Tucson just got something it’s never had before: a crisis center built exclusively for kids. Hour Child Crisis Center, located at 7460 N La Cholla Blvd, held its grand opening on Saturday, August 29th, and officially began accepting patients on September 1st. The center serves children and teens ages 6 to 17 who are experiencing a mental health crisis, offering crisis stabilization and assessment, safety planning, parent and guardian guidance, discharge support, and community referrals.
The center was founded by Tabitha Salzer and Isabella Waszkiewicz, two psychiatric nurse practitioners who spent years watching families run out of options. Pima County’s Crisis Response Center serves thousands of children and adults in the same space, under the same protocols, systems built for adults, not kids. “We have watched families call us in crisis at 2 a.m. with nowhere to go,” Salzer & Waszkiewicz shared. “We have seen firsthand what happens when a child in crisis falls through the cracks, and we decided we could no longer just witness that gap. We had to fill it”.
Local news station KGUN9 covered the opening and spoke directly with the founders. “We’ve seen a lot where we need a need, and we don’t have this in Tucson,” Salzer told reporter Eddie Celaya. Waszkiewicz, the center’s co-founder and medical director, described the road to opening day: “We’ve been committed to this process from the beginning, and we’ve worked a lot, put a lot of time and effort into this. This is just the next phase”.
Pictured from left to right: Kate Zimmerman, Mandy Verdugo, & Brittney Ruiz
Cushman & Wakefield | PICOR is proud to have played a small part in helping Hour Child Crisis Center come to life. Our marketing team, Kate Zimmerman, Marketing Manager, and Brittney Ruiz, Marketing Assistant, volunteered their time and talent to design a mural for the center. Salzer and Waszkiewicz handpicked six local artists to transform the building’s blank, sterile walls into bright, colorful murals meant to bring a little comfort during a child’s hardest moments. Zimmerman and Ruiz volunteered around 40 hours to create a vibrant, Tucson inspired scene filled with native animals and hidden details kids can discover again and again during their stay. Mandy Verdugo, property manager at C&W | PICOR also played a key role behind the scenes, overseeing the building itself. All three employees attended Saturday’s grand opening to celebrate alongside the founders and support the center’s first steps.
Hour Child Crisis Center is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with no appointment needed. Walk-ins are always welcome.
Photos by Kate Zimmerman
SOURCES:
Celaya, Eddie. “At Any ‘Hour’: Hour Child Crisis Center Open 24/7 for Children’s Mental Health Needs.” KGUN9, 29 Aug. 2026, www.kgun9.com/news/community-inspired-journalism/northside-news/at-any-hour-hour-child-crisis-center-open-24-7-for-childrens-mental-health-needs.
Salzer, Tabitha, and Isabella Waszkiewicz. “Hour Child Crisis Center: Our Why.” Google Docs, 2026, docs.google.com/document/d/1QJZkyeRBsn-7iknjXDo3QWuf8zYxhU0U/edit.
