Mental Health Association of Portland tells City Council its plan for mass encampments is costly, inhumane and ineffective
The Mental Health Association of Portland opposes the City of Portland’s camps for people who are homeless, as described in five resolutions passed by four of five city council members on November 3, 2022.
It would be easy to say nothing about the city’s new plan to force people in crisis and who are homeless into three large outdoor camps. Most commenters and experts agree - without intergovernmental agreements in hand, without designated locations supported by neighbors, without the capability to recruit, hire and manage a sizable workforce, and mostly without substantive and effective incentives to attract people who are homeless rather than threaten or coerce them - this plan is going nowhere.
We write because we think the plan will be ineffective. To us, the plan shows a lack of research, stakeholder engagement, poor planning, and fiscal irresponsibility on the part of city leaders.
Further, the city’s plan is proposed as a solution - which is a lie to taxpayers. For example, the city will spend millions to fund “navigators” to steward people to “available services,” except those services are almost non-existent. Without new funding for services, such as long-term psychiatric hospitalization and acute drug detoxification, any plan will fail. This absence of crucial services - absolutely necessary to gain and sustain housing - is why many Portlanders are chronically homeless. Those who devised this plan know better but didn’t do the essential prep work.
Instead of concocting a plan which primarily serves the interests of property and business owners and not the identified people crisis, the city should have listened to people who are homeless and those who are direct service workers. They often know what to do, and they haven’t been asked with any sincerity, uniformity, or skill. Those voices and lived experience are missing from the city’s plan. The plan’s authors should have listened inclusively for solutions that make sense to those who are directly affected to learn to use attraction and not coercion or punishment to gain compliance.
The plan is not just $27 million for one year. It’s also the lost opportunity of success in cooperation with others based on qualitative data. That cost to the taxpayer, business and property owners, and to people in crisis, is incalculable.
The plan adds to a legacy of thoughtlessness. Throughout most of its history, the city of Portland disregarded people who are poor and people who do not have homes. Only with urban renewal in the 1970s did the city begin to understand homelessness as a blight which requires its response. Then for decades, instead of robustly funding effective solutions, city leaders and administrators maligned people who were homeless, sought funding and resources from the county, state and federal governments, directed police to corral them in the skid road area, over-arrested and over-prosecuted them, delayed public education and conversation about effective solutions, and used homelessness as an economic bulldozer to affect real estate prices. Not until the cocaine plague joined cheap heroin on the streets in the late 1990s did the city commit its own money to reducing homelessness.
And when the city did spend, the spending benefitted property and business owners and never the individual in crisis as an end in itself.
No one - no animal - should be forced to live in an outdoor camp with 250 other people. That’s an inhumane and unmanageable experience which will cause trauma and service mistrust. The city’s plan proposes using both police and private security to monitor the camps 24/7 and invariably result in more arrests,more jailings, more conflict, more trauma - and less reason to cooperate or comply.
From the perspective of people who care about the welfare of people with mental illness, it’s hard to imagine a more thoughtless response to homelessness. Just roll out the process. It’s utterly predictable that people who are sick with mental illness, and with a public health system both unable and unwilling to take on more responsibilities, will be exited from these camps for “behavioral issues.” What’s next for them? Jail? Exile? These are 19th century ideas.
The solution to this problem is fairly simple but requires a complete change in the moral nature of the city. The city and its proxies should never engage with people who are homeless merely as a means to an end, but only as an end in itself.
What most people who are homeless want is help to end their homelessness, help which recognizes and respects them as individual autonomous humans. They want effective medical assistance and active social supports. They want housing - just like anyone else - which is clean, safe, and with a lock on the door and the key in their pocket. They want work to become self-sufficient, or if unable to work something meaningful to do with their time.
Changing the moral nature of an individual - what the philosopher Kant called the categorical imperative - is hard work for a priest, rabbi, or an abbot. Changing the moral nature of a city is straightforward public administration. Assign people who put the interests of those in crisis first to facilitate the solution in charge AND remove people who fail the categorical imperative from the discussion.
Authored and signed by
Mental Health Association of Portland board members and advisors, Irene Kalonji, Mary Margaret Wheeler Weber, Sandra Chisholm MPA, Jason Renaud, Michael Hopcroft, Tara Candela JD, MSN, PMHNP-BC, and Patrick Nolen
The Mental Health Association of Portland opposes the City of Portland’s camps for people who are homeless, as described in five resolutions passed by four of five city council members on November 3, 2022.
