If you’re in immediate danger, call 911. If you’re having thoughts of ending your life, or are in crisis and not in immediate physical danger, call or text 988 — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, free, confidential, 24 hours a day, with Spanish-language and other services available.
Everything below is context for choosing between them.
988
Call, text, or chat. Staffed by trained counsellors, not police. The overwhelming majority of contacts are resolved on the call itself without any emergency service involvement — this is the single most common misconception and the reason people don’t call.
You don’t have to be suicidal. It’s for crisis of any kind, including for people worried about someone else. There’s a dedicated Veterans Crisis Line (press 1). The separate option for LGBTQ+ young people (press 3) was shut down in July 2025; for that, the Trevor Project below is the line to use.
Crisis Text Line
Text HOME to 741741. For people who can’t speak on a phone, which is a large group and includes a lot of people in shared housing.
Someone in crisis on the street
For someone in a mental health or substance-use crisis in public, the city’s guidance is to call 911. Say clearly that it’s a behavioural health crisis. That framing changes what gets dispatched, and it’s worth knowing before you’re standing there.
311 is for things that aren’t emergencies: asking the city’s Street Team (run by the Department of Public Health since July 2026) to check on someone who is struggling but not in danger.
San Francisco numbers
All of these are the city’s own listings, and all run 24 hours a day unless noted.
- Behavioral Health Access Line: 1-888-246-3333. The first call for someone who needs services rather than an emergency response, and the route into county-funded treatment regardless of ability to pay.
- Comprehensive Crisis Services (the city’s mobile crisis team): 628-217-7000.
- Psychiatric Emergency Services at Zuckerberg San Francisco General: 628-206-8125.
- Dore Urgent Care, a walk-in alternative to the emergency room for a mental health crisis: 415-553-3100.
- San Francisco Suicide Prevention: 415-781-0500.
- California Peer-Run Warm Line, for when you need to talk to someone but it isn’t a crisis: 855-600-9276.
More on the county system here.
What actually happens if you call 988
The fear that keeps people from calling is that they will be put on a hold, or that police will arrive. Worth addressing directly.
A counsellor answers, asks what is going on, and talks with you. Most calls end there. Emergency services are involved only where there’s imminent risk to life and the situation can’t be resolved on the call. Involuntary holds in California — the 5150 — require probable cause that someone is a danger to themselves or others, or gravely disabled. Distress, or thoughts of suicide without intent or a plan, usually don’t meet that standard.
Telling a clinician you’re having suicidal thoughts is likewise not, by itself, grounds for hospitalisation. Clinicians ask about plan, intent and means, and thoughts without those are extremely common and get talked about rather than acted on.
Other specific lines
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. RAINN, for sexual assault: 1-800-656-4673. Trevor Project, for LGBTQ+ young people, 24/7: 1-866-488-7386, or text START to 678-678. Trans Lifeline: 1-877-565-8860, weekdays 10am–6pm Pacific only, with a policy of not calling emergency services without consent. Outside those hours, call or text 988. SAMHSA National Helpline, for substance use: 1-800-662-4357.
Before you need it
Put 988 in your phone now. Tell one person that you would contact them. And if you’re in treatment, ask your clinician what to do outside hours — that answer differs by practice and is much easier to get on a calm Tuesday than at eleven on a Saturday night.