You get the help that you pay for.

I know you want to believe that the world is a good place and someone who's suffering enough to consider death as an alternative can be helped easily and cheaply, but that just isn't the reality we live in. My experience is that free help is a bunch of minimum-effort volunteers. Depression can be a very complicated thing and it isn't well understood by very many people, often even the expensive professionals just throw drugs at it.

I can certainly think of possible cases where the mental help needed might involve more than a help line or support group long term. Heck there might even be cases when physical health help is what is unavailable in the long term -- chronic illnesses considerably raise the risk of suicide. (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170612094032.h...) A help line is probably not going to resolve a chronic illness.

I know the original comment was at the individual level, but from a big picture perspective I do think "money" definitely matters. Specifically, the United States health care system lacks compared to other rich nations when it comes to coverage and accessibility. Based on an ecological study I found (https://europepmc.org/abstract/med/16669716) it seems like there's a definite link between suicide rates and this issue -- factors like funding for mental health and insurance coverage matter a lot here.

Wrong. You're conflating crisis care with on-going care. Crisis care maybe free, but on-going care is definitely expensive in the US. Crisis care is no substitute for on-going care because it's a bandaid.

> churche/synagogue/mosque

Why are people getting medical support from a religious organisation? Why aren't they getting evidence-based treatment from healthcare professionals?

The free resources are not sufficient for the demand. Helping people for free doesn't pay rent for the people doing the helping.