It would be easy to say nothing about the city’s new plan to force people in crisis and who are homeless into three large outdoor camps. Most commenters and experts agree - without intergovernmental agreements in hand, without designated locations supported by neighbors, without the capability to recruit, hire and manage a sizable workforce, and mostly without substantive and effective incentives to attract people who are homeless rather than threaten or coerce them - this plan is going nowhere.
We write because we think the plan will be ineffective. To us, the plan shows a lack of research, stakeholder engagement, poor planning, and fiscal irresponsibility on the part of city leaders.
Further, the city’s plan is proposed as a solution - which is a lie to taxpayers. For example, the city will spend millions to fund “navigators” to steward people to “available services,” except those services are almost non-existent. Without new funding for services, such as long-term psychiatric hospitalization and acute drug detoxification, any plan will fail. This absence of crucial services - absolutely necessary to gain and sustain housing - is why many Portlanders are chronically homeless. Those who devised this plan know better but didn’t do the essential prep work.
Instead of concocting a plan which primarily serves the interests of property and business owners and not the identified people crisis, the city should have listened to people who are homeless and those who are direct service workers. They often know what to do, and they haven’t been asked with any sincerity, uniformity, or skill. Those voices and lived experience are missing from the city’s plan. The plan’s authors should have listened inclusively for solutions that make sense to those who are directly affected to learn to use attraction and not coercion or punishment to gain compliance.
The plan is not just $27 million for one year. It’s also the lost opportunity of success in cooperation with others based on qualitative data. That cost to the taxpayer, business and property owners, and to people in crisis, is incalculable.
The plan adds to a legacy of thoughtlessness. Throughout most of its history, the city of Portland disregarded people who are poor and people who do not have homes. Only with urban renewal in the 1970s did the city begin to understand homelessness as a blight which requires its response. Then for decades, instead of robustly funding effective solutions, city leaders and administrators maligned people who were homeless, sought funding and resources from the county, state and federal governments, directed police to corral them in the skid road area, over-arrested and over-prosecuted them, delayed public education and conversation about effective solutions, and used homelessness as an economic bulldozer to affect real estate prices. Not until the cocaine plague joined cheap heroin on the streets in the late 1990s did the city commit its own money to reducing homelessness.
And when the city did spend, the spending benefitted property and business owners and never the individual in crisis as an end in itself.
No one - no animal - should be forced to live in an outdoor camp with 250 other people. That’s an inhumane and unmanageable experience which will cause trauma and service mistrust. The city’s plan proposes using both police and private security to monitor the camps 24/7 and invariably result in more arrests,more jailings, more conflict, more trauma - and less reason to cooperate or comply.From the perspective of people who care about the welfare of people with mental illness, it’s hard to imagine a more thoughtless response to homelessness. Just roll out the process. It’s utterly predictable that people who are sick with mental illness, and with a public health system both unable and unwilling to take on more responsibilities, will be exited from these camps for “behavioral issues.” What’s next for them? Jail? Exile? These are 19th century ideas.
The solution to this problem is fairly simple but requires a complete change in the moral nature of the city. The city and its proxies should never engage with people who are homeless merely as a means to an end, but only as an end in itself.
What most people who are homeless want is help to end their homelessness, help which recognizes and respects them as individual autonomous humans. They want effective medical assistance and active social supports. They want housing - just like anyone else - which is clean, safe, and with a lock on the door and the key in their pocket. They want work to become self-sufficient, or if unable to work something meaningful to do with their time.
Changing the moral nature of an individual - what the philosopher Kant called the categorical imperative - is hard work for a priest, rabbi, or an abbot. Changing the moral nature of a city is straightforward public administration. Assign people who put the interests of those in crisis first to facilitate the solution in charge AND remove people who fail the categorical imperative from the discussion.
Authored and signed by
Mental Health Association of Portland board members and advisors, Irene Kalonji, Mary Margaret Wheeler Weber, Sandra Chisholm MPA, Jason Renaud, Michael Hopcroft, Tara Candela JD, MSN, PMHNP-BC, and Patrick Nolen
Thank you, Jason for this detailed and necessary explanation of why everyone should oppose the Mayor's plan, and thank you for showing that what we need is moral change at the societal level. I agree completely.On Thu, Nov 17, 2022 at 7:32 AM Jason Renaud <info@...> wrote:
The Mental Health Association of Portland opposes the City of Portland’s camps for people who are homeless, as described in five resolutions passed by four of five city council members on November 3, 2022.
