PORTLAND, Ore. — Multnomah County has signed a contract with a drug and alcohol treatment provider to operate its deflection center.
Baltimore-based Tuerk House will run the county's deflection center starting on Sept. 1, the county announced on Tuesday. The county selected Tuerk House after multiple providers participated in a solicitation process.
The county will lease a facility on Southeast Sandy Boulevard and Ninth Avenue. Police officers can take people caught possessing a small amount of hard drugs to the facility to connect them with recovery resources. It's part of Multnomah County's plan to deal with the rollback of a key portion of Measure 110. The passage of House Bill 4002 earlier this year allows counties to set up deflection programs, steering people addicted to drugs to treatment instead of jail.
“This is a crucial milestone in our efforts to give law enforcement the option to connect people in our community with treatment instead of jail as House Bill 4002 takes effect,” said Chair Jessica Vega Pederson in a news release. “Tuerk House knows how to do this and will bring decades of experience to this effort.”
County officials including Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards surveyed sobering services around the country and toured Tuerk House in Baltimore in January.
The deflection center is on track to open on Sept. 1, the county said. An around-the-clock sobering center is expected to open in fall 2026. The city of Portland hasn't had a sobering center since 2020, when the nonprofit Central City Concern closed its sobering facility.
