Clatsop County plans ‘deflection’ program, new supported housing and staffing hires to link treatment with housing

Amy Baker, a provider who gave the HSAC monthly provider report, told the council the county is designing a “deflection” program to give law enforcement an alternative to arrest and to route people into treatment and services instead of court or incarceration. “The deflection program is really gonna be aimed towards individuals who are arrested or have the potential to be arrested for things like controlled substances or petty crimes like trespassing,” Baker said. “That program is supposed to go live in September.”

The program is being developed with multiple criminal-justice partners including the sheriff’s department, probation and parole, the courts, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and law enforcement, Baker said. People who enter deflection will be offered access to the provider’s full suite of services, she said, including housing support and supported employment; the county plans to hire a drug-and-alcohol clinician to manage additional caseloads created by the program. Baker also said the program team is planning to use “contingency management” — short-term, financial incentives for attending treatment and staying sober — as part of the model.

Baker also updated the council on a housing project in Seaside: the coordinated care organization purchased the former Red Lion (the Hawks Eye property) and renovations are expected to be complete in August. “We will be able to start placing people in housing in September,” she said, describing 17 units of permanent supportive housing and an additional 34 workforce housing units in the same building. Baker said the two sides of the property were intentionally designed to be “very separate”; common areas such as a former pool will be converted to a community room for supportive-housing residents, while laundry, elevators and access will remain distinct between the two housing types.

Beyond those projects, Baker and other staff reported persistent workforce shortages in county behavioral-health services. Baker said the provider has two open child-and-family clinician positions and is losing some candidates to private practice because of administrative burdens in publicly funded systems. To address recruitment, the organization is developing a tuition-assistance policy that would help pay for graduate degrees in exchange for a post-graduate work commitment.

Monica (county staff) said the county has submitted a funding request to Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) seeking funds for the 2025–27 biennium to sustain shelter operations created under the county’s emergency order declaration. She said OHCS may later solicit additional requests for proposals if jurisdictions want to expand bed capacity. Monica also described continuing work on Esperanza Village (a separate shelter/temporary housing project overseen by CCA), where construction has experienced weather-related delays and the vendor schedule for so-called “pallet houses” has pushed timelines for delivery and placement.

Monica said state representatives plan to visit in July to learn about the county’s planned deflection model and to observe the drug court. County staff did not provide additional contract dates for vendor work or an exact delivery date for the pallet houses beyond “ongoing” scheduling by the vendor.

Why it matters: the combination of alternative-response planning, new permanent supportive units and a planned workforce-housing component is intended to reduce recurring criminal-justice contacts for people with substance-use and behavioral-health needs while increasing housing availability for health-care workers. The council’s discussion identified staffing as a continuing barrier: two open clinician positions were reported and the county and providers are developing retention and tuition strategies.

For follow-up: county staff expect the deflection program to “go live in September” and Hawks Eye/Red Lion renovations to finish in August; hiring for the drug-and-alcohol clinician was described as planned but not yet completed. Funding requests for sustaining shelter operations have been submitted to OHCS; no final awards or contract dates were provided during the meeting.