Under harsh summer sun or freezing winter rain, similar incidents have occurred week after week in Portland. A naked woman wanders in confusion through Old Town. Another writhes in pain in Lents.
Aiding unclothed individuals in crisis has become a near daily occurrence, say members of the non-police intervention team Portland Street Response. Until recently, they would offer clothing as a humane gesture while they attempted to calm the person.
For two years, the program bucked the public safety status quo by sending mental health workers and EMTs in place of armed police to trouble spots on the street. It responded to nearly 7,400 calls over the past year, 98% of which had been traditionally handled by police.
But now, Portland Street Response is without a champion at City Hall and lacks secure long-term funding. Its future has been imperiled further by turbulence within the Portland Fire Bureau, which houses the program, as bureau officials navigate deepening financial challenges and leadership changes.
The city’s incoming fire chief recently put a freeze on purchases, which means Street Response officials cannot stock up on clothes. The decision is just one of many changes that program staffers say have prevented them from fully doing their job.
Some Street Response employees and supporters believe the freeze is part of a thinly veiled effort to dismantle or radically alter the program’s mission — and potentially steer some of its funding to other fire bureau priorities. That fear was amplified when the team was barred earlier this year from distributing tents and directed to help with city-ordered sweeps.
The Fire Bureau argues the move is necessary, as its leaders figure out if items are truly needed, when they should be handed out and how they should be purchased. Some city officials say handing out a pair of pants is more enabling than helpful.
Frontline Street Response workers disagree. The program “literally doesn’t have the tools to do their jobs,” said one staffer, who, like others interviewed for this story, requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press. Supplies once commonly carried in Street Response vans including food, hygiene kits, naloxone, shoes and cigarettes are gone.
The program, which has been heralded as a national model and a strong candidate for a new pool of federal funding championed by Oregon’s senior U.S. senator, failed to expand this spring to the round-the-clock service previously promised by city leaders.
Meanwhile, a recent evaluation by Portland State University raised concerns about staffing levels, policy changes and ongoing tensions between program staff and rank-and-file firefighters. It followed a PSU report a year earlier that highlighted the program’s early successes, including helping a few people get housed and leading to zero arrests of people in crisis on the street.
That second, critical report has faced pushback from top fire officials and their new commissioner in charge, Rene Gonzalez, who has dismissed its findings and has no current plan to bring it to City Council.
Those officials contend that Portland Street Response needs to be revamped and “right-sized” after it grew too quickly and haphazardly under Gonzalez’s predecessor, Jo Ann Hardesty, who envisioned, launched and later fought to protect the program from being slowed or scuttled.
Gonzalez also quashed a recent effort to move the program out of the fire bureau and into the city’s Community Safety Division, even as fire officials and some of the commissioner’s senior staff say they supported the idea. The move further fueled distrust among some Street Response supporters.
But incoming Interim Fire Chief Ryan Gillespie told The Oregonian/OregonLive he is determined to preserve the program – even though he’s not sure at what size or with what scope of services.
CITY’S SHINY OBJECT
The ongoing uncertainty marks an extraordinary turn for an initiative originally touted by Portland leaders and homeless service advocates as highly effective and a potential model for other cities in Oregon and around the U.S. Representatives from Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Austin, among others, visited Portland to learn how to fold compassionate mental health responses into their 911 systems.
And U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, called out Portland as a likely federal funding recipient when he announced that Oregon would receive nearly $1 million for programs just like Portland Street Response. But now he says the program needs to get its house in order.
“Given the need to respond to mental and behavioral health care challenges in Portland, it’s essential that everybody in the city who’s responsible for Portland Street Response pull together and work with the state and community care organizations to secure access to the enhanced Medicaid match as soon as possible,” Wyden said.
Six months into his role leading the city’s fire, 911 and emergency management bureaus, however, Gonzalez remains ambivalent about the street response program, whose staff of about 50 makes up just a fraction of the 1,000-member workforce he now oversees.
“I think a non-police intervention for those having behavioral crises on the streets of Portland is a very healthy part of our system. I see that core mission as very valuable,” he said in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive. “But I want to make sure that (Portland Street Response) is the right one to be doing it.”
Portland Street Response staff Branson Osakoda, 36, a community health medic, pictured at Portland Street Response Headquarters in South Portland Thursday, June 22, 2023. The van is one of six the program has with two workers typically staffing each vehicle. Mark Graves/The Oregonian
Gonzalez detailed other crises bearing down on Portland’s non-police public safety system he inherited upon taking office in January that — while less high-profile or politically charged – are of equal or greater concern, he said.