It would be easy to say nothing about the city’s new plan to force people in crisis and who are homeless into three large outdoor camps. Most commenters and experts agree - without intergovernmental agreements in hand, without designated locations supported by neighbors, without the capability to recruit, hire and manage a sizable workforce, and mostly without substantive and effective incentives to attract people who are homeless rather than threaten or coerce them - this plan is going nowhere.
We write because we think the plan will be ineffective. To us, the plan shows a lack of research, stakeholder engagement, poor planning, and fiscal irresponsibility on the part of city leaders.
Further, the city’s plan is proposed as a solution - which is a lie to taxpayers. For example, the city will spend millions to fund “navigators” to steward people to “available services,” except those services are almost non-existent. Without new funding for services, such as long-term psychiatric hospitalization and acute drug detoxification, any plan will fail. This absence of crucial services - absolutely necessary to gain and sustain housing - is why many Portlanders are chronically homeless. Those who devised this plan know better but didn’t do the essential prep work.
Instead of concocting a plan which primarily serves the interests of property and business owners and not the identified people crisis, the city should have listened to people who are homeless and those who are direct service workers. They often know what to do, and they haven’t been asked with any sincerity, uniformity, or skill. Those voices and lived experience are missing from the city’s plan. The plan’s authors should have listened inclusively for solutions that make sense to those who are directly affected to learn to use attraction and not coercion or punishment to gain compliance.
The plan is not just $27 million for one year. It’s also the lost opportunity of success in cooperation with others based on qualitative data. That cost to the taxpayer, business and property owners, and to people in crisis, is incalculable.
The plan adds to a legacy of thoughtlessness. Throughout most of its history, the city of Portland disregarded people who are poor and people who do not have homes. Only with urban renewal in the 1970s did the city begin to understand homelessness as a blight which requires its response. Then for decades, instead of robustly funding effective solutions, city leaders and administrators maligned people who were homeless, sought funding and resources from the county, state and federal governments, directed police to corral them in the skid road area, over-arrested and over-prosecuted them, delayed public education and conversation about effective solutions, and used homelessness as an economic bulldozer to affect real estate prices. Not until the cocaine plague joined cheap heroin on the streets in the late 1990s did the city commit its own money to reducing homelessness.
And when the city did spend, the spending benefitted property and business owners and never the individual in crisis as an end in itself.
No one - no animal - should be forced to live in an outdoor camp with 250 other people. That’s an inhumane and unmanageable experience which will cause trauma and service mistrust. The city’s plan proposes using both police and private security to monitor the camps 24/7 and invariably result in more arrests,more jailings, more conflict, more trauma - and less reason to cooperate or comply.From the perspective of people who care about the welfare of people with mental illness, it’s hard to imagine a more thoughtless response to homelessness. Just roll out the process. It’s utterly predictable that people who are sick with mental illness, and with a public health system both unable and unwilling to take on more responsibilities, will be exited from these camps for “behavioral issues.” What’s next for them? Jail? Exile? These are 19th century ideas.
The solution to this problem is fairly simple but requires a complete change in the moral nature of the city. The city and its proxies should never engage with people who are homeless merely as a means to an end, but only as an end in itself.
What most people who are homeless want is help to end their homelessness, help which recognizes and respects them as individual autonomous humans. They want effective medical assistance and active social supports. They want housing - just like anyone else - which is clean, safe, and with a lock on the door and the key in their pocket. They want work to become self-sufficient, or if unable to work something meaningful to do with their time.
Changing the moral nature of an individual - what the philosopher Kant called the categorical imperative - is hard work for a priest, rabbi, or an abbot. Changing the moral nature of a city is straightforward public administration. Assign people who put the interests of those in crisis first to facilitate the solution in charge AND remove people who fail the categorical imperative from the discussion.
