QuickTake:

Lane County’s mobile crisis team has made 2,000 trips to reach and help people who are facing behavioral health or drug addiction challenges.

Lane County’s mobile crisis response unit meets people in their darkest hours, when they’re suffering the pain of drug addiction, in mental health crises or both. 

Since its start in August 2024, the county’s mobile crisis teams have been dispatched more than 2,000 times. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, visited with county and local officials Wednesday about the work, which Lane County funds through Medicaid. Wyden sponsored and got Congress to pass a bill in 2022 that allows Medicaid funding to be used for mobile crisis response services. 

Medicaid generally helps low-income people access medical, behavioral and dental care. This expansion and growth of mobile crisis services through Medicaid comes after a nationally acclaimed program, CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) ended its contract with Eugene earlier this year. That program, operated by White Bird Clinic, still exists in Springfield. 

Wyden, joined by U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle, D-Oregon, said he has talked to people with CAHOOTS and many other programs and his goal has always been for communities to have flexibility in how they set up their programs. 

“Obviously, we want to use those dollars in the most cost-effective kind of way,” Wyden said. “But I didn’t want to micromanage it from Washington,  D.C.”

The calls start in different ways. Police can request a mobile crisis response team. Or people can call 988, a suicide and crisis line, and get connected to a mobile crisis response team. Dispatchers can also route 911 calls to the mobile crisis response team. Separately, Lane County’s crisis response line — 541-682-1001 — can also lead to a team’s dispatch. 

In marked vans, teams of two qualified mental health associates trained to work with people in crisis respond. They may visit with someone and point them toward resources and connect them with providers. They can also transport them to a shelter to access services and care. 

“The hope and the goal is that we can stabilize people where they’re at,” said Olivia McClelland, Lane County’s behavioral health clinical services manager.

They also can do follow-up checks on people within 72 hours of contact. 

Plans are in place to expand the program and help people in different ways. When the county’s stabilization center is built and opened, for example, the teams will transport people there as well. 

Eventually, the county wants to offer the crisis response services 24/7 after hiring more staffers. The service is currently available from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

Currently, Lane County has nine staffers, with four teams of two people and an administrator. 

Hoyle said the mobile crisis approach provides a way to help people without putting them in jail. 

“It’s getting the right people to the right place at the right time,” Hoyle said.

Lane County’s crisis response teams fan out well beyond Eugene to rural corners of the county. As a result, though mobile crisis teams are often associated with urban areas, rural communities increasingly rely on the service. 

Lane County officials and police chiefs praised the mobile crisis response teams, saying they especially help rural communities. 

Junction City Police Chief Mark Waddell said the crisis response is an asset for officers on the street, who can call the service. 

Acting Lane County Sheriff Carl Wilkerson said the countywide service is much appreciated after years of sheriff’s deputies wishing they could access the same services available in Eugene.

“It’s amazing to me to have a resource that is now countywide that we can call and ask for help,” he said. 

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.