DIRECTOR’S DESK | Learning from Eugene's CAHOOTS program, Portland must make it clear that a non-police response is available
Just under three hours south by train and I was in Eugene, there to witness their mobile crisis support program, CAHOOTS. I wasn’t the only one to do this. In the past couple of months, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, Police Chief Danielle Outlaw and Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty’s staff have all come to Eugene to learn about CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) .
It’s clear we need a new model in Portland. Too many unhoused people are arrested, too much police work is tangled with non-criminal matters involving homelessness, and too many people call 911 for non-emergencies. We have consistently been arguing in Street Roots that as long as we deal with homelessness with a police response, people’s lives will be needlessly entangled in the legal system.
CAHOOTS began when the Eugene police approached the White Bird Clinic in 1988, seeking a mobile unit for reaching people in crisis whose actions were not criminal. They are “behavioral health first responders” operating in pairs, explained Tim Black, CAHOOTS operations coordinator. One medic and one crisis worker each receive a minimum of 500 hours of training in the field, as well as 30 hours class time.
I joined Amy May, the crisis worker, and Manning Walker, the medic, for their shift. Each wore a navy jacket printed with CAHOOTS in white letters. May drove the van, her hands covered in knit, rainbow-patterned fingerless gloves. Walker fielded dispatch calls through an earpiece. Using the same channels as the police, a dispatcher patched through both 911 and non-emergency calls. I sat behind them, wedged next to a baby seat, a box of bottled water and containers of instant noodle soup.
Our 911 system in Portland is clogged with so-called “unwanted person” calls, and plenty of the calls that CAHOOTS responded to fit that bill. The first call was to transport a man, scabbed-up and tipsy, to a safe place to sober up. Later they fielded a call about a shouting and distressed woman wearing a pink coat and leopard-print boots. Walker and May had met her before, and they understood her patterns of behavior. They talked to her calmly and moved on.
Another call took them to the rows of university fraternity and sorority houses. Someone reported a man sleeping in the alley. When May asked that man his birthday, he began to roll through possible numbers like a ticker tape in a DMV waiting room. His thoughts were disassociated, but he recognized safety with CAHOOTS. He accepted a bottle of water and a can of sausages and decided to ride over to the White Bird Clinic.
Then there was the man leaning aside a convenience store, out of sorts. He needed wound care, so Walker calmly spread paper towels on the van floor as he knelt and talked with the man, caring for his wound. Through patient conversation, Walker ascertained the man needed to get to a cancer clinic, so they drove him there. Because they prioritized listening, Walker and May sometimes could determine other factors that contributed to distress.
When a woman called 911 because she found a hypodermic needle in a flowerbed, May maneuvered the van to Eugene’s western edge, the suburban sprawl along wetlands. The woman invited them inside her living room – ornate, slightly Victorian – and handed them the needle in a plastic bag. She had already plucked the needle so that her dog didn’t fetch it like a bone, she said as Walker deposited the needle into a sharps container. He explained to me later that they treated each call as important – they never knew what story might lie beneath the story.
I rode along for only one call in which both CAHOOTS and the police were dispatched. A woman, slurring and desperate with pain, posed a danger to herself. Walker and May spoke to her kindly, gathering her medicine, phone and coat as they prepared to transport her to the psychiatric wing of the hospital. As both CAHOOTS and police walked with her down the stairs of her apartment building, she talked about how she hoped God had a plan for her. One of the police officers turned to me to tell me how grateful he was to have CAHOOTS. Without them, he explained, the police would have to put the woman in custody, handcuffing her to transport her. That would surely add to her trauma.
Throughout the day, Walker and May addressed people’s physical and mental pain. They showed up for people because, as May said, “we live in a world that promotes isolation.” No calls required handcuffs or a jail cell.
CAHOOTS vans are clearly marked with a red logo, a dove gripping maple leaves. At one traffic stop, a teenager in a plaid shirt ran up requesting – and receiving – a bottle of water. In their downtime, they switched from crisis workers to outreach workers, building trust.
Learning from CAHOOTS, Portland must build an alternative big enough and visible enough to communicate widely that a non-police response is available. There are many people doing good work in Portland, but what we need is a system that supports that work on a large scale.
We need a big response.
In this Street Roots special report, we are offering a plan for a team we’re calling Portland Street Response . This would be a non-law enforcement system of six well-marked mobile response vans teamed with a specially-trained firefighter-EMT and peer support specialist dispatched through both 911 and non-emergency channels.
We need a sense of urgency. In the worst of moments, these are issues of life and death. Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty’s office is proposing a pilot program through the Bureau of Emergency Communications that, we argue, could become Portland Street Response. But to make this happen, there’s a clear first step: The city must fund someone to develop that program. Decisions about the city budget are happening now, so Street Roots will be knocking on the doors of City Hall, and we expect plenty of people in our community to join us. As it stands, the City Budget Office has recommended against funding this position, and even if it is funded, the timeline is in excess of three years. We must act faster.
Read our special report to learn about the situation we face and about our plan. And then let’s get to work!
Offer your input
Tell the mayor and city commissioners to prioritize the development of a non-law enforcement street response team. You can give your input by attending a community forum or submitting written testimony to the City Budget Office. Learn more at portlandoregon.gov/cbo or email portlandstreetresponse@streetroots.org to join our campaign and recieve updates and action alerts.
Kaia Sand is the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org . Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand .
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