Trump defunding the 988 Suicide Hotlines

[VMA131Marine]

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website offline

https://www.samhsa.gov/

Gives a 403 - forbidden message on all their web pages.

This is the agency that provides a substantial amount of funding for the regional 988 suicide prevention and crisis hotlines.

It’s not clear what’s going to happen to the hotlines themselves. My wife works as a crisis counselor on the New York 988 hotline and her company was just informed by SAMHSA that their grant was being terminated. I think they get state funding as well but layoff’s are already happening.

Apparently the Trump Administration has no interest in reducing suicides or substance abuse or helping people in crisis.

Update: the site is accessible from my Android phone using Chrome, but not from my iPhone using Safari. It works from Chrome on my iPhone.

The info about the funding for the company running the NYC 988 hotline is still accurate.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

2. Comes up

When I click the link

[VMA131Marine]

3. This one works

https://www.usa.gov/agencies/substance-abuse-and-mental-health-services-administration

But it’s just a portal to the main site. Try clicking on the links. Everything comes up 403-Forbidden

[AZJonnie]

6. The main one works, the one in your OP

https://www.samhsa.gov/

and I'm not getting errors on any pages

[SickOfTheOnePct]

7. I went to the site

in your OP and every link I hit worked, so don’t know what’s happening for you.

[VMA131Marine]

9. It's the Safari browser on my iPhone

I can access the sites if I use Chrome

[SickOfTheOnePct]

10. 403 error

is normally client side v. server side

[VMA131Marine]

11. The site apparently doesnt like Safari

I can open the site using Chrome on my iPhone

[AZJonnie]

4. SAMHSA website is no longer down, thankfully

Sorry bout your wife's job. Hopefully her company's is an isolated case. It would be really horrible for the entire service to be eliminated, and/or SAMHSA in general eliminated

[VMA131Marine]

5. It's still inaccessible to me

And do you really think this is just an isolated case? The 988 line that covers New York City? Get real!

[AZJonnie]

12. I did use the word 'hopefully' for a reason my friend

As in, that's what I hope. I didn't proclaim it as 'likely'. Also try hitting the site in Incognito mode, this makes sure you're hitting it without any cached site cookies in play

[Irish_Dem]

8. Russia has a high suicide rate.

I guess that is the model rump and musk are following.

[JoseBalow]

13. The site is not down

Consider deleting/editing your OP.

[VMA131Marine]

15. I did edit it

Hence the update.

Also the defunding of the 988 lines is real.

[JoseBalow]

17. The site is not offline, and it is not giving 403 errors on all pages

OP is incorrect and misleading. If that's edited, you should just delete it, honestly.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website offline

https://www.samhsa.gov/

Gives a 403 - forbidden message on all their web pages.

[VMA131Marine]

18. It does if you use Safari on an iPhone.

[Igel]

14. I don't understand how federal 988 grant/funding works.

https://www.statesman.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2025/02/03/texas-lawmakers-should-help-fund-988-suicide-and-crisis-lifeline/78002995007/

https://www.sacurrent.com/news/mental-health-advocates-ask-texas-lawmakers-to-replace-expiring-covid-19-relief-funding-36428359

Both say that the federal funding of 988 hotlines in TX expired on 12/31/2024, which is pre-Trump and are calling on the state legislature, meeting this year, to provide permanent funding. The TX state legislature meets every 2 years.

Did the program at the federal level get defunded but your wife's company hadn't disbursed the full amount until about now?

Were grants to different states made at different times with different cut-off times?

Dunno.

[VMA131Marine]

16. For my wife's company,

The Federal grant is not being renewed by SAMHSA. That means it’s going to be up to the States to fund or not.