As Oregon faces a behavioral health and addiction crisis, two separate projects will expand residential capacity to serve at least 90 more adults and children at a time in the Portland area.
One project, which Gov. Tina Kotek’s office announced Wednesday, will bring a facility to Portland with at least 70 beds to treat adults with behavioral health and addiction challenges. It will be run by Central City Concern, a leading mental health and addiction provider in the city. For the other project, Parrott Creek Child & Family Services in Oregon City has broken ground on a new facility that will allow it to double its capacity from serving 20 to 40 youth at a time, offering residential behavioral health services and an addiction treatment program.
Mental health services are in short supply in Oregon, with too few beds, both for adults and children. Dual treatment programs are especially scarce for patients needing the kind of intensive mental health and addiction treatment that residential facilities provide. Services for children, especially teenagers, help keep them out of juvenile detention facilities and in school and can help prevent a lifetime of chronic illness.
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The state has long lacked enough residential treatment capacity, but the surge of fentanyl has exacerbated the crisis, with fatal drug overdoses soaring in recent years. Lawmakers plan to address the issue in the five-week legislative session, which starts Feb. 5. An Oregon Health Authority report, released Wednesday, said the state needs to do more to provide children’s behavioral health services in the state.
Central City Concern project
Kotek and Portland-area officials said in a release that the Central City Concern project will provide about 70 to 75 beds for adult treatment in the heart of Oregon’s largest city.
The state, Multnomah County, Portland and Central City Concern have finalized an agreement to purchase a building, which public records show is at the same intersection as the Lolo Pass hotel at the corner of 16th Avenue and East Burnside in Portland. The parties said that until the deal is finalized, they cannot name the building, but it was revealed in a story by Willamette Week on Tuesday. The project will provide treatment and temporary housing, and includes 40 residential treatment beds for people to receive treatment for one to four months and another 30 to 35 transitional housing beds.
The facility will also have outpatient addiction treatment services.
“This is an incredible opportunity to fill a direct gap in needed treatment options in the central city,” Kotek said in a statement. “The urgency and collaboration that made this purchase possible is precisely the kind of leadership this moment demands.”
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The announcement comes on the heels of Kotek’s Portland Central City Task Force, which announced official recommendations to address addiction and homelessness in the city after meeting behind closed doors. Those recommendations included expanding residential addiction treatment services.
Central City Concern bid for the building in an auction backed by financial commitments from government agencies: $6 million from the Oregon Health Authority, $6.25 million from Multnomah County and $2 million from the city of Portland. Central City Concern is also chipping in $3 million of its own money, and CareOregon, a Medicaid insurer, will help with a bridge loan while the transaction is going through.
The seller has accepted the proposal, and Central City Concern has finalized a purchase and sale agreement, the release said. As the project moves forward, the Multnomah County’s Board of Commissioners is scheduled to vote on the funds Thursday. The Portland City Council will vote later this month.
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Dr. Andy Mendenhall, president and CEO of Central City Concern, praised the collaboration of government leaders and the organization.
“This program will provide temporary housing and treatment for people experiencing substance use disorders who will benefit from a more structured level of service,” he said. “Medicaid data informed us we needed more of these services, and aligned leadership empowered rapid success with this project. This is a real win for our region.”
Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler also both praised the project in statements.
The governor’s office said in a release the renovations and hiring will be “fast-tracked,” with the goal of opening this fall.
Parrott Creek project
Parrott Creek Child & Family Services in Oregon City is constructing a new residential facility that will allow it to double its capacity and serve up to 40 youth at a time. In general, the facility will serve children between 13 and 18 years old, with some exceptions as children reach adulthood.
The $25 million project, which broke ground in October, has support from a variety of sources, including a $500,000 donation from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, a Vancouver-based nonprofit that provides grants to a variety of community projects throughout the Northwest.
The provider has secured other finances and donations and has a pending $8 million application with the Oregon Health Authority for a grant to help fund it.
The project’s timeline depends on whether the health authority helps the organization with a grant, said Simon Fulford, Parrott Creek’s executive director.
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Parrott Creek is currently building the project in two phases, with 28 beds expected to open this November and the remaining 12 beds expected to open in mid-2025.
Fulford said a health authority grant would allow work on the second part to start and finish sooner — and help more youth months earlier.
“We want to accelerate that as much as possible,” he said. “If we can start building phase two while we’re completing phase one, it means those beds come online much, much sooner. It would bring online the full brand new capacity that Oregon is desperately in need of.”
The new facility will be located on Parrott Creek’s 80-acre property in Oregon City. When finished, the project will span 22,410 square feet and include three new buildings with residential, treatment, education, recreation and administrative workspace space.
Two of the three structures of the new facility will each house up to 12 children, and the third will have 16 children. It will serve children with a variety of backgrounds and needs, including those with intensive behavioral health needs who often are in the child welfare system. Children also enter Parrott Creek through the Oregon Youth Authority.
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Parrott Creek, which opened in 1968, has focused on serving low-income children and families involved in juvenile justice, child welfare and the behavioral health systems through residential and outpatient programs. It works with about 1,000 Oregon families annually.
The expansion will include a residential alcohol and drug residential treatment program — something that will be new for Parrott Creek, Fulford said. Parrott Creek’s treatment program now is outpatient.
“I have personal friends who have teenagers in their families who couldn’t access residential drug and alcohol treatment in Oregon and had to send their kids out to the states,” Fulford said in an interview. “I’m personally aware that it’s a need that Oregon is currently missing, and we want to be helping to meet that need.”
The goal is to help children early in life — so they can address challenges before they reach adulthood.
“If you get kids clean and sober as a teenager, they’re hopefully not going to be having substance use disorders as adults,” he said.
Parrott Creek’s expansion comes as the Oregon Department of Human Services faces scrutiny and agreed in a 2018 court settlement to limit and eventually end the practice of housing foster children in hotel rooms staffed with agency workers because of a lack of adequate space to house them. But years later, the problem persists and faces ongoing scrutiny in court.
In comparison, Parrott Creek’s project allows young people to build a community and learn, work and interact in small groups. The project is aimed at providing youth with a soothing, comfortable environment, with views of forests and nature surrounding the buildings, Fulford said.
This story was originally published by the Oregon Capital Chronicle. Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and X.