Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff visited the 988 hotline call center Friday to highlight mental health issues during the holidays.
“The holidays are tough for a lot of us around the country, and we all saw the tragic news about tWitch,” Emhoff said at the Community Crisis Services Center in Hyattsville, MD.
Stephen Boss, also known as tWitch, died by suicide on Tuesday at the age of 40. He was a well-known dancer and former DJ and co-executive producer for “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”
The 988 mental health hotline’s funding, some $130 million in grants, comes from bipartisan gun control legislation that President Biden signed into law in June.
Emhoff, an attorney and the husband of Vice President Harris, was joined at the call center by Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Andrea Palm and Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use Miriam Delphin-Rittman.
The Second Gentleman stressed that calling 988 is fast, taking just 32 seconds on average.
“Instead of calling 911 for emergency, we need to get everyone to know that it’s 988 for any issues that revolve around mental health or suicidal ideation or those feelings of being alone,” he said.
