Allcove Palo Alto, a mental health support center, is facing budget cuts and possible closure due to the passage of the HR-1 bill, better known as the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Allcove first opened in 2021 and is a first-of-its-kind mental health center for youth in California. Different from traditional mental health services, allove provides mental health services for low or zero costs.
However, these benefits may soon disappear. Santa Clara County Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga, who spoke on Oct 28 at a town hall meeting at the Palo Alto Art Center, warns funding cuts will directly impact all Santa Clara County’s services, including allcove.
“We are looking at changes with allcove,” Abe-Koga said. “Right now it’s a county-funded program, but again, because of our budget cuts, we are looking at having to make some changes.”
Currently, there is a target of $800 million to cut in the coming year’s budget. This includes a cut of $145 million in behavioral health services, which allcove falls in.
The closure of allcove could affect hundreds of youth. Behavioral Health Services Division Director Jennifer Pham spoke more on the impact allcove has had on the community.
“Since the inception [of allcove] in June 2021, we’ve seen roughly 1400 youth at the center,” Pham said. “951 of them have been there for ongoing, repeated service.”
Stanford Professor of Psychiatry Shashank Joshi, who has worked closely in suicide prevention for over a decade, also expressed his desire for allcove to stay open, citing his own personal experience with the program.
“One of my kids really struggled and got a lot of support from community resources, including those offered by the district and community beacons like allcove,” Joshi said.
Joshi said he believes that allcove has become a valuable community pillar for mental health.
“Seventy percent who visit allcove say they would not have sought help elsewhere,” Joshi said. “This is not just a mental health clinic, it’s a lifeline. It’s a community home for young people.”
Joshi ended with a statement emphasizing the importance of allcove in our community.
“We’d be silencing a model of hope that young people have built from the ground up,” Joshi said. “Our young people have told us what they need. They built it. They trust us with it, now it’s our turn to stand by them and make sure it remains.”