SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio is helping advance a plan for a diversion center that could allow people with mental illness or disabilities to avoid going to jail for low-level misdemeanors and get treatment instead.
The Center for Health Care Services (CHCS) plans to commission a study to confirm the feasibility of such a center and develop a plan. After a Tuesday discussion, the city council’s Public Safety Committee unanimously supported staff’s recommendation to partner with the center on its study.
Deputy City Manager María Villagómez told KSAT the city will chip in $30,000 toward the cost from the San Antonio Police Department budget. CHCS estimates the study will cost between $100,000 and $120,000.
The committee also agreed to discuss the entire city council at a February meeting, including the possible creation of an ad hoc committee of city and county officials.
Councilwoman Teri Castillo (D5) had submitted a policy proposal in October 2025, asking the city to begin a conversation on a center.
“As laid out in the presentation, not only is this the right thing to do in terms of ensuring that we have treatment and not trauma, but it’s the fiscally responsible thing to do,“ Castillo said during the meeting. ”As highlighted in the presentation, jailing costs $1,750 per day versus $510 per day for a behavioral health diversion center. It just makes sense."
Castillo said it would take the entire council to “be on the same page” to find other ways to support the plan beyond the $30,000, saying they should keep it in mind during budget and bond conversations.
Other large Texas counties have pre-arrest diversion efforts, city staff said, with Harris County putting out the “most robust reported outcomes.”
The diversion center opened in September 2018, according to a presentation cited by city staff, and by August 2023, 8,835 had been sent there instead of the jail.
Just over three-quarters of the people served at the center were homeless, according to the same report, and close to half had been diagnosed with schizophrenia spectrum disorder.
The Bexar County jail has struggled with capacity issues and has even resorted to sending inmates to other counties.
CHCS President and CEO Jelynne LeBlanc-Jamison said a diversion center would not solve overcrowding at the jail, but it would help reduce it.
“Any given day, we know that we have between 80 or 100 individuals sitting in Bexar County jail with a low-level offense, with a mental health and or a substance use disorder,” CHCS President and CEO Jelynne LeBlanc-Jamison told committee members. “And so there’s an opportunity for us to take 80 to 100 individuals and put them in treatment at the right time.”
A UT Health Houston School of Public Health study of the jail’s intake facility, the Justice Intake and Assessment Annex (JIAA), included a recommendation to consider a diversion facility for detainees with mental health conditions or intellectual and developmental disabilities.
LeBlanc-Jamison told reporters that substance use could also be part of the criteria.
She said people brought to a diversion center would receive treatment for up to 14 days and possibly avoid being charged.
As plans develop, LeBlanc-Jamison said the “missing component” is the upcoming election for Bexar County District Attorney, whom she said would be “key.”
Joe Gonzales, the current DA, is stepping down at the end of the year, leaving the seat wide open.
“We’re watching that very carefully, so that we can have an understanding of what the district attorney candidates — what is important to them, and how they might be interested in this proposal."