New mental health crisis center to provide 24/7 emergency care to Utahns in need

Note to readers • This article discusses suicide. If you or people you know are at risk of self-harm, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline for 24-hour support.

Russell Belt walked through the doors of the Huntsman Mental Health Institute’s hospital up at the University of Utah’s Research Park last September hoping to get treatment for his alcohol addiction that was spinning out of control.

“The drinking has kind of been there for a better part of two decades, and just progressively got worse and worse to the point where that became my primary coping mechanism, and the wrong one,” Belt said. “So, it unfortunately got to the point where I couldn’t really control it, and that’s why I knew I needed help.”

Belt, who works as an automation manager at Codale Electric Supply, said getting help was hard, especially in the face of stigma around mental health. In the end, he went through a full inpatient detox at the Research Park facility.

(Chris Samuels | The Salt Lake Tribune) Russell Belt acknowledges the audience during the opening of the Kem and Carolyn Gardner Mental Health Crisis Care Center in South Salt Lake, Friday, March 28, 2025.

“It just felt like family, honestly,” he said. “It was a very comfortable environment that I feel like I could start to heal in, really.”

On Friday morning, Belt was on hand to witness the next step in providing mental health care to Utahns, as officials opened the Kem and Carolyn Gardner Mental Health Crisis Care Center in South Salt Lake. Belt highlighted that the new building, which will be run by the Huntsman Mental Health Institute, is well-positioned to offer more people the comfortable healing environment he experienced.

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The comprehensive center will offer around-the-clock care to anyone who walks through its doors at 955 W. 3300 South, is referred there or arrives with emergency responders. Once it opens to patients Monday, it will be able to handle about 45 people for crisis stabilization care that lasts less than 23 hours and two dozen people for inpatient stays that average seven days in length.

The combination of daylong care, short-term stays, continuing outpatient services and on-site clinics that deal with physical ailments and legal challenges make the building the first of its kind not just in Utah, but also in the United States, officials say.

Speakers at Friday’s opening ceremony shared personal stories of mental health struggles in their families and lauded the center as an answer to a vexing mental health question: Where can Utahns go when they are in crisis? The Beehive State has the seventh-highest suicide rate in the country.

“Hope has a new location,” Sandy Republican Rep. Steve Eliason said, in a nod to earlier efforts that established Utah’s emergency mental health hotline 988, or hope’s “new phone number,” as he called it.

The $64 million emergency center is the culmination of collaboration between state leaders, county officials and private philanthropists. It will host 200 mental health professionals providing care and expects to serve almost 10,000 patients annually.

Officials not only believe the center will provide better, more integrated care to more patients, but that it will also take the burden off of Salt Lake Valley emergency rooms that are not equipped to handle mental health crises.

“Emergency rooms are designed for unconsciousness and bleeding, right? They are designed for physical emergencies,” said Kevin Curtis, the center’s director of operations. “... You really want to go to a place that’s designed for the mental health crises. So, what that means to us is spaces that are softer, warmer, more inviting. That means staffing that’s oriented around understanding mental health concerns.”

The center also will foster collaboration between U. researchers, students and practitioners, helping to train the next generations of mental health workers.

Belt, the automation manager, said his healing process continues. He praised Huntsman providers for teaching him the tools he uses to stay healthy now, and urged all Utahns contending with mental illness and substance abuse to seek similar help as soon as they can — at the new center or elsewhere.

“Don’t wait. Yesterday is too late, quite honestly,” Belt said. “There’s people that really want to help and, no, it’s not going to be an easy road, but it’s very worth it.”