Among them: chronic understaffing within the fire bureau that’s led to ballooning overtime spending and firefighter burnout; an increase in 911 calls for service and the time it takes to respond to them; and how to best restructure the city’s numerous public safety bureaus and programs under a form of government that will go into effect in January 2025, due to voter approved changes to the city charter.
“We’ve got a shiny object over here that gets tremendous love and attention,” he said of Portland Street Response. “And we’ve got a whole rest of our organization — collectively public safety — that has felt like, at times, it’s not getting the attention that the shiny object has.”
“We’ve got this bigger discussion about what we’re going to do about charter reform and, more broadly, what are we going to do with a first responder system that is completely overwhelmed,” Gonzalez continued. “These are bigger questions than Portland Street Response. We’ve got to answer those questions in some ways first before we make any decision” about the program.
FIRE BUREAU HOLDS THE POWER
Any decision is all but certain to be influenced by Gillespie, whom Gonzalez recently tapped to become interim chief upon current Chief Sara Boone’s retirement next month.
In late March, Gillespie, a 25-year member of Portland Fire & Rescue, was placed in charge of the bureau’s new Community Health Division that oversees the Street Response program and other initiatives.
His appointment came after allegations of workplace misconduct late last year against the division’s two highest-ranking officials and fallout from a subsequent human resources investigation that led to their departure. That in turn created a monthslong leadership vacuum just as Gonzalez entered office and as Portland Street Response was supposed to be gearing up for its promised around-the-clock expansion, officials said.
Records show that after instituting a hiring freeze in February to contain fire bureau spending amid an estimated $25 million in annual firefighter overtime costs, Gonzalez still signed off on a single new hire for Street Response, whose leaders said was needed to scale up to a 24/7 service.
But within weeks of assuming his new role with the Community Health Division, Gillespie, with Gonzalez’s blessing, pumped the brakes on it completely. Vacant positions haven’t been filled amid ongoing attrition, leaving six positions empty.
“We just need to slow this down,” Gillespie told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Gillespie based his decision on what he said were missing organizational structures and policies — everything from Street Response employees not knowing how to properly take time off to thousands of dollars in purchases that appeared to violate city procurement rules, he said.
Gillespie said he was also concerned about “mission creep” within Portland Street Response that he believes go beyond the narrow scope of a non-police emergency response.
That includes distributing food boxes, naloxone and even clothes, all of which he’s suspended. Gillespie said he supports providing resources, like pants and shirts, when needed to de-escalate a crisis. But he doesn’t necessarily think Portland Street Response needs to be handing out supplies outside of emergency situations, which workers say they currently do to build trust.
Rae DeHart, 37, a mental health crisis responder, runs a daily practice routine at Portland Street Response Headquarters in South Portland Thursday, June 22, 2023. She is one of the current 51 staffers though 58 positions were approved by city council. Mark Graves/The Oregonian
Until a firm decision is made, people in crisis are to be handed water and nothing else, he said.
“The lack of a division chief in that role for the first few months of this year absolutely contributed to some of the issues and challenges that we’re seeing now,” Gillespie said.
What contributed even more to those problems, he said, is that the program received nearly all of its early guidance and orders from Hardesty and her City Hall staff directly, with limited input from fire bureau managers and officials.
“The program developed in a largely political world with a political mission,” he said. “Decisions were being made through that lens, which doesn’t always lead to operational efficiency and effectiveness.”
Compounding the initiative’s precarious position is its lack of stable funding. Nearly half of its $10.1 million budget for next fiscal year comes from one-time funding sources outside the city, such as American Rescue Plan Act dollars, budget documents show.
The program currently relies on money from the city’s general fund to make up the remainder of the balance, a source of revenue that can quickly dry up or vanish as political priorities shift.
Meanwhile, no one appears to know exactly what’s required for Portland Street Response to qualify for Wyden’s federal CAHOOTS Act and other funding. The looming question is if the program needs to operate around-the-clock to qualify for those federal Medicaid dollars. Both Gonzalez and Gillespie say they don’t know. If the answer is yes, the program teams may have to be spread out among shifts instead of hiring more people.
Amy Bacher, an Oregon Health Authority spokesperson, said the agency is actively working to with Portland Street Response through the application process.
Gillespie said he also doesn’t know how big the program should be. Nor has he decided what services Street Response workers should provide.
“I would say that is to be determined,” Gillespie said. “I can’t give you a hard answer.”
“What I can tell you,” Gillespie continued, “is that I am committed to working on these issues that have come to light — the funding stability and the framework of policies, procedures and practices — to ensure the program does live on.”
