A new 24/7 mobile team at UC Davis is working to prevent crises before they happen, answering calls every day from students experiencing overwhelming stress and food and housing insecurity.
The Health 34 program, named after UC Davis’ fire station 34, launched in September and pairs an EMT with a health education specialist to help address student needs and connect them to other resources on campus. The team’s services are free, and all members are trained in peer-based emotional support and guidance.
“Crisis belongs within a 911 system and really high level caregivers, but in all this other space there's opportunity to be with someone in a hard moment and just be a compassionate listener,” said UC Davis Fire Chief Nathan Trauernicht.
According to Stormi Homdus, a health education specialist with the team, Health 34 has responded to over 200 calls since it started.
“A big one for us is when someone can't sleep and their mind starts racing,” said Homdus. “They call us in the middle of the night. And we let them vent. We let them talk.”
Homdus said a main tenet of the program is following up, getting people scheduled for an appointment with health services and transporting them there if they need it.
Health 34 team member Stormi Homdus opens the storage in the back of the Health 34 van on the UC Davis campus on Dec. 13, 2023.Kate Wolffe/CapRadio
The program is part of a wave of mobile crisis teams cropping up at other universities and cities, partly as alternatives to police. The team did ride-alongs with San Francisco's Crisis Prevention units and incorporated lessons from CAHOOTS, a seminal mobile crisis program that’s long operated in Eugene, Oregon.
It’s not just people calling for themselves. Homdus said about 4 in 10 calls are referrals — professors, TAs, roommates and friends, calling on behalf of someone else.
“We always ask that they inform that person they're calling us in hopes the person will be more receptive to us,” she said, adding that they check on the person regardless.
Tragedy draws attention to student mental health
Davis was rocked for two weeks in the spring by a series of seemingly random stabbings, which killed 50-year-old David Breaux and 20-year-old Karim Abou Najm, and seriously wounded Davis resident Kimberlee Guillory. In May, Carlos Reales Dominguez, a student who’d been “separated” from UC Davis a month before, was arrested.
During a trial to determine the 21 year old’s competency, Dominguez’s former roommates and ex-girlfriend described watching his mental health deteriorate. Some testified Dominguez was not receptive to their suggestions that he begin seeking therapeutic help. During the competency trial, three court-appointed experts deemed Dominguez schizophrenic.
Trauernicht was hesitant to address the question of whether a program like Health 34 could have helped Dominguez.
“Health 34 likely is not a solution for all issues nor will everyone reach out to us,” he said, emphasizing that the program is just one tool in the university’s toolbox and had been in development for years.
A spokeswoman for the university said the program is funded by a $700,000 grant from the state and $300,000 from the campus, including money transferred from the school’s police department.
A culture of stress
A 2021 survey of 1,008 undergraduate UC Davis students found that 1 in 3 reported “experiencing serious psychological distress” and about 30% were experiencing food insecurity.
Rashita Chauhan is a fourth year undergraduate at the school. She studies neurobiology and is pursuing a minor in political science. She said the academic pressure is extremely intense at the school, and with almost 32,000 undergraduates on campus, people can feel “really small in a really big world.”
“When I just think about mental health on campus, I just feel like a lot of people don't know where to turn to and they just feel like ‘You know what? I'm going to suppress it,’” she said.
Chauhan has also seen the Health 34 initiative develop — she was part of a student group that researched alternatives to police on campus. They suggested a similar program to the university in 2021. She said she was happy to see this initiative launch.
“Sometimes you can tell somebody ‘Hey, maybe you should go to therapy,’ but there are so many barriers — insurance, cost — there's just so many barriers to that,” said Chauhan. “Health 34 kind of removes some of those barriers.”
The service is available to all students, faculty and staff free of charge and can be reached at (530) 754-3434.
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