The Mental Health Project is a Seattle Times initiative focused on covering mental and behavioral health issues. It is funded by Ballmer Group, a national organization focused on economic mobility for children and families. The Seattle Times maintains editorial control over work produced by this team.

When a walk-in mental health center in Kirkland opened last summer, it introduced a type of health care that King County, and Washington state, hadn’t seen before.

The idea was straightforward: The crisis center would be a place where anyone could walk in and receive mental health care without an appointment. It would be accessible to all, regardless of whether they had health insurance or the means to pay for care.

A little over a year later, the center has served close to 4,000 unique pa

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