QuickTake:

Ideal Option and Willamette Valley Crisis Care were the two organizations that had submitted proposals to run a year-long program to provide “CAHOOTS-like services.” The two organizations offered very different approaches.

The city of Eugene plans to work with the provider Ideal Option to run a year-long alternative response program for people in crisis, to help fill gaps left by the loss of CAHOOTS last spring.

The city Monday, April 6 announced it had selected Ideal Option for the pilot project over Willamette Valley Crisis Care, a nonprofit founded last year by former CAHOOTS employees after budget constraints forced it to stop serving Eugene in April 2025. CAHOOTS still operates in Springfield.

Eugene officials have set aside $500,000 to run the program for a year. 

Ideal Option and Willamette Valley Crisis Care were the only two organizations to respond to the city’s request for proposals to run the pilot program. The city proposal called for at least one response unit staffed by two case managers operating 10 to 12 hours a day, seven days a week, in the Highway 99 corridor, River Road, the Whiteaker and three streets in west Eugene.

“Ideal Option was selected because their proposal directly and comprehensively aligned with the city’s request for peer navigation services,” a city spokesperson said in an emailed statement. The organization “has demonstrated experience delivering peer navigation in Eugene and other communities throughout the region.”

Ideal Option operates substance abuse treatment clinics in nine states, and already works with the Eugene Police Department on its downtown community response program, as well as helping Lane County run its deflection program, which allows some criminal defendants to avoid the justice system if they enter addiction treatment.

Ideal Option and Willamette Valley Crisis Care submitted vastly different responses to the city’s proposal.

Ideal Option proposed expanding the work it already does, sending workers experienced with navigating the criminal justice system to build rapport with people struggling with addiction or homelessness and connect them to community services.

Willamette Valley Crisis Care’s proposal more closely matched the service CAHOOTS provided, forming two-person response teams consisting of a medic and crisis worker, plus an “aftercare” team staffed by a peer recovery group.

After CAHOOTS stopped operating in Eugene, the City Council directed staff to investigate how an alternative response program with “CAHOOTS-like services” could be provided — at a cost estimated at about $2.2 million.

The city has said it would like the selected provider to launch its service within 60 days of signing a contract.

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