White Bird Clinic shut down its Front Rooms department in Eugene last week, ending the program after over five decades.
KLCC’s Love Cross spoke with KLCC reporter Nathan Wilk, who was there when the doors closed on Friday night.
Love Cross: First, Nathan, for listeners that aren’t familiar, what was Front Rooms?
Nathan Wilk: This was a walk-in service in downtown Eugene, and they provided support mostly for the local homeless community. So, workers handed out food, helped clients replace their IDs, and tried to connect them to social services or shelter when needed.
Another important piece that workers talked to me about was just the person-to-person contact. So, a staff member could talk a client down if they were in a moment of crisis, or were feeling agitated.
One White Bird employee, Georgia Quinn, told me that Front Rooms was the "the safety net of the safety net.” She said clients who were banned from other social services because of an outburst could still get help at Front Rooms. And those people didn’t have to disclose their names or their substance use disorders to get assistance.
Meanwhile, Front Rooms has also been running White Bird’s mail processing program, and this is something workers said was really important. Clients who don’t have an address could come to Front Rooms to pick up things like their disability or social security checks.
Cross: So, it was kind of a centralized location for many of the services White Bird provides. Why close it down now?
Wilk: Jeremy Gates, the Executive Director of White Bird Clinic, told me it was a cost-cutting measure. He said it was difficult to get outside funding for Front Rooms, because its services provided there weren’t government-mandated like some other White Bird programs.
And he said White Bird is now facing budget cuts. It’s losing a stream of funding from PacificSource which makes up over a fifth of the non-profit’s revenue.
However, Gates said the services currently at Front Rooms aren’t going away. Rather, he said they’ll be provided by other departments. And the building on 12th—where Front Rooms currently is—will stay open, with case managers and counselors there, according to Gates.
On Friday, Gates said almost all of those services were ready to go for this week, and would continue without major interruptions. The exception is meal services on the weekend, he said.
But what I should say, Love, is that several workers I’ve spoken to said there are elements of Front Rooms they don’t think White Bird is prepared to reproduce. This includes that low-barrier for access, the every-day social support, and the trust that workers have built with vulnerable clients over time.
Cross: When you visited Front Rooms on Friday, what was the scene there?
Wilk: It was an emotional scene, Love. I saw staff members crying and hugging. Some of them told me it was hard to say goodbye to clients that they’d been seeing at the clinic for years.
And at the same time, they also shared frustrations about how the closure has gone. One worker told me they weren’t given adequate resources to prepare clients for the transition.
Meanwhile, Perry-Weed said there was no hand-off from the staff who've been doing mail services to the non-Front Rooms workers who will now take over. He said it takes months to be trained on the mail program, and he’s worried that management thinks the work is simpler than it actually is.
Perry-Weed had previously told me that if a single check is lost, someone could have their benefits frozen.
Cross: What happens to their workers themselves?
Wilk: There are nine dedicated workers at Front Rooms who now have been laid off. White Bird did open up two positions for hire, potentially for those workers. But as of last Friday, Gates said one of them had already been filled, and none of the Front Rooms staff had applied for the other listing.
Gates did tell me on Friday that a severance agreement with the Front Rooms workers had been finalized. He said White Bird had provided some information to direct workers to career-building opportunities, to help them land potential employment.
I asked Front Rooms workers about all this on Friday, but they said they weren’t permitted to discuss the terms of their jobs ending. Previously, Perry-Weed said the wages at Front Rooms didn’t create a lot of savings, so some of the staff may be at risk of falling into homelessness themselves after losing these jobs.
