Competency Restoration Observatory
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Texas's mental-health waiting lists, from the public record

Texas had no binding competency-restoration admission deadline until July 2026, when a federal court ruled the practice unconstitutional and ordered a 21-day standard — now being phased in over four years, with the underlying order in effect while Texas appeals to the Fifth Circuit. This page tracks HHSC's own published waiting-list reports.

Built and maintained by Sudhanshu Rai, an independent researcher; not affiliated with any court, agency, or party. Descriptive measurement only — no causal claims. Not legal advice — nothing here states your legal rights or deadlines in any individual case, or reaches a conclusion about any party's compliance, liability, or wrongdoing; consult a licensed attorney about a specific matter. Not endorsed by, and not affiliated with, HHSC or the State of Texas — this page's source documents are used under HHSC's own published non-commercial reuse policy.

Governing standard: HHSC Rider 47 (previously numbered Rider 45/50 in earlier budget cycles) and Judge David Alan Ezra's July 2026 ruling in Ward v. [Executive Commissioner of HHSC], No. 1:16-cv-00917-DAE (W.D. Tex., Austin Div.) — a certified class action filed in 2016 — ordering a 21-day admission deadline (Panel 1 of the comparison page). The named defendant is left generic here since official-capacity suits like this one automatically substitute in whoever currently holds the Executive Commissioner role; verify the current caption before citing this case elsewhere. The order gives HHSC a four-year phase-in with jointly-developed interim benchmarks, so 21 days is not yet the operative number on the ground — but the underlying injunction and benchmark process are currently proceeding, not paused: Texas sought a stay of the whole ruling pending its appeal to the Fifth Circuit, and the court denied that stay in late August 2026. Prior to this ruling, Texas had no binding admission deadline at all, unlike Washington, Oregon, Colorado, or California's court-ordered standards.
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Texas24 rows · 12 columns · 2022-11–2025-08
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Non-max waitlist, 2025-08
1285people
The larger of Texas's two waitlist categories. Has stayed in a 1159–1526 range across every report on record — essentially flat, not a declining trend.
Source: mhs-waiting-lists-nov-2025.pdf — Table 7, page.14 ↗
Max-security waitlist, 2025-08
419people
The smaller, more acute category, tracked separately by HHSC.
Source: mhs-waiting-lists-nov-2025.pdf — Table 10, page.16 ↗
Max-security avg. wait, last comparable reading 2023-08
659days
Up from 519 days in 2022-11 (+27%). Not a current figure: HHSC changed its report format after 2023-08, and the newer tables' own footnote states people "do not directly admit from the maximum security list" — there is no wait-time figure for this statewide queue in any report since. An earlier version of this page paired the waitlist count above with a days figure from a different, much smaller population (patients already assigned to a specific hospital) — that was a real bug, now removed rather than corrected, since no genuine substitute exists. The waitlist count itself is still tracked and current.
Source: mhs-waiting-lists-nov-2023.pdf — Table 6, page.12 ↗
The headline number

Non-max waitlist — flat, not falling

The larger of Texas's two tracked waitlist categories, 2022-11–2025-08. Unlike the max-security wait-time figure in the KPI row above, this count has not meaningfully declined.

0500100015002022-11: 1481 — mhs-waiting-lists-may-2023.pdf — Table 5, page.122023-02: 1526 — mhs-waiting-lists-may-2023.pdf — Table 5, page.122023-05: 1345 — mhs-waiting-lists-nov-2023.pdf — Table 5, page.122023-08: 1200 — mhs-waiting-lists-nov-2023.pdf — Table 5, page.122023-11: 1178 — mhs-waiting-lists-nov-2024.pdf — Table 7, page.132024-02: 1249 — mhs-waiting-lists-nov-2024.pdf — Table 7, page.132024-05: 1159 — mhs-waiting-lists-nov-2024.pdf — Table 7, page.132024-08: 1208 — mhs-waiting-lists-nov-2024.pdf — Table 7, page.132024-11: 1247 — mhs-waiting-lists-nov-2025.pdf — Table 7, page.142025-02: 1195 — mhs-waiting-lists-nov-2025.pdf — Table 7, page.142025-05: 1205 — mhs-waiting-lists-nov-2025.pdf — Table 7, page.142025-08: 1285 — mhs-waiting-lists-nov-2025.pdf — Table 7, page.142022-112023-082024-052024-112025-08
Known caveat on this chart, unresolved: the design review behind this site flagged that a facility was reclassified between HHSC reporting cycles in a way that could affect this exact count — this rebuild has not identified the specific event (the original project files describing it were lost), so it's disclosed here rather than silently dropped or guessed at. If you know the facility and reporting cycle involved, that's a genuinely useful correction to send in.
Status

Data quality and reporting limitations

A known facility-reclassification caveat affecting the waitlist chart below is disclosed directly on that chart, not just here — see the flagged note under "Non-max waitlist" below for detail.
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Texas24 rows · 12 columns · 2022-11–2025-08
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Cite, download, or get in touch

Cite this dataset

Competency Restoration Observatory (2026). Texas mental-health waiting-list series [dataset]. competencyrestoration.org · data current through 2025-08 · page generated August 2026 · concept DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21436450 (always resolves to the latest dataset version — a version-pinned DOI matching this exact data window follows at the next Zenodo release).

Every figure regenerates from the public source reports by code — fully reproducible. The Zenodo deposit already includes real, MIT-licensed extraction code for the frozen Washington/Oregon study (an extraction pipeline plus its own verification gate) — but this dashboard's own full 5-state codebase (adapted from that study's code, plus Colorado, Texas, and California from scratch) is a separate, not-yet-public repository. A dedicated "Build & Replicate" walkthrough page and that public release are both planned but not yet published.

Data, code & contact

Open dataset + WA/OR code (Zenodo) Full dashboard code (public release planned) Email the maintainer Subscribe to corrections (RSS)

Researchers, clinicians, monitors, and reporters welcome — especially if you know of more recent source reports for this state. Every correction to an already-published number is logged on the Changelog page and in this RSS feed — nothing changes silently.