Authored and signed by
Mental Health Association of Portland board members and advisors, Irene Kalonji, Mary Margaret Wheeler Weber, Sandra Chisholm MPA, Jason Renaud, Michael Hopcroft, Tara Candela JD, MSN, PMHNP-BC, and Patrick Nolen
I also want to interrogate the issue of "available services." Precisely what services are available? Is current availability sufficient to service everyone in need of each service? If not, how long is the wait to access needed services? What steps are being taken to increase capacity to meet the need? What do people in crisis do in the meantime?Thank you, Jason for this detailed and necessary explanation of why everyone should oppose the Mayor's plan, and thank you for showing that what we need is moral change at the societal level. I agree completely.On Thu, Nov 17, 2022 at 7:32 AM Jason Renaud <info@...> wrote:
The Mental Health Association of Portland opposes the City of Portland’s camps for people who are homeless, as described in five resolutions passed by four of five city council members on November 3, 2022.
It would be easy to say nothing about the city’s new plan to force people in crisis and who are homeless into three large outdoor camps. Most commenters and experts agree - without intergovernmental agreements in hand, without designated locations supported by neighbors, without the capability to recruit, hire and manage a sizable workforce, and mostly without substantive and effective incentives to attract people who are homeless rather than threaten or coerce them - this plan is going nowhere.
We write because we think the plan will be ineffective. To us, the plan shows a lack of research, stakeholder engagement, poor planning, and fiscal irresponsibility on the part of city leaders.
Further, the city’s plan is proposed as a solution - which is a lie to taxpayers. For example, the city will spend millions to fund “navigators” to steward people to “available services,” except those services are almost non-existent. Without new funding for services, such as long-term psychiatric hospitalization and acute drug detoxification, any plan will fail. This absence of crucial services - absolutely necessary to gain and sustain housing - is why many Portlanders are chronically homeless. Those who devised this plan know better but didn’t do the essential prep work.
Instead of concocting a plan which primarily serves the interests of property and business owners and not the identified people crisis, the city should have listened to people who are homeless and those who are direct service workers. They often know what to do, and they haven’t been asked with any sincerity, uniformity, or skill. Those voices and lived experience are missing from the city’s plan. The plan’s authors should have listened inclusively for solutions that make sense to those who are directly affected to learn to use attraction and not coercion or punishment to gain compliance.
The plan is not just $27 million for one year. It’s also the lost opportunity of success in cooperation with others based on qualitative data. That cost to the taxpayer, business and property owners, and to people in crisis, is incalculable.
The plan adds to a legacy of thoughtlessness. Throughout most of its history, the city of Portland disregarded people who are poor and people who do not have homes. Only with urban renewal in the 1970s did the city begin to understand homelessness as a blight which requires its response. Then for decades, instead of robustly funding effective solutions, city leaders and administrators maligned people who were homeless, sought funding and resources from the county, state and federal governments, directed police to corral them in the skid road area, over-arrested and over-prosecuted them, delayed public education and conversation about effective solutions, and used homelessness as an economic bulldozer to affect real estate prices. Not until the cocaine plague joined cheap heroin on the streets in the late 1990s did the city commit its own money to reducing homelessness.
And when the city did spend, the spending benefitted property and business owners and never the individual in crisis as an end in itself.
No one - no animal - should be forced to live in an outdoor camp with 250 other people. That’s an inhumane and unmanageable experience which will cause trauma and service mistrust. The city’s plan proposes using both police and private security to monitor the camps 24/7 and invariably result in more arrests,more jailings, more conflict, more trauma - and less reason to cooperate or comply.From the perspective of people who care about the welfare of people with mental illness, it’s hard to imagine a more thoughtless response to homelessness. Just roll out the process. It’s utterly predictable that people who are sick with mental illness, and with a public health system both unable and unwilling to take on more responsibilities, will be exited from these camps for “behavioral issues.” What’s next for them? Jail? Exile? These are 19th century ideas.
The solution to this problem is fairly simple but requires a complete change in the moral nature of the city. The city and its proxies should never engage with people who are homeless merely as a means to an end, but only as an end in itself.
What most people who are homeless want is help to end their homelessness, help which recognizes and respects them as individual autonomous humans. They want effective medical assistance and active social supports. They want housing - just like anyone else - which is clean, safe, and with a lock on the door and the key in their pocket. They want work to become self-sufficient, or if unable to work something meaningful to do with their time.
Changing the moral nature of an individual - what the philosopher Kant called the categorical imperative - is hard work for a priest, rabbi, or an abbot. Changing the moral nature of a city is straightforward public administration. Assign people who put the interests of those in crisis first to facilitate the solution in charge AND remove people who fail the categorical imperative from the discussion.
