A Howard County nonprofit that has spent years answering overflow calls, texts, and chats to the national 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is laying off 62 employees after the federal government ended its contract to run that backup service. Grassroots Crisis Intervention says the cuts take effect September 29, 2026, according to Executive Director Dr. Mariana Izraelson.
The layoffs amount to nearly a quarter of the organization's overall workforce, which stood at just under 270 people in fiscal year 2025 according to IRS filings cited by the Maryland Daily Record. Grassroots had served as one of the national backup call centers for the 988 hotline, stepping in to answer communications from people across the U.S. and its territories whose calls or messages could not be handled locally in time, as reported by WTOP. The nonprofit filed a formal mass layoff notice with Maryland labor officials on August 6, confirming that 60 to 62 workers will be separated at the end of September.
Under federal rules, the 988 system automatically reroutes calls to national backup centers when local crisis lines fail to pick up within two minutes, or within five minutes for texts and chats, per a report from Legis1. Those backup centers operate under a $255 million grant that the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration awarded in May 2026 to Vibrant Emotional Health, which administers the national 988 network and subcontracts the backup work, according to HHS.gov. It remains unclear why SAMHSA or Vibrant chose not to renew Grassroots' specific backup contract, or whether that national chat and text traffic is simply shifting to another contractor.
Local 988 Services and Shelter Beds Remain Open
Despite the cuts, Grassroots says its core Central Maryland operations are not going anywhere. The nonprofit will retain roughly 130 professional staff members who will keep running local 24-hour crisis response, Central Maryland's share of 988 calls, mobile crisis units and emergency housing programs, per CBS News. That distinction matters because national backup contracts are funded separately from the local and state dollars that keep Howard County's crisis network running day to day.
Maryland has its own dedicated funding stream for local crisis center operations. In May 2024, the state enacted a law adding a 25-cent monthly fee to phone bills, generating an estimated $25 million a year for the state's 988 Trust Fund, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Those dollars are intended to support local in-state crisis centers and call routing, not the kind of national overflow contract Grassroots just lost.
County Executive Warns of Safety Net Strain
Howard County Executive Calvin Ball criticized the federal decision, saying cuts to organizations like Grassroots undermine the county's local behavioral health safety net, CBS News reported. The county has invested directly in Grassroots' physical infrastructure in recent years. In December 2025, Howard County put $1 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds toward expanding the nonprofit's emergency shelter — the county's only general emergency shelter — to a total of 89 beds, a 75% increase in capacity from 2024, according to Grassroots Crisis Intervention.
Grassroots also relocated its core 24-hour crisis center operations to Old Annapolis Road in Columbia in October 2023, a move that freed up its original Freetown Road facility to dedicate more space to shelter beds and hygiene facilities, per reporting from The Baltimore Banner. That expansion, made to handle growing community crisis demand, came less than three years before the sudden loss of the federal backup contract.
Executive Director Faces Workforce Transition
Dr. Izraelson has led Grassroots since October 2020 and holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, having previously managed healthcare and addiction treatment organizations across Maryland. She was named a 2026 Diverse Business Leader by the Baltimore Business Journal this past June, according to Grassroots Crisis Intervention. Whether any of the 62 laid-off employees can be absorbed into other Maryland behavioral health programs remains an open question as the September 29 separation date approaches.
