On a Saturday afternoon in September, three peer navigators trekked through Washington Jefferson Park in search of a client.
“We’re dealing with homeless people, so they could be anywhere, right?” said Joey Whittaker, the supervisor for Ideal Option’s West Eugene Peer Navigator program. “They can't make it to the office, so we're out and about."
They located a woman sitting in a sleeping bag underneath a tree. And they talked her through the plan: getting her unbanned from a local homeless shelter.
Whittaker said they had also helped set up an appointment to get this client medicated, and reported a potential problem with her Social Security.
“Hopefully we'll be able to get that ban lifted on Tuesday, get her into shelter, social services and senior and disability services will open up an investigation,” he said.
As the workers left, the woman told them she loved them.
Since Eugene’s long-running mobile crisis service, CAHOOTS, shut down in the city more than a year-and-a-half ago, several new services have stepped in to help try to fill the gaps.
The city announced this week that Ideal Option has served nearly 250 clients so far with the peer navigation programs it launched this year.
Eugene after CAHOOTS
For years, CAHOOTS workers drove through Eugene in white vans, providing medical aid, transportation, crisis de-escalation, and other outreach services.
The program even drew national attention in 2020, as social justice protests swept the nation. It was presented as a potential model for preventing police violence.
But in April of last year, CAHOOTS abruptly stopped operating in Eugene amid reported financial issues. Some of its services remains available in Springfield.
Even after the closure, Eugene still had Mobile Crisis Services of Lane County handling some of its most urgent calls. But that doesn’t cover all of CAHOOT’s former responsibilities.
A recent report which included contributions from University of Oregon researchers, looked at dispatch, police and mobile crisis data from last year after CAHOOTS shut down. They say they didn’t have access to fire and emergency medical services data.
Rori Rohlfs, an associate professor at UO and a co-author of the report, said the rate of welfare calls in Eugene dropped as some people appeared to leave the observable system.
“Qualitative interview findings back this up and say that without CAHOOTS in service, Eugene residents are less likely to even call in a welfare check when they see somebody who seems to need assistance,” she said.
Rohlfs said the there was also a change in the outcomes of some of the common call types CAHOOTS used to respond to.
“After CAHOOTS stopped service, the arrest rate for those calls has doubled,” Rohlfs said.
Last year, the city released its own report, finding there was room for new services in Eugene, covering areas like non-life threatening mental health calls, non-medical transportation needs, and general welfare check-ins.
“There's a tremendous amount of individual nonprofits or other service providers that exist,” Eugene-Springfield Fire Chief Mike Caven told reporters last November. “We don't have a good way of connecting people to those and also doing follow-up care.”
With Eugene City Council allotting $500,000 in funding for a transition in its crisis response, the city began looking for a partner.
Ideal Option
Ideal Option isn’t new to Eugene. Before CAHOOTS shut down, it was already providing peer navigators for Lane County’s Deflection Program. Now the city has tapped the company for two distinct but similar services.
In downtown, there are peer navigators working with the city and the Eugene Police Department, as part of a pilot funded through the Community Safety Payroll Tax.
And in west Eugene, there is a different staff of navigators working through the dispatch system, and funded with the CAHOOTS transitional funding. Whittaker’s team is that second group.
The peer navigators will work with a client once they're medically cleared.
From there, Whittaker said what his team does depends on a client’s needs. They might help them fill out paperwork, get a warrant cleared from municipal court, or apply for a new ID.
“We're not telling you we're going to help you, and then giving you a piece of paper to go somewhere else,” said Ashley Raman, one of the West Eugene peer navigators. "We're taking the client with us, and with a warm handoff.”
Arturo Zamudio, the Program Manager for Ideal Option's Lane County contracts, said a client could be involved in the downtown and west Eugene programs simultaneously.
He said once a person enters the program in downtown or west Eugene, navigators can follow-up with them anywhere in the city.
Work was slow for the West Eugene navigators as they searched Highway 99 on a Saturday afternoon in September.
When they’re between calls, Whittaker says they’re out in the community, trying to establish new relationships and build trust with clients.
“How do you complete the program? When you let us know ‘I've achieved all my goals. I'm where I want to be. This is my best life,’” Whittaker said. “Until then, we just keep removing barriers.”
Medical needs
The peer navigators don’t describe their service as a replacement for CAHOOTS, and unlike that program, they don’t have medics on staff.
But last year, Eugene-Springfield Fire launched a different alternative response unit, called COMPASS.
Melanie Helms, a paramedic for the team, said they can respond to a medical emergency, like an overdose. But she said they’re also also focused on healthcare management and connecting patients to resources.
“It's an evolving program and trying new ideas, being progressive and innovative to reach the needs of our patients,” said Helms.
Helms said COMPASS will refer clients to the peer navigators when they require services beyond healthcare.
“We call each other,” Helms said. “We have pretty regular meetings with each other, with each of our teams, to try to meet the needs.”
Rohlfs, the UO professor, said researchers still need more data to better understand the impact on Eugene’s medical response.
Caven, the Fire Chief, said another report on service gaps will be released in the coming months.
“That's our commitment is to dig into what's persisting,” he said. “And the city as a whole is working on an initiative to really better define what all falls into that alternative response category.”
