If you’re looking for mental health help in San Francisco, the reason could be almost anything: depression that has flattened everything out, anxiety that won’t switch off, drinking or using more than you meant to, a diagnosis you’re still learning to live with, or a stretch that has simply gotten heavier than you can carry on your own. None of that needs to reach an emergency before it counts as a reason to ask for help.

San Francisco has more doors than most cities, and some of them stay open all night. Dore Urgent Care Clinic, on a side street in SoMa, takes adults in an escalating mental health crisis around the clock in a setting built to feel nothing like a hospital; call ahead before you go. A few blocks away, the city’s Behavioral Health Access Center on Howard Street takes drop-ins seven days a week and runs a 24/7 access line that can help sort out which program fits and get you enrolled in benefits along the way, with staff who speak Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin and Vietnamese. If going anywhere feels like too much, the city’s Comprehensive Crisis Services sends mobile teams to adults and children.

Cost is rarely the first wall here. Only about one in fifteen working-age adults in San Francisco is uninsured, among the lowest rates of any large city. The harder part is often finding your way in, and the city’s public behavioral health services cost nothing or close to it for most people on Medi-Cal, with a sliding scale for everyone else. The peer-run support line and NAMI San Francisco’s groups are free, and there’s more on mental health insurance coverage if you want to know what your plan should be paying for.

You don’t need to know which of these is right for you before you reach out. The figures further down describe San Francisco in aggregate, not you. Whether you’re looking for yourself or for someone you care about, the Mental Health Hotline can help you sort through the options at 866-903-3787. More California mental health resources are collected on the state page.