Toksook Bay youth joined other advocates at the Alaska State Capitol to raise awareness for suicide prevention and to urge state support for funding mental health services, including the state’s 988 crisis line.
“I’ve lost a couple people to suicide. It made me feel like my family was broken,” said Jacob Nicolai, a 20-year-old from Toksook Bay in Western Alaska. “Losing a loved one through suicide is hard. It can feel like a part of you is gone too. It takes a long time to forgive and accept.”
A pair of bills now in the Alaska House and Senate, House Bill 138 and Senate Bill 196, would implement a $0.98 surcharge per month on all phone lines in Alaska — cell and wired lines — to go toward a behavioral health crisis services fund.
The surcharge is expected to generate $6 million to $8 million a year toward the fund, which would be administered by the Alaska Department of Health and go to support the 988 crisis line, support services, training for at-risk communities and public awareness campaigns around suicide prevention.
The telecommunications industry in Alaska has pushed back against the surcharge, and it’s questionable whether the legislation can win enough support to pass both the House and Senate in the final six weeks of the legislative session.
The Alaska Telecom Association wrote in a March 17 letter that a flat per-line fee is regressive and “places the cost of behavioral health services on telecommunications subscribers regardless of income or ability to pay.”
The association also said that although it believes access to mental health services is important, services outside of crisis communications should not be paid for with telephone surcharge revenues.
Alaska has the highest rates of suicide of any state in the nation — more than double the national rate — a trend that has remained consistent for decades.
In 2024, the most recent year of publicly available data, 222 Alaskans died by suicide, with boys and men making up the large majority of suicide deaths at 83% of those deaths. However, more women and girls are hospitalized each year due to suicide attempts.
Alaska youth ages 15 to 24 continue to have the highest rates of any age group, with roughly 48 deaths per 100,000 people in 2024.
“Suicide prevention is important to me because I believe all of us are here for a reason,” Nicolai said. “We’re here to live and show our loved ones what we are capable of. We are here because we matter. Sometimes people forget how much they matter. So it’s our job, all of us, to check in with our co-workers, family and friends, and ask how they are feeling.”
He was among the youth, advocates and lawmakers that held a news conference March 19 to urge passage of the legislation to provide state funding for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – a 24/7 free, confidential hotline for not only suicidal ideation, but for anyone in need of resources or support for depression, relationships or mental health issues.
Anchorage Rep. Genevieve Mina is sponsoring the legislation in the House and spoke about losing her father to suicide.
“Although my family was aware that he was struggling, he never asked for help. He was ashamed to talk about his struggles, and maybe it was guilt or shame from culture or stigma, but he never talked about it,” she said. She said she didn’t talk about it much either, until many years later.
Mina said the state should be doing more to provide support, but stable funding for the crisis line is a start.
“When we don’t treat mental health conditions, they worsen in our emergency rooms. They also impact our families. … There are far too many Alaskans that are experiencing this isolation and that are dealing with these struggles. We need a better and more stable support network.”
In 2022, the Biden administration established the national 988 crisis line following legislation passed by the U.S. Congress. In Alaska, the crisis line is based in Fairbanks and has seen a growing number of calls in the years since. Last year, the state crisis line received nearly 44,000 calls from Alaskans.
The Alaska Beacon is an independent, donor-funded news organization. Alaskabeacon.com. The Anchorage Daily News contributed reporting for this story.
