Earlier this month our board received a briefing on a potential 24/7 first responder drop-off sobering facility. While I support this concept, a sobering center is only as good as the resources it has access to as people are discharged. If we aren’t able to refer and place people into programs and services on the backend we will simply be churning them through an already broken system. A good example we should be watching is Washington County’s soon-to-be-opened Center for Addictions Triage and Treatment.

I look forward to the funding we expect from the Oregon Legislature this fall. To learn more see the draft Sobering Center Plan