By Marshall Hammond
Monday, October 14, Multnomah County opened a new facility in SE Portland designed to “deflect” individuals arrested for low-level drug offenses into treatment services instead of jail. The Coordinated Care Pathway Center, located at 980 SE Pine St., near SE Sandy Blvd., is a drop-off point for people who have been arrested for possessing small amounts of drugs, are not facing other criminal charges, have no outstanding warrants and have agreed to seek treatment rather than face criminal penalties.
When an individual meeting the criteria agrees to enter the deflection program, law enforcement officers call a special Deflection Dispatch, who then contacts a partner such as The Coordinated Care Pathway Center to confirm that a peer support team is available to receive the individual at a determined time.
People who enter the facility are screened by staff to determine what services they need, including drug treatment, health services or help with housing, and are then connected with the organizations providing those services. A person is considered to have successfully completed the deflection if they take advantage of the offered services within 30 days and commit no other crimes during that period. If they choose not to seek services, or fail to do so within 30 days, they are ineligible for deflection if they are arrested again in the future.
Oregon’s deflections program was initiated as a provision in HB 4002, passed earlier this year, which reintroduced criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of illegal substances, but also allows counties to direct drug offenders to treatment, which is typically more effective than incarceration at reducing drug dependence.
The program coincides with a national deflection effort supported by the Centers for Disease Control, the National Council for Mental Well Being and the National Governors Association, to seek avenues outside the criminal justice system to address wide-spread drug abuse as a health crisis rather than a criminal problem.
The Coordinated Pathway Center was originally scheduled to open September 1, the same day HB 4002 went into effect, but renovation and staffing delays pushed back the opening. The County also faced a lawsuit from the nearby Escuela Viva Community School, which alleged that the County and the Center did not properly finalize a good neighbor agreement before opening the center. A Multnomah County judge rejected the lawsuit on the grounds that the school had “failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits of their claims” on October 11, and the center was allowed to open three days later.
The pace of the deflections was slow at first but has been steadily increasing. In the first week, the Coordinated Care Pathway Center received only six individuals, with four agreeing to enter treatment. After another week, the total was 19 drop offs with 13 agreeing to enter treatment. Of those drop-offs, 17 were initiated by Portland Police.
Not all deflections are routed through the Center. Mobile outreach teams provided by the County Health Department also coordinate with law enforcement to direct offenders to deflection services.
Since the deflection program started on September 1, Portland Police have attempted to deflect 192 individuals into treatment services, with 91 of them agreeing to pursue treatment, according to the last bi-weekly report on the deflection program that was released by the county, covering the period of September 1-October 31. These numbers were 20 percent higher than the county expected, signaling that the program is off to a strong start.
Recovery experts who have been interviewed about the program see the deflection program as a positive development that is also in need of fine tuning. Because of an overall shortage of available drug treatment programs, some people routed through deflection might find that the treatment they need is not immediately available.
There is also a question of exactly how many people who complete the deflection process, meaning they have sought services that were referred to them by the peer support staff, are actually getting the addiction recovery care they may need. If they are referred to and enter into supportive housing, for example, they have successfully completed the deflection process but haven’t actually entered into addiction treatment.
There are also high barriers for entry, as most people who are arrested for drug offenses are disqualified because they have outstanding warrants or are facing non-drug offenses that are nevertheless common amongst drug users, such as theft or trespassing.
However, the program is still in its infancy, and more funding and addiction recovery resources will be rolled out in the coming months related to the passage and implementation of HB 4002, making it easier for those entering the deflection program to get the help they need.
The Coordinated Care Pathway Center is managed and operated by Tuerk House, a non-profit drug treatment provider based out of Baltimore, MD with over 50 years of operation. Some of the partners supporting the deflection program include Recovery Works NW, 4-D Recovery, Volunteers of America and Multnomah County’s PATH (Promoting Access to Hope) Program.
The Center is open 7 am-11 pm weekdays and 7 am-3 pm weekends, with security officers patrolling the facility 24 hours a day seven days a week.
Find out more about the Coordinated Care Pathway Center and read Multnomah County’s biweekly reports on the progress of the deflection program at bit.ly/3CF6al8.
Photo by Multnomah County.
