We expect to release our episodes in 2027.

Listen to our audio trailer here, and scroll down for samples of our journalism.

Rural Mental Health

When we first got started on this project in 2019, we made a preview episode that digs into the extraordinary challenges in rural California. There’s a saying in remote Siskiyou County -- that geography is destiny. And for Marlene Baker it was. To get the help she needed, she had to commit a crime. Not just any crime. A felony. But stick with us, and you'll discover what can happen when public defenders, prosecutors, judges and mental health officials collaborate to try to break the cycle of mental illness and incarceration.

Purpose As Healing

For people living with serious mental illness, there’s more to recovery than clinical treatment. Los Angeles County’s Hollywood 2.0 pilot program puts that idea into practice. Inspired by an Italian city’s holistic and successful approach — centered on friendship and purpose — officials brought the model stateside. For people like Mignon Poon, who spent years unhoused, the opportunity for community has proved pivotal. Listen to this April 2025 show of KQED’s The California Report Magazine as Lee takes us inside a program that offers a new model for mental health care. You can read a digital story here, full of links to more information.

Photo credit: Alisha Jucevic/KQED

History As a Road Map

Up until about fifty years ago, even in California, being LGBTQ+ meant living in the shadows. You could be targeted, entrapped, incarcerated or committed by a judge to a psychiatric hospital. Listen to this June 2022 show of KQED’s The California Report Magazine. You can read the print version of the story here, at MindSite News. It’s full of photos and links to historical documents.

Conditions of Confinement

Conditions of confinement in jails and prisons worsen mental health. That’s especially true for Black transgender women. Listen to this October 2023 show of KQED’s The California Report Magazine. You can read the print version here. It’s full of links to documents and more.

Illustration by Anna Vignet/KQED

When Law Enforcement Won’t Help

Read Lee’s April 2025 piece in CalMatters here about the growing reluctance of law enforcement to respond to mental health crisis calls that don’t involve crime

Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

And listen to her interview about that work with Tradeoff’s founder Dan Gorenstein