Thanks to OHA Grant Columbia Gorge Resolution Center Is Now Fully Funded
By Cole Goodwin
Wasco County Sheriff Lane Magilll
This week the Columbia Gorge Resolution Center (CGRC) received more than $9 million from the Oregon Health Authority to build supporting infrastructure and programming services to address mental and behavioral health inequities in the Columbia River Gorge, including a residential mental health facility and a secure residential mental health facility.
Thanks to the OHA grant, the Columbia Gorge Resolution Center project is now fully funded thanks to various grants totaling just under $14 million.
“Words can’t really describe how excited I am,” said Wasco County Sheriff Lane Magill, noting he got word of the OHA money this morning, March 27, 2023.
Magill has worked on projects to address regional mental and behavioral health-related arrests and mental health-related incarceration issues for more than a decade.
The idea for the Center comes from the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council (LPSCC) workgroup, facilitated by Magill, who first proposed the idea in 2019.
Now, their hard work is finally paying off.
“Everybody else is just as excited about it as I am; It’s a real milestone for our community,” said Magill.
“It’s pretty emotional quite frankly,” he added. “It’s nice to know people will have a place to go to be safe and secure, and that we’ll be able to get people having a mental health crises or mental health problems help, and then get them back into the community.”
About the Resolution Center
The CGRC aims to provide detection, prevention, proper treatment, and ongoing support to individuals with mental and behavioral health issues in Wasco, Hood River, and Sherman County by adding supporting infrastructure and programming services to address mental and behavioral health inequities in the Columbia River Gorge.
The ultimate goal of the project is to address the root causes of mental health-related arrests and incarcerations and to help individuals with mental and behavioral health issues to lead successful lives.
The Center will have a mental health and addictions treatment facility specializing in providing access to co-occurring (mental health and addictions) treatment, psychiatric and addiction stabilization, and inpatient respite services for the community and the surrounding counties.
The CGRC could also house several mental health crisis clinicians, crisis respite beds, co-occurring self-help support groups, counseling, transitional programming focusing on life skills, emotional skills, medication management, and ongoing mental health support services for adults and youth.
The Center would also help divert those with mental and behavioral health issues from law enforcement custody into supportive services. Programming could follow a Community Restoration model, which focuses on meeting mental health needs in the community in a non-institutional, community-based setting.
“Why are we doing this?” asked Magill back in September. “We are seeing that individuals that have mental health and behavioral health issues are repeatedly coming in and out of the system. And we’re not giving them the care that they deserve; these are individuals in crisis. We can’t just keep locking these people up and kicking them out. It’s not solving the problem.”
Stay tuned for more information about what’s next for the Columbia Gorge Resolution Center!
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