Community members gathered to brainstorm how allcove can remain as an accessible youth mental health resource last Tuesday evening at the Palo Alto Art Center.
Santa Clara County Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga said the goal of the meeting and future discussions is to develop a strategy to protect services like allcove, even amid federal cuts to Santa Clara County’s social safety net budget.
“I’m hoping we can have an honest conversation about how to preserve our most critical youth mental health services during a challenging budget environment,” Abe-Koga said.
According to Abe-Koga, the cuts are a result of the passage of HR-1, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, a federal statute passed by Congress in the summer and containing tax and spending policies that form the core of President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda. Abe-Koga said each county department has been given a budget cut target, with Behavioral Health at $145 million.
“Our county’s social safety net really took a big tear,” Abe-Koga said. “Because of HR-1, we are seeing potentially a loss of about a billion dollars due to messy Medi-Cal cuts. … Frankly, we’re looking at a target of $800 million to cut in this coming year’s budget’s 26-27 cycle.”
According to Jennifer Pham, division director at the County of Santa Clara Behavioral Health Services Department, the program’s central funding source comes from Medi-Cal revenue realignment dollars and the Mental Health Services Act, both of which have been reduced.
“Behavioral health comprises a wide array of services called our specialty mental health services, which are designed to treat, stabilize and promote recovery from serious behavioral health and substance use disorders,” Pham said.
According to allcove network director Greg Young, allcove’s goal is to give patient care and, more broadly, to expand mental health awareness and decrease shame.
“The centers are also about not just providing clinical care, but also getting out and increasing mental health literacy and reducing mental health stigma, which is really important in any community,” Young said.
According to former Palo Alto High School student Tess Manjarrez, one of the speakers at the meeting, allcove is undeniably a critical mental health option because of its availability to all youth.
“It is a super accessible resource with everything you could need as a youth in crisis in one building that doesn’t have a lock on its door,” Manjarrez said. “You could walk in, and you don’t need to do anything other than say ‘Hi, I’m here and here is my name.’ It’s lifesaving.”
According to Alina Fleischman, a member of the Youth Advisory Group at allcove, seeing potential cuts like this done to critical mental health resources is very worrying.
“The amazing thing about allcove is that it supports youth by youth for youth,” Fleischman said. “I know that there are hundreds if not thousands of youth who maybe haven’t accessed it yet, but even the idea that it [allcove] exists in their community is support in and of itself.”
According to Jessica Spieser, a member of the Santa Clara County Board of Education, Measure A would help increase funding for mental health services. Measure A is a temporary sales tax increase of 0.625% for five years, totaling a 9.75% combined sales tax.
“If Measure A passes, there is a better likelihood that allcove stays exactly how it is,” Spieser said. “Between getting more input from different people and finding different funding sources, it does take a village for us to keep this community whole.”
Young said many allcove centers are working with complex young people in addition to those with mild to moderate needs.
“Thirty nine percent of young people who come to allcove said if they didn’t come to allcove, they wouldn’t know where they would have gone,” Young said.
According to Andi Barker, wellness coordinator for the Paly Wellness Center, the wellness department hopes allcove can stay in existence as it currently is.
“If the worst case scenario does happen, as a school community we’ll make sure that we still do have a comprehensive listing for students and resources for them [students] to access,” Barker said.
Paly alumnus Joanna Prabhu said she wished she had resources like allcove when she was in high school.
“It [the cuts] is worrisome, especially since we have so many suicide clusters that are way too common for Palo Alto or for any high school,” Prabhu said.
You can email budget feedback to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors at [email protected].
