By Charlotte Hanscom
In an effort to close one of the most persistent gaps in Portland’s recovery system, a new residential treatment center opened its doors this spring. The 16 x Burnside Recovery Center (16 x Burn) began accepting residents in May and offers 74 beds for adults navigating substance use and mental health challenges. It is a drug-and alcohol-free environment with 24-hour staff presence, site monitoring and behavioral health and medical services. The average stay is three to four months.
16 x Burn, 1616 E Burnside St., is operated by Central City Concern (CCC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing affordable housing, recovery services, income attainment and community relationships. According to their website, they purchased the building located on SE 16th Ave. and E Burnside St. in December 2023 “with the help of funding from the State, City, County and Trillium Community Health Plan.”
The center is designed to support individuals from CCC’s Hooper Detoxification Stabilization Center who need extended residential treatment, and those preparing for outpatient care. Aja Stoner, the senior director of behavioral health for CCC, explains that 16 x Burn “Serves people with co-occurring disorders—people who both have a SUD (substance use disorders), a mental health disorder and often have a comorbid physical health disorder as well.”
Historic underfunding has often left centers unable to provide the full spectrum of care needed for recovery. “The center serves a really acute need,” Stoner says. “It closed the key care gap in our own continuum, as well one not just in Portland, but in the state.”
Stoner notes that the results at Hooper underscored the need for a center like 16 x Burn. “We were discharging a lot of people back to the street or into homelessness because they needed this particular level of care,” said Stoner, adding, “The Burnside center was really built in the vision of the people who we were not able to place in the next level of care that they needed.”
In an individual’s first 72 hours at the center, they attend an intake appointment and receive an orientation to the facility and its services. They may meet with a medical provider, a psychiatric provider or a SUD counselor. Stoner explains that they also “start to work on what some of their personal goals are for while they’re engaged in the treatment center, and what they’d like to accomplish.”
Providers ensure that the individuals have the basic necessities, medications and support they need for a successful stay. There is also a commercial kitchen, and, Stoner notes, people “tend to rave about the food.” She explains, “The first 72 hours are definitely about comfort, assessing people’s needs, ensuring that we’re able to meet all their needs and then ensuring that they’re really comforted and welcomed in the space.”
Before the center opened, CCC worked with the surrounding neighborhood associations to address community questions and concerns. 16 x Burn, the Buckman Community Association and the Kerns Neighborhood Association signed a Good Neighbor Agreement which focuses on ongoing communication, safety and collaboration.
Rich Harrison, a business owner and resident in the Buckman neighborhood, says of the agreement’s intent, “We want to be neighbors. We don’t want to fight. So we’re trying to start off as neighbors.” Rebecca Boenke, the communications chair on the Kerns Neighborhood Association Board, adds, “It’s all about working relationships, it’s all about meeting on an ongoing basis.”
This partnership has helped minimize assumptions and concerns, allowing 16 x Burn to make a positive entrance into the neighborhood. “Everybody is very respectful of each other, they listen to what our concerns are,” says Boenke. “They’ve been very accommodating. It’s been great—respectful. Everybody is in the loop.”
16 x Burn reflects the positive change that can result from collaboration and investment. Recovery is a challenging process that benefits from community support and wraparound services that offer stability and connection.
“We’re really helping stabilize them, help them relearn skills that maybe were lost for a period of time,” says Stoner. “We’re helping build them back up and build their goals again, reconnect them with family and employment and jobs. All the things that help them be healthy in the full dimension of wellness.”