Good news!
City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke sent me a message today about state grant money being available for a Salem mental health crisis response team similar to Eugene's highly successful CAHOOTS program.
This comes after the crisis response effort Nordyke has been pushing for met with a setback in September, when the Marion County Board of Commissioners balked at allowing Salem to use state funds that went to counties for crisis stabilization services.
As you can read below, $10.5 million in state grant money is coming directly to Salem, so Nordyke hopes a chunk of that can be used for a crisis response team pilot project.
Hi Brian, hope you are doing well. We have a work session on the city's strategic priorities for next year on Monday. Wanted you to be aware of this.
It looks like the $10.5 million in state grant money that City Council just agreed to accept at our November 8 council meeting can be used for operating costs for “crisis response.”
Here's the fine print from the grant agreement:
"Recipient shall use the Grant for the purpose of a site acquisition, preparation, and temporary or permanent shelter purchase. The funds will also be used for operating costs for potential shelter sites, unsheltered site cleanup, sobering center, or crisis response." (Emphasis added.)
I brought up this provision in the grant agreement near the end of the last City Council meeting on November 8, after Council voted to accept the grant. The previous cost estimate we received from United Way for a mobile crisis unit was around $540,000, if memory serves.
The way I read this grant agreement provision is that the City can use a portion of the $10.5 million to fund a mobile crisis unit pilot project, and still have almost $10 million dollars to invest in other projects to reduce homelessness.
Council will consider its strategic priorities for the upcoming budgetary year FY 2022-2023 at the upcoming City Council work session on November 15. I will be urging the Council to keep a mobile crisis unit on the list of priorities for the coming year.
Vanessa Nordyke
Salem City Council, Ward 7
City phone: (971) 707-3732
Hopefully a non-police program like this is in Salem's future
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