The daily Astorian., April 30, 2019, Image 1

146TH YEAR, NO. 216
ONE DOLLAR
DailyAstorian.com // TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2019
Homeless on
the margins
for suicide
prevention
County struggles
to fi nd resources
By KATIE FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
MISSING
MOM
Photos by Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Ducklings make their way to the swimming pool at the Wildlife Center of the North Coast.
Orphan ducklings get extra care at wildlife center
By KATIE
FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
F
un fact: Volunteers at
the Wildlife Center of
the North Coast must
feed rescued baby barn
swallows every half-hour,
12 hours a day. Baby hum-
mingbirds need to be fed
every 15 minutes to 20 min-
utes or they will die.
Compared to that, mal-
lard ducklings are a breeze.
Spring is duckling sea-
son in Oregon and the wild-
life center is caring for over
40 orphaned ducklings right
now, all but one of them
brought to the center from
Portland by the Audubon
Society of Portland.
The youngest are only
a couple of days old; the
oldest are around 13 to 14
days old and can easily feed
themselves.
They may have been
separated from their moms,
or become orphaned after
their mother was hit by
a car while leading them
across a road to water, said
Stephanie Herman, wild-
life care center manager
for the Audubon Society of
Portland.
While Audubon can care
for a variety of birds at its
rehabilitation center, the
wildlife center in Olney,
with its variety of pools
and enclosures, is better
equipped to handle water
birds.
Audubon often trans-
fers animals to other centers
depending on what the ani-
mals need and what facili-
ties are available.
“It’s a matter of maxi-
mizing our strengths,” Her-
man said.
See Ducklings, Page A7
The rate of suicide among people who
are homeless is estimated to be nine times
higher than the general population of the
United States.
The homeless often combine a number
of risk factors, including being a veteran
or experiencing anxiety, stress, isolation,
loneliness, major mental illness, substance
abuse, unemployment or past trauma.
Knowing all of this, Amy Baker, the
executive director of Clatsop Behavioral
Healthcare, plans to add two more people
to a small team of recovery allies later this
year.
The recovery allies’ job is to reach out
directly to people with substance abuse
issues who may not be ready to engage
with services. Though the focus is on
substance abuse , allies would go where
high-risk people, including those who are
homeless, already are: hospital emergency
rooms, the c ounty j ail, or the streets of
Astoria.
But Baker said far more resources
around suicide prevention and awareness
are needed.
Oregon’s suicide rate is above the
national average — and has been for the
past three decades. More than 800 people
killed themselves last year and more peo-
ple died by their own hands in 2017 than in
traffi c crashes or by drug overdoses or fi re-
arms. Of the 379 deaths recorded in Clat-
sop County in 2018, nine were the result
of suicide, according to the Oregon Health
Authority.
‘Breaking the Silence’
This month, newsrooms across Oregon
produced “Breaking the Silence,” a week-
long reporting collaboration on suicide and
prevention strategies.
Clatsop County, like many in the state,
has struggled to fi nd adequate resources.
Local resources like the c ounty’s J uve-
nile D epartment have not had funding spe-
cifi cally for suicide prevention and aware-
ness for many years, nor does the county
have a strategic plan or specifi c strategies
around the topic, said Jill Quackenbush,
prevention supervisor for the department.
While the Juvenile Department and
agencies like Clatsop Behavioral Health-
care can help people struggling with sui-
cidal thoughts through other programs, part
of the challenge with addressing the home-
less is that they are a population on the
margin, Baker said. There is little research
around what successful suicide prevention
programs look like for these groups.
Ginger Nealon sprays fresh water into the swimming pool for a group of ducklings.
See Homeless, Page A7
SUICIDE PREVENTION
The national suicide prevention
hotline, available 24 hours a day, is
1-800-273-8255.
Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare’s crisis
line is 503-325-5724.
Ducklings brought to the Wildlife Center of the North Coast stay warm under a heat lamp.
People who are worried about family
members who may be suicidal can
fi nd additional resources through the
National Alliance on Mental Illness, at
www.nami.org
Cidery plans downtown expansion
Owner eyes an
eatery and theater
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Jeremy Towsey-French, owner of Reveille Ciderworks
in Astoria, talks about plans to expand the company’s
operations.
Jeremy Towsey-French,
the owner of Reveille Cider-
works in Astoria, is plan-
ning an expanded taproom,
restaurant and theater in the
corner suite of the Norblad
Building at 14th and Duane
streets.
Towsey-French opened
Reveille in 2017 in a
680-square-foot storefront
at the Astoria Station, a col-
lection of food carts in a
patio off 13th Street arrayed
around his cidery and next-
door neighbor Reach Break
Brewing. He started small,
with his cidery split in half
between a 7-barrel brewery
on one side and a seating
area on the other.
The cidery has grown
quickly , introducing more
than 30 unique Belgian and
English varieties to the mar-
ket, growing 90% in sales
over the past year and reach-
ing nearly 40% in reve-
nue from selling cider at
other businesses, Towsey-
French said. His ciders have
reached the Portland market
and up and down the coast.
“We’re literally running
out of cider as a new batch
becomes available,” he said.
Towsey-French is lock-
ing down fi nancing, includ-
ing a mix of two private
investors from his tech-sec-
tor past and a bridge loan, to
build out a new taproom in
the Norblad Building seat-
ing up to 70 people. He and
building owner Paul Caru-
ana have tentatively agreed
on the corner suite, a for-
mer bank at 14th and Duane
streets where the Deja Vu
Thrift Store closed last year.
Towsey-French hopes by
early fall to send customers
to a new location, fi lling his
existing space at the Astoria
See Cidery, Page A7