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It still stings that Eugene, long considered a national pioneer in mobile crisis response, is in the position it is today.
This week marked a year since the city and White Bird Clinic announced they no longer had the financial ability to run the CAHOOTS program in Eugene. The consequences have been predictable: first responders now spend more time assisting people facing homelessness and mental health needs than when CAHOOTS was around to handle them.
So the city’s Monday announcement that it would partner with the addiction treatment provider Ideal Option to pilot a mobile crisis response project marked an important milestone in Eugene’s efforts to build a possible “CAHOOTS 2.0” model.
Yet the yearlong pilot will bear little resemblance to CAHOOTS’ celebrated network of medical and social service teams, which provided crisis counseling, first aid and referrals to substance abuse treatment providers, among other services. That’s because the pilot’s $500,000 cost is less than a quarter of the $2.2 million per year that city staff estimates it would cost to offer a CAHOOTS-like service.
What’s just as clear to us as Eugene’s budget crunch, though, is that the city lacks a clear vision for how best to reassemble the services CAHOOTS offered in Eugene.
That’s why it’s crucial for the city to spend the next year doing two things.
First, determine where Ideal Option succeeds and where it falls short. If peer navigators can shift some of the call burden off the police and fire departments, the $500,000 investment will have been worth it — though we wonder if the money committed to the pilot is enough to get a clear data-supported answer to how effective it will be. Hopefully, it gives the city enough information to determine how much additional money might be needed for services such as community medicine and first aid.
Second, spend this year seriously assessing which community organizations might be best equipped to complement Ideal Option’s peer navigators and help fill the CAHOOTS service gap. That will require the city investing more time and effort than it has in recent years to learn which capabilities exist and which groups are best positioned to offer them.
Ironically, CAHOOTS’ collapse in Eugene started that work, with Mobile Crisis Services of Lane County launching in August 2024 and expanding its services in the wake of CAHOOTS halting services.
But much more work needs to be done. It’s worth noting that the city selected Ideal Option over Willamette Valley Crisis Care, the nonprofit formed by former CAHOOTS workers, who envisioned running a pilot program more closely resembling its medical-intervention approach.
But cost was the issue, so perhaps the city could strike a partnership with the county and, using the resources of both organizations, offer something like what CAHOOTS provided, with multiple organizations sharing resources and cost.
The fact that Ideal Option and Willamette Valley Crisis Care were the only two bidders on the pilot was a bit shocking, given CAHOOTS’ national profile. So who else in Lane County’s patchwork of medical and social services nonprofits is equipped to step up in a supporting role?
There’s talk of a pilot “phase 2,” but no details about what or when that would take place. Is it community peer medicine? Additional resources for peer navigation? What actually shows success? What is it going to be?
Given CAHOOTS’ standing as a national example, along with the current troubled state of health care in Lane County, it’s important Eugene figures this out.
That fact should serve as a reminder to city staff, police and fire officials, as well as incoming Eugene City Manager Jenny Haruyama — of how much work remains to be done just to get back to where we were before.
