Benny Westcott
In the first quarter of 2020, the Sweet Home Police Department responded to 31 mental health-related calls.
In the first quarter of 2021, that number ballooned to 120.
“Finding the reason for the increase is always kind of difficult, because everybody’s a little different,” said Police Chief Jeff Lynn.
In an attempt to reduce this statistic, Police Department representatives have reached out to Linn County Mental Health for aid.
In response to that meeting, County Mental Health started sending a crisis worker to Sweet Home to go out on the streets with police officers and Community Services Officer Sean Morgan.
These contingents have now been meeting with different individuals in town who frequently make mental health-related calls to the police for three weeks in a row, Morgan noted at the May 17 Community Health Committee meeting at Sweet Home City Hall.
“It takes a while to see success, but we see the seeds of success, at least with several individuals,” Morgan said. “Linn County Mental Health is stepping up to the plate and giving us a hand with this, and it’s pretty cool.”
Suicidal calls have also more than doubled. The number of suicidal calls recorded in the first quarter of 2020 was 13, and the number of such calls recorded in the first quarter of 2021 was 31.
Homeless Shelter
The Sweet Home Hope Center is working on improving the facility at 1036 12th Ave in an attempt to make it a place to house Sweet Home’s homeless in the future. A group of volunteers that included health committee member Larry Horton recently helped make improvements to the property. The lawn was mowed and windows are in the process of being repaired.
Their goal is to use the house as well as the Hope Center itself, on 1080 12th Ave, to house and assist Sweet Home’s homeless.
Michael Davis, a board member of the Hope Center, said that the property is scheduled to be vacated by the current tenant on Aug. 12, but he said there is a contingency in the contract that might motivate the current tenant to move out sooner.
The person who lives in the house currently is already closely associated with the Hope Center, Davis said.
The Hope Center is a women’s shelter offering transitional housing. The organization offers support through mentoring, friendships, Bible studies, and accountability.
Davis is also a board member of Albany Helping Hands. He is one of four Albany Helping Hands board members that recently became board members for the Hope Center.
Davis described Albany Helping Hands’ philosophy.
“We believe a lot of the stuff that comes right out of the Bible. That’s kind of the theme. If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”
The organization has enterprises that the homeless people can work for, including a woodlot that provides firewood to Coastal Farm stores throughout Oregon, a thrift store, and a U-Haul business.
“Our theory is, we get folks in, love on them, get their ID straightened out, get their heads right, and then put them to work. Get some work ethic going,” Davis said.
Davis noted that for the Hope Center project, one of the two buildings can be used for office space for agencies interested in helping the homeless.
For instance, Davis noted that Family Tree Relief Nursery in Albany is seeking a grant to be able to provide services to the Long Street property. The organization started in 2004 and provides therapeutic early childhood programs, home visitation and outreach, alcohol and drug recovery support, and parent education.
Another program used by Albany Helping Hands that Davis and other board members at the Hope Center plan to utilize in helping Sweet Home’s homeless is the Transitional Opportunities Program (TOP).
This program works to address the acute needs of homeless people, like “driver’s licenses, fines, any kind of legal stuff,” Davis said.
Then the homeless can go into a TOP program to help reintroduce them into the working life and be tax payers.
“Our theme has always been that this is really not our project, it’s your project,” He told Sweet Home health committee members. “We’re just going to come alongside you and share our experience with housing homeless people.”
“I think what we plan on right now is to house women and children in the main building and then look into how we’re going to utilize the house,” Davis said.
Davis says there has been some discussion about mental health housing, as well as non-sex offender male housing.
He noted that “we don’t plan on bringing anybody up here outside of the Sweet Home community. This project is for Sweet Home. It’s not for people coming from Bend, it’s not for people who want to come up here from Albany.”
Speaking on the project overall, Davis said, “We want to be led by the community and try to keep our finger on the pulse of the needs of the community, not what we think is best, because we don’t know.”
He told the health committee “you guys know, by numbers, how many people you have out there that are homeless. And you have a fair sense of how many of those folks have mental health challenges, and to what degree.”
Davis said he’s writing an operations manual for the project, and is 80% done.
“Once I get that up and going I want to provide you guys with that,” he said to the health committee. “Basically it will be one of those deals where I’ll hand off some binders, and you guys can take some red pen, and add or take away.”