PORTLAND, Ore. — Multnomah County’s drug deflection center, now open in Portland’s Central Eastside, has been months in the making. It’s meant to be a second chance for people addicted to hard drugs who are living on the streets.
On September 1, possession of hard drugs became a crime again in Oregon. With that law change came the option of deflection: treatment over jail for people caught solely with possession.
For the past month, Portland police officers have been doing mobile deflection — waiting on the streets for up to 30 minutes for an outreach worker arrive after encountering someone using or possessing hard drugs like fentanyl and meth. That's only an option for someone who qualifies for deflection.
Starting Monday, officers can immediately bring people to the new deflection center, also known as the Coordinated Care Pathway Center, off Southeast Sandy Boulevard in Portland’s Central Eastside. It's a modest-looking gray building from the outside, while the inside resembles a hospital setting and feels somewhat clinical and sterile.
The center was meant to open on September 1 to coincide with the law change. But Tuerk House, the Baltimore-based group hired by the county to run the center, did not have enough staff to open, so county chair Jessica Vega Pederson delayed the opening into October.
The center itself is surrounded on the nearby blocks by a handful of homeless camps, and businesses that include a coffee shop and two daycares. It's not hard to imagine what the neighborhood thinks about the new addition.
“It’s going to attract more homeless, I think … It’s going to be like a base camp for them,” said Cory Bomar, who works nearby.
“We’re not exactly happy about it,” said Mark Stell, the owner of Portland Coffee Roasters across the street from the deflection center. “The biggest thing I can take out of it is that it would have been great to have a little bit of heads-up this was coming.”
Stell said he was not included in any county meetings prior to opening day.
Monday morning, he showed KGW a hole cut in the coffee shop’s back fence leading to their parked vans, which he said get damaged from people stealing gasoline almost weekly.
“We have a vehicle in the shop right now because it just got punctured this last week,” Stell said.
“My biggest fear is that it’s just for show — they maybe have 10 beds, maybe,” Stell added of the deflection center.
The deflection center will be open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday, and until 3 p.m. on weekends. It can accommodate at least a dozen people each day, depending on how many people law enforcement drops off; and starting next year, 10 sobering beds will be added to the location.
“It’s putting a Band-Aid on a gusher,” said Stell.
Once police drop someone off at the center, the person has 30 days to engage in recovery services. If they don’t and they get caught by police within the next 30 days, they’ll go straight to jail.
“I think it’s pretty harsh as far as, you know, you get one chance,” said Mark, who is homeless in Old Town and is addicted to several street drugs, including meth. He said if given the option, he would choose treatment over jail because he “wouldn’t mind sobering up.”
“The reality is the city needs something, I can empathize with that, but it's certainly not pulling great weight with all the rest of the neighbors,” said Stell.
Multnomah County held meetings with select members of the local community over the past several months. A school several hundred feet away from the center was included in those meetings. That school previously sued the county, alleging that they violated public meetings laws by making decisions about the center behind closed doors.
On Friday, a judge denied their order to block the opening of the center. There are now talks of the school filing a preliminary injunction to pause operations at the center in the coming weeks. On Monday, KGW asked the attorney representing the school what his next steps were, and he replied: “We’re weighing our options.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson told KGW on Monday:
“The County has been working with Eastside businesses and neighbors since late June, before we even signed a lease or announced the location. County staff contacted the Central Eastside Industrial Council, Central Eastside Together (enhanced service district), and the Buckman Neighborhood Association to start our conversation with neighbors and businesses. The Central Eastside Industrial Council selected representatives and we have been meeting regularly since. The County continues to want to hear from anyone and everyone in the community about these new services.”
The spokesperson told KGW the chair is planning to share an update on the deflection center in several weeks.