Dayton: Montgomery County Crisis Center
City Profile: Dayton, Ohio
The Montgomery County Crisis Center and the Three-Tier Model
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine chose the Dayton center’s opening to articulate the three-tier framework — someone to call, someone to respond, and somewhere to go — that SAMHSA’s 2025 National Guidelines subsequently formalized.
The Dayton center is the “somewhere to go.” SAMHSA’s 2025 National Guidelines cite the Montgomery County three-tier design as a reference implementation of the operational logic each component was built to serve.
Background: Building Toward the Third Tier
Montgomery County did not build its crisis stabilization center first. Before the center opened, the county had invested in the first two tiers: the Montgomery County Crisis Now Hotline, which provides the initial call response, and Mobile Crisis Response Teams that can dispatch to callers who need in-person intervention. These investments preceded the facility, and the facility was designed to complete a system that was already partially operational.
SAMHSA’s 2025 National Guidelines identify the three-tier sequence — phone, mobile, facility — as the design standard, with facility-based stabilization as the terminal point.
Governor DeWine articulated the design logic at the center’s opening: the three-tier model “gives community members in crisis someone to call (the Montgomery County Crisis Now Hotline), someone to come to them (Mobile Crisis Response Teams), and somewhere to go (the new crisis center).” The phrasing, subsequently reproduced in dozens of state legislative and federal policy documents, reflects the clarity of a design that had been worked out before the facility was built.
The Crisis Stabilization Facility
The Dayton crisis center serves as the anchor of the county’s three-tier system. Staffed by “nurses, psychology professionals, social workers and peer support” specialists, the facility provides immediate crisis intervention for the cases that the mobile crisis teams cannot resolve in the field, and for people who arrive by self-referral, family transport, or law enforcement drop-off.
The facility’s clinical model reflects the standard crisis stabilization design: assessment and immediate stabilization for people in acute psychiatric or substance use distress, safety planning and discharge coordination, and connection to ongoing outpatient care. Dayton Daily News coverage of the center’s opening documents the operational integration between the hotline, mobile teams, and stabilization facility as the defining feature of the Montgomery County model.
Ohio Governor DeWine at the opening: “What we’re seeing today really does make Montgomery County a leader in the state and it really is one more major step forward to achieve what we want to achieve in Ohio… if your son or daughter or a family member is in crisis, there is a place for that person to go.” The framing is notably personal: not about system efficiency, but about the relief a family member experiences when they know there is somewhere appropriate to take someone they love who is in crisis.
The Three-Tier Integration in Practice
Governor DeWine’s opening remarks and subsequent Dayton Daily News coverage document how the three tiers interact in practice.
The hotline screens before dispatching. The Montgomery County Crisis Now Hotline provides phone-based assessment and crisis counseling. For callers who can be stabilized by phone, the call ends without dispatching any mobile resource. For callers who need in-person response, the hotline dispatches a mobile crisis team. For cases that require a facility-based intervention, the mobile team transports the person to the stabilization center.
Governor DeWine described this screening function at the opening: each tier is designed to filter calls to the appropriate level before routing them further.
The mobile teams handle the field escalation decision. Mobile crisis teams assess in person and determine whether facility transport is indicated.
The facility closes the loop. Without the stabilization center, the mobile teams face the same problem that mobile crisis programs nationwide describe: when field stabilization is not sufficient, the only options are the emergency room and the jail. With the center operational, mobile teams have a clinically appropriate, faster alternative. The transfer from mobile team to center is designed for speed: the mobile team can complete a transfer and return to field response without the hours-long wait that ER transfers require.
Ohio’s Statewide Context
The Dayton center is one piece of Ohio’s broader statewide investment in crisis infrastructure under Governor DeWine. The $90 million commitment included the Dayton facility, statewide expansion of the Mobile Response and Stabilization Services (MRSS) youth crisis program to all 88 counties, and support for crisis center development across multiple Ohio communities.
Ohio’s $90 million statewide commitment, documented in the Dayton Daily News, funded both facility development and operational support across multiple counties simultaneously. The Franklin County Crisis Care Center in Columbus, which opened in September 2025, is another product of this investment framework, representing a different design model (nonprofit-operated, $60 million, 72,000-square-foot facility serving up to 80 people at a time) in a larger city context.
SAMHSA’s 2025 National Guidelines cite the Ohio three-tier model as a reference implementation.
Law Enforcement Integration
Montgomery County’s investment in mobile crisis capacity before the stabilization center opened created operational familiarity: the Ohio MRSS program routes youth behavioral health crises through 988 and dispatches mobile teams, giving law enforcement experience with civilian crisis handoffs before the center opened.
What Montgomery County Has Demonstrated
SAMHSA’s 2025 National Guidelines cite the three-tier model — someone to call, someone to respond, somewhere to go — as the framework for a functioning crisis continuum, with Ohio’s system as a reference implementation. Ohio’s $90 million state investment funded both the Dayton facility and statewide mobile crisis expansion across all 88 counties, documented in the Dayton Daily News. The Montgomery County model built the hotline and mobile teams before the facility — the documented sequence Governor DeWine described at the opening.
Key Data Points
Location: Dayton, Montgomery County, Ohio
Phone line: Montgomery County Crisis Now Hotline, 24/7
Field response: Mobile Crisis Response Teams
Facility destination: Crisis Stabilization Center
Staffing: Nurses, psychology professionals, social workers, peer support specialists
State investment: Part of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s $90 million statewide crisis services commitment
Political context: Republican governor championing bipartisan frame of public safety modernization
National influence: Three-tier “someone to call, someone to respond, somewhere to go” framework cited in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) 2025 National Guidelines
Connected facility: Franklin County Crisis Care Center in Columbus (opened September 2025) represents a parallel Ohio investment at larger scale
Footnotes