Authored and signed by
Mental Health Association of Portland board members and advisors, Irene Kalonji, Mary Margaret Wheeler Weber, Sandra Chisholm MPA, Jason Renaud, Michael Hopcroft, Tara Candela JD, MSN, PMHNP-BC, and Patrick Nolen
- If we taxpayers are paying "navigators" to steer people in crisis to "available services" that are either non-existent or inadequate, how is that helping anyone?
- How do we then hold individuals who are in crisis accountable for failing to take advantage of services that are either either non-existent or inadequate?
- If those of us who are not in crisis have no idea what the [bleep] is going on, how can we demand that those in severe crisis know and respond?
Jason,
Thank you for taking the time to answer. It seems like we are up the proverbial creek, have no idea if there is a paddle, or who may have it, let alone in which direction to row if we did.On Thu, Nov 17, 2022 at 2:54 PM Jason Renaud <info@...> wrote:Hi Dr. Aisha.The availability of public services is very difficult to answer, to estimate, or to discuss in a general way, or without treading on toes which often have the best of intentions but are constrained in some manner. I'll write about services for adults with mental illness.There is no public data about the services which are available through the OHA, DOC, OYA, schools, though county department programs, or through private agencies contracted through counties or through Healthshare. So we don't know how many inpatient beds are available, or DV counselors, or culturally capable agencies, etc. One could dig through budgets, make calls to agency operations folks, and maybe cull a list, but it would likely miss areas of service and certainly be instantly out of date. My guess is there are about 400-600 people employed in the Portland area who navigate some or all of this problem. (My guess is there are more people now employed to solve some part of homelessness than there are people who are homeless - and there are a lot of them. )Here's an example of public data, for the housing section of a single state program which is not voluntarily accessable - http://psrboregon.wikidot.com/start If you take a few moments to review, you'll see the complexity of the data and the expertise required to navigate the service.The ideal of central intake - something the JOHS / 211 do - is create one knowledgeable human resource just for one question - where is a shelter bed tonight. I've seen central intake work in some cities, but hear nothing but complaints about Portland's. (Albeit no one calls me to compliment public services...)Anecdotally there are no inpatient beds for psychiatric care paid through Medicaid in Portland except in hospitals or the two "step down" facilities run by Telecare. An initial intake appointment for outpatient care usually takes a couple of weeks. You can use the Cascadia Urgent Care service for acute needs on a drop in basis - that is readily available. Old Town Clinic - and perhaps some others - can help if the client is transfering full service - psych and medical care - to their agency. Unity Center is a psychiatric hospital - not a drop in center. The state hospital has accepted almost no civilly committed persons in over a year. Outside of corrections contract referrals there is almost no inpatient for addiction. Hooper subacute exists - but I no longer refer to it. There are some specialized services - like NARA inpatient, which might have a short list for native people or for a former client who needs to return. Outpatient for addiction wait lists can be from a week to a month, depending on the agency.If you are willing to put up with shelters and bus out to Wapato there's probably a space for you to sleep. There are rules, and I think you need a referral from an agency to go there. You can queue up at PRM or City Team or other short term shelters. I'm not up to speed on the queueing for the little house pods. Each agency which provides housing - and there are about a dozen - have their own wait lists, rules, applications, etc. For some, if you have cash, the wait is short - maybe a week. Others are very long. And the lists aren't first come first served. Each agency has their own way of keeping a list. If you have a program of recovery and a job, there could be a place for you at an Oxford House this week - https://www.oxfordvacancies.com. My organization owns one of these and thinks very highly of the model. But if you're seeking a room of your own, like a section eight certificate, the wait could be several years.To answer your questions specifically - 1. No one knows. 2. No. 3. Depends on who you are and who you have advocating on your behalf. 4. Right now the state is throwing money at the problem, but there's little or no skilled leadership in place. 5. Suffer.Jason RenaudOn Thu, Nov 17, 2022 at 1:16 PM Aisha Musa <draymusa@...> wrote:I also want to interrogate the issue of "available services." Precisely what services are available? Is current availability sufficient to service everyone in need of each service? If not, how long is the wait to access needed services? What steps are being taken to increase capacity to meet the need? What do people in crisis do in the meantime?Thank you, Jason for this detailed and necessary explanation of why everyone should oppose the Mayor's plan, and thank you for showing that what we need is moral change at the societal level. I agree completely.On Thu, Nov 17, 2022 at 7:32 AM Jason Renaud <info@...> wrote:
The Mental Health Association of Portland opposes the City of Portland’s camps for people who are homeless, as described in five resolutions passed by four of five city council members on November 3, 2022.
