Street Roots • Dec. 7-13, 2018
Page 3
Editorial
Time to prioritize a more robust response to street crises
n our interview with Portland Police Chief Danielle
Outlaw, a recurring theme emerged. We need new
responders on the front lines to attend to the calls
for assistance that don’t need a police officer. Not every
call has a criminal nexus, and in fact, many require a
skillset and a presence that specifically does not involve
a badge and a gun.
We don’t have to look far for a
great example.
In the Eugene-Springfield
metro area, residents have
CAHOOTS, which stands for
Crisis Assistance Helping Out On
The Streets. As its name
suggests, CAHOOTS is a 24-hour mobile crisis
intervention resource dispatched through the region’s
emergency response centers. It’s a free service to
callers in both cities, funded entirely through the
Eugene Police Department.
When a caller needs assistance - but not law
enforcement - a team composed of a medic and a crisis
worker respond, providing care and assessments for
people in medical or psychological crisis, as well as
information, referral and advocacy. In some cases they
are able to transport the individual to a service
provider.
This is putting the right resource to the task. This is
smart.
Chief Outlaw spoke about a pilot project to direct
calls that don’t require police intervention to
appropriate responders. An officer at the 911 dispatch
center helps decide if a call for service requires a police
officer or another service to respond. This is a good
first step, and one we expect will help illustrate just how
much another unit of responders, one trained for
mental health and addiction issues on the streets, is
needed.
Indeed, the police have created a Behavioral Health
Unit, partnering with licensed mental health experts, as
part of its settlement with the U.S. Department of
Justice of the use of force on people with mental illness.
But it simply cannot keep up with the need, and the
mere presence of an officer in uniform, badge and gun
can escalate a crisis situation.
The city is moving forward with creating public safety
support specialists, or PS3s. They would be unarmed
officers that respond to low-level calls, such as serving
EDITORIAL
as assistants to police activity, waiting on tow trucks and
directing traffic.
These “officers” may come to serve a valuable role
for the bureau, but the concept leapfrogs over the
greater need: attending to serious physical and mental
health crises on our streets, aggravated by
homelessness. That shouldn’t be a branch of the police
force. That needs to be a separate channel of focus, to
serve the public, not the police.
There are other local models to draw from, but none
of them a comprehensive program for the county.
Central City Concern, the city’s largest social service
and housing provider, operates CHIERS, a van service,
staffed by medical professionals trained to work with
people who are intoxicated or incapacitated by drugs or
alcohol. This is a great model, but it’s focus does not
cover the full scope of mental health issues, from
despair and suicidal behavior to outright psychosis, that
require assistance on the streets.
Even closer to the model is Portland Fire & Rescue’s
Community Health Assessment Team, or CHAT, a
fledgling program that combines medical intervention
with social service work. This is a great program to
build upon.
Another great example is Project Respond, a 24-hour,
mobile mental health crisis response service, but it’s
not enough. None of these individual programs are
robust enough to deliver reliable, immediate responses
to the level of need on the street.
Of course, the other side of this coin is there have to
be places for people to go after triage. No amount of
outreach on the streets can totally take up the slack for
the lack of brick and mortar facilities - beds, addiction
services and mental health treatment options. But in
addition to creating destinations, we must have a
24-hour, fast-responding service unit like CAHOOTS to
address where people are, right now.
The city - politicians and citizens alike - need to be
thinking beyond the uniform on these issues, because
citations, fines, jail time and warrants are only setting
people back further, and incarceration is torture for
people in the throes of mental illness.
As the city and the county prepare for the upcoming
budget process, creating a first-responder program, fully
resourced, that is actually responsive to our streets, has
to be a top priority.
Support Street Roots and celebrate with a beanie!
n 2019, Street Roots turns 20. Twenty
years of our newspaper committed to
covering overlooked stories. Twenty
years of our community giving a hand up to
people struggling with homelessness and
poverty. Twenty years of connecting people
across this city, housed and unhoused.
Over those years, we’ve expanded from a
monthly to a biweekly to a weekly, widening
our reporting to economic, social and
environmental justice. You can count on
more significant investigative reporting
from us. You can count on our commitment
to our vendor program, as we continue to
expand ways to support our vendors who
earn an income selling Street Roots, buying
Artwork by Jay Juno, Street Roots vendor.
each issue for a quarter to sell for a dollar.
And you can count on our continued
just city. Watch for our 20th anniversary
advocacy as we fight for the poorest
celebration this summer bringing together
residents of our region.
our vendors and the Street Roots
Over the next year, we will look back over community.
this history of Street Roots to better
To mark this 20th anniversary milestone
understand our present, striving for a more
in Street Roots style, we’ve designed a
I
commemorative beanie that all our Street
Roots vendors will receive. Because
individual donations are collectively the
single largest way we keep Street Roots
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If you’d like to receive it in time for
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