FEARS FOR THE FUTURE
But former workers say they don’t have that same confidence in the program’s future under the new commissioner. They believe Gonzalez is not invested in learning about how the program serves people or hearing directly from workers about their needs.
The commissioner said he has yet to go on a ride-along.
“When Gonzalez took over, it was very hard,” said Kaylin Stinski, a former Street Response supervisor. “We felt like the Community Health Division did not have support from the new commissioner and there was a lot of miscommunication.”
Current and former Portland Street Response workers feel the hiring freeze is a deliberate way to tank the program. But Gillespie says it is necessary to create structure before fast-tracking an expansion. In the meantime, unfilled vacancies mean fewer calls for help receive a response, especially on weekends, when the fewest number of workers are on the clock.
The program currently doesn’t have enough mental health responders, one staffer said. The program receives nearly 50 calls a day and the average number of calls a single unit can respond per shift is 10. The staffer said the program’s current six units are appropriate given current call volumes and the need to get policies in place. But they worry that won’t be enough if the program expands to 24 hours.
“I feel like it’s about to implode,” the staffer said.
On March 5, two Street Response supervisors and a nurse sent a mayday email alerting program manager Robyn Burek and other leaders to “significant issues that are compromising us to achieve our mission,” said Stinski, one of the supervisors who signed the email. The crisis included poor communication, lack of staffing, vague policies and a failure to support the mental health of workers. Stinski was fired nearly two weeks later.
While there is much they disagree about, Stinski, Portland Street Response leaders, Gillespie and Gonzalez all agree that policies and procedures need to be codified.
Portland Street Response staff Branson Osakoda, 36, a community health medic, pictured Thursday, June 22, 2023. The program this spring failed to expand to a 24/7 service as previously promised by city leaders. Workers worry it may never get there.Mark Graves/The Oregonian
“There is no policy written down on holiday pay, scheduling, taking time off or how to switch shifts,” Stinski said. “Training and onboarding is two weeks but it doesn’t prepare you for any of the work we do.”
But Street Response workers worry what those policies will look like without expert input.
“Now we have (Commissioner Gonzalez) changing policies from the top down without ever talking to us or even going on a ride along to see what kind of crises we respond to and to see what we need and how long it takes to build relationships with our clients,” Stinski said.
There are more than 30 new or revised policies on Gillespie’s desk waiting for final approval. How long will it take to get them through the finish line? He isn’t sure.
Amid the hiring freeze, 51 of 58 approved Street Response positions are filled, Gillespie said.
While Gillespie and Gonzalez acknowledge that deep conversations about the program’s mission need to be had, neither has fully engaged with the Portland State University research team that was contracted to provide ongoing evaluations of the program. The current 150-page report is unlikely to go before the City Council as the duo has dismissed its findings.
The lead researcher, Greg Townley, said he contacted Gonzalez’s office multiple times since mid-March to discuss the research but never got a response. The Fire Bureau also advised Townley not to send the report to Street Response leader Robyn Burek, but he did as that’s what his contract requires.
Gillespie said the report was missing important input and he felt the researchers didn’t have a full grasp of the structures that needed to be in place before a program could grow. And while Gonzalez and his office ignored multiple emails from Townley over the past few months, Gonzalez said he didn’t purposefully do so.
Townley’s report reiterates the need for more structure in Portland Street Response. But he said he doesn’t believe that setting policies for how to take vacation and purchase supplies is a reason to stall program expansion. He, like many program staffers, believes both can be done simultaneously.
The report indicated the bureau should hire more Street Response workers and officials should consider finding the program a new home outside of the fire bureau.
Support to transfer the program out of Portland Fire & Rescue gained traction this spring among fire bureau officials, Street Response managers and City Hall staff, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.
Ultimately, Gonzalez made the call to keep it in place.
Current and former Street Response employees said that decision leaves them worried that fire bureau officials could begin diverting money from the program toward another fire bureau initiative designed to intervene and prevent rampant 911 emergency room use by a small circle of city residents.
That program, paid for by a grant from CareOregon, is set to lose funding in September.
Gillespie wouldn’t dismiss the idea.
“My intent is not to rob Peter to pay Paul,” Gillespie said. “But I wouldn’t take it off the table.”
Nicole Hayden reports on homelessness. She can be reached at nhayden@oregonian.com or on Twitter @Nicole_A_Hayden.
Shane Dixon Kavanaugh reports on Portland politics for The Oregonian/OregonLive. He can be reached at skavanaugh@oregonian.com, 503-294-7632 or on Twitter @shanedkavanaugh.