with low-level offenses can be stabilized, linked to services and kept out of the jail system when appropriate.
Early reports and outside reviews from Harris County indicate the program sent thousands of people to treatment instead of jail in its first years, highlighting both the promise and the built-in limits of diversion programs. The facility's origins and early outcomes were reported by the Houston Chronicle.
What comes next
For now, the next moves are fairly concrete. The Center for Health Care Services will seek a consultant for the feasibility study, the city's $30,000 share is lined up and the full City Council is expected to take up the recommendation in February, with county partners invited to be part of the conversation.
Advocates at the Governance Committee meeting urged the city to pursue a joint city-county process to build broad buy-in and to map out how any diversion center would connect to housing, outpatient care and other follow-up services. The request for proposals approval and related governance discussion are detailed in the city's committee materials and public transcript. (City of San Antonio).