It would be easy to say nothing about the city’s new plan to force people in crisis and who are homeless into three large outdoor camps. Most commenters and experts agree - without intergovernmental agreements in hand, without designated locations supported by neighbors, without the capability to recruit, hire and manage a sizable workforce, and mostly without substantive and effective incentives to attract people who are homeless rather than threaten or coerce them - this plan is going nowhere.
We write because we think the plan will be ineffective. To us, the plan shows a lack of research, stakeholder engagement, poor planning, and fiscal irresponsibility on the part of city leaders.
Further, the city’s plan is proposed as a solution - which is a lie to taxpayers. For example, the city will spend millions to fund “navigators” to steward people to “available services,” except those services are almost non-existent. Without new funding for services, such as long-term psychiatric hospitalization and acute drug detoxification, any plan will fail. This absence of crucial services - absolutely necessary to gain and sustain housing - is why many Portlanders are chronically homeless. Those who devised this plan know better but didn’t do the essential prep work.
Instead of concocting a plan which primarily serves the interests of property and business owners and not the identified people crisis, the city should have listened to people who are homeless and those who are direct service workers. They often know what to do, and they haven’t been asked with any sincerity, uniformity, or skill. Those voices and lived experience are missing from the city’s plan. The plan’s authors should have listened inclusively for solutions that make sense to those who are directly affected to learn to use attraction and not coercion or punishment to gain compliance.
The plan is not just $27 million for one year. It’s also the lost opportunity of success in cooperation with others based on qualitative data. That cost to the taxpayer, business and property owners, and to people in crisis, is incalculable.
The plan adds to a legacy of thoughtlessness. Throughout most of its history, the city of Portland disregarded people who are poor and people who do not have homes. Only with urban renewal in the 1970s did the city begin to understand homelessness as a blight which requires its response. Then for decades, instead of robustly funding effective solutions, city leaders and administrators maligned people who were homeless, sought funding and resources from the county, state and federal governments, directed police to corral them in the skid road area, over-arrested and over-prosecuted them, delayed public education and conversation about effective solutions, and used homelessness as an economic bulldozer to affect real estate prices. Not until the cocaine plague joined cheap heroin on the streets in the late 1990s did the city commit its own money to reducing homelessness.
And when the city did spend, the spending benefitted property and business owners and never the individual in crisis as an end in itself.
No one - no animal - should be forced to live in an outdoor camp with 250 other people. That’s an inhumane and unmanageable experience which will cause trauma and service mistrust. The city’s plan proposes using both police and private security to monitor the camps 24/7 and invariably result in more arrests,more jailings, more conflict, more trauma - and less reason to cooperate or comply.From the perspective of people who care about the welfare of people with mental illness, it’s hard to imagine a more thoughtless response to homelessness. Just roll out the process. It’s utterly predictable that people who are sick with mental illness, and with a public health system both unable and unwilling to take on more responsibilities, will be exited from these camps for “behavioral issues.” What’s next for them? Jail? Exile? These are 19th century ideas.
The solution to this problem is fairly simple but requires a complete change in the moral nature of the city. The city and its proxies should never engage with people who are homeless merely as a means to an end, but only as an end in itself.
What most people who are homeless want is help to end their homelessness, help which recognizes and respects them as individual autonomous humans. They want effective medical assistance and active social supports. They want housing - just like anyone else - which is clean, safe, and with a lock on the door and the key in their pocket. They want work to become self-sufficient, or if unable to work something meaningful to do with their time.
Changing the moral nature of an individual - what the philosopher Kant called the categorical imperative - is hard work for a priest, rabbi, or an abbot. Changing the moral nature of a city is straightforward public administration. Assign people who put the interests of those in crisis first to facilitate the solution in charge AND remove people who fail the categorical imperative from the discussion.
Authored and signed by
Mental Health Association of Portland board members and advisors, Irene Kalonji, Mary Margaret Wheeler Weber, Sandra Chisholm MPA, Jason Renaud, Michael Hopcroft, Tara Candela JD, MSN, PMHNP-BC, and Patrick Nolen