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Full Speed Ahead: How the Crisis Care Centers Levy Is Unlocking Free, 24/7 Mental Health Support for King County  

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Thanks to the voter-approved Crisis Care Centers (CCC) Levy, King County is expanding its services that offer immediate mental health and substance use care for people in a moment of crisis, including: 

Less than two years into implementing the CCC Levy, teams across DCHS, our provider network and communities have come together to be in community and make major progress building out this more robust and modern system. Already, we have more capacity to help everyone in King County who needs urgent mental health or substance use care, regardless of insurance or ability to pay. This progress comes after decades of inadequate funding, facing compounding behavioral health crises including post-pandemic, the opioid overdose crisis, youth mental health crisis, and workforce crisis. 

Early CCC Levy Investments Are Giving Communities Relief 

Today, all the early investments in the CCC Levy Implementation Plan are in place and funding to sustain expanded services will continue through the life of the levy. These investments expanded access to 988, added more mobile crisis response teams for adults and youth, boosted King County’s response to the opioid overdose crisis, preserved residential treatment beds, and supported the behavioral health workforce.  

At the same time, we made progress creating a regional network of five Crisis Care Centers, the initiative’s top priority. Our first center, Connections Kirkland, is now open and recently began welcoming youth ages 4-17 for urgent care. The second Crisis Care Center is expected to open in Seattle on First Hill as early as 2027. MultiCare will operate the future center in South King County, and a site will be selected in partnership with local jurisdictions this year.  

The Request for Proposals (RFP) for the future East Crisis Care Center is now open and the RFP to select a provider to operate the youth center is coming soon. Check out our latest blogs to learn more about Crisis Care Centers: 

Breaking the Cycle: Post-Crisis Follow-Up Care

Crisis Care Centers have robust discharge protocols that help everyone who is seen get home or back to their community and connect to the supportive services they need for their long-term health. Patients who need a higher level of support when they leave a center can get that from our new Post-Crisis Follow-Up Teams when they launch later this year.  

King County is the first in the nation to have a fully connected crisis system with such intentional and thorough follow-up and recovery services to help break the cycle of repeat crises. In February, we awarded Post-Crisis Follow-Up Teams to be operated by Consejo, Purpose. Dignity. Action and Sound Behavioral Health. These community-based teams will serve clients at the Crisis Care Center in Kirkland, then eventually expand to all Crisis Care Centers as they open. 

Most important of all, more people are getting the care they need in a crisis and we’re seeing relief and new capacity across the behavioral health system: 

Vending machines have distributed nearly 15,000 overdose prevention supplies to date.

Expanding Residential Treatment 

One of the goals of the Crisis Care Centers initiative is to expand equitable access to residential treatment in King County and add 115 new mental health residential treatment beds that were lost in recent years.  

This year, the initiative awarded $20 million in funding to:  

In 2024, an early investment of $15 million helped preserve existing residential treatment beds at six local facilities. Future funding awards creating more new residential treatment beds are expected in 2026. 

Strengthening the Behavioral Health Workforce 

Supporting behavioral health workers is a key part of the Crisis Care Centers Levy, which will invest more than $160 million over nine years in the behavioral health workforce, which has struggled to maintain staffing levels nationwide.    

In 2025, 37 community providers received and implemented investments to strengthen and support their workforce. Here are some of the results: 

Total # of unique staff who benefited from wellness and career development programs funded by the CCC Levy in 2025 3686 
Total # of clinical staff who received clinical supervision. 1377 
Total # of staff who renewed a license. 603 
Total # of interns supported. 436 
Total # of staff who obtained a license. 230 

And this year, we’ve already made great progress: 

Additionally, as of December 2025, 15 apprentices have participated in SEIU Healthcare 1199’s Behavioral Health Apprenticeship program, which the levy helps fund locally in King County.   

Being In Community 

King County’s CCC Levy team hosted over 100 community conversations, presentations, and listening sessions in 2025, including in Spanish, Somali, and Hindi, as well as monthly virtual meetings. We continue to host monthly virtual community meetings, as well as events in community.  

Here’s what’s coming up: 

We are always available for community meetings, events and presentations. You can reach out to us to get something scheduled by emailing ccclevy@kingcounty.gov.  

This year, we are initiating the process to create a new Trusted Leader Network—especially from BIPOC, immigrant, refugee, LGBTQ+, disability, rural, and other historically underserved communities—to help shape how the Crisis Care Centers system is built, delivers services, and is held accountable to community. 

Interested in more results and data? DCHS is preparing a Crisis Services Data Brief and will publish the CCC Levy 2025 Annual Report this summer. Here is a link to last year’s report: 2024 Crisis Care Centers Annual Report – King County, Washington 

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