Cahootsians, allies seek 3% of budget to handle 10% of calls

Presenter: Cahootsians and allies address the Budget Committee May 14. Laurel Lisovskis:

Laurel Lisovskis: I’m Laurel Lisovskis,… a social worker and a Cahootsian working in Eugene for the last decade. I have met some of you, admired others from afar, and respect the work you have all done thus far immensely.

[00:00:16] So when I meet with folks in the community about CAHOOTS, I bring a data scientist who studies CAHOOTS with me because he brings the literal receipts and indisputable ways to back the team’s passion and grit.

[00:00:27] And folks always say to me, every time, even fellow data nerds are like, ‘Nice to meet you, but you don’t need to convince me of CAHOOTS worth.’

[00:00:35] But we do. We do need to convince you and our collective selves, because we’re seriously at risk of losing something that will be almost impossible to bring back: Over 100 years of collective expertise and instinct, thousands and thousands of calls in our care lenses, a CAHOOTS Academy filled with experts in the field, and a working knowledge of our resources in real time from knowing our city’s supports and offerings.

[00:00:57] Since April 7th, there have been approximately 1 ,710 missed opportunities to connect with our city in vulnerable moments. A significant amount of those calls will have been responded to by officers instead last month, whether that’s identifying someone the ICU, delivering a death notification, or helping steer an elderly lady with Alzheimer’s back to her home to make sure she gets settled.

[00:01:19] Some of these calls will not be attended to at all, like helping a survivor of domestic abuse, friend shelter for the night after officer contact, tending to some self harm wounds with a sad intoxicated community member or helping an unhoused individual manage a recent toe amputation.

[00:01:34] There is a group of CAHOOTS workers who have been working really hard both to educate ourselves on all things not related to drug service and clinical expertise and also to try and educate you all and other stakeholders about what we actually do. We left some information here for you, which we’ve been sharing elsewhere as well.

[00:01:51] But the TL;DR is that the CAHOOTS integrated health care model has immense public value and is a valid arm of public safety. And we encourage everyone to try and understand the landscape.

[00:02:02] Our little group with combined expertise has been busy on our end making it possible to come back to work, incorporating ourselves as a nonprofit, securing temporary fiscal sponsorship, writing grants, Working on cost recovery methods.

[00:02:14] We want you to know that we are readying ourselves, becoming more prepared by the day, open to feedback, and standing strong in the knowledge of our worth.

[00:02:23] Presenter: Reid Kajikawa:

[00:02:24] Reid Kajikawa: My name is Reid Kajikawa. I am here in my personal capacity. I am the training director at the Public Defender Services of Lane County, which provides representation for people charged in state courts, not in the Eugene Municipal Court.

[00:02:40] We’ve heard about CAHOOTS. I’m asking that this body reconsider proposed cuts to its budget for immediate crisis intervention services such as CAHOOTS and White Bird.

[00:02:51] And I wanted to let you know that the decisions that you make in this body have ripple effects not just in the city and not just in the municipal courts, but in the circuit courts as well.

[00:03:00] I wanted to give you some numbers because we have seen a significant increase in the types of cases in the circuit court.

[00:03:08] For the Class C misdemeanor, criminal trespass in the second degree, with the maximum sentence of 30 days in jail, in 2024 our office opened 153 cases; 67 of those cases were standalone cases.

[00:03:26] In 2025 this year from Jan. 1 until May 13, we have opened 102 cases, 51 as standalone cases, a considerable increase in trespass in the second degree, entering or remaining unlawfully on premises, sleeping on the street, sleeping in a parking lot, being asked to leave.

[00:03:50] For contrast, from Jan. 1 to May 13 in 2024, there were only 47 cases, 16 of which were standalone, so more than three times more this year than last over the same period of time.

[00:04:06] For disorderly conduct in the second degree, a Class B misdemeanor, 126 last year, total, 78 which were standalone; from the time period in 2024, Jan. 1 to May 13: 64, 50 of which were standalone, compared to 50, this year, 25 of which are standalone cases.

[00:04:27] And 36 of those cases, 36 of the disorderly conduct cases last year were all the result of one incident, which was a protest case.

[00:04:36] You’re affecting people who are mentally ill, people who are unhoused. You cannot incarcerate your way out of a public health crisis.

[00:04:45] Presenter: Michaiah Gumbs:

[00:04:46] Michaiah Gumbs: I’m a mental health worker. I have been for the last four years now. I love what I do. I wish I saw more of it in my community. Today here to speak for CAHOOTS, to say that learning that CAHOOTS was going to potentially be not funded was terrifying, to say the least.

[00:05:08] I fear for my community members that are in crisis or may experience a crisis in the future. Those who are in crisis need empathetic, trauma-informed listeners. They do not need police officers.

[00:05:23] Please understand that communities need healthy social support services and CAHOOTS is a huge part of that. Please keep that in consideration, and, ‘Go Ducks.’

[00:05:38] Presenter: West Koufman:

[00:05:39] West Koufman: My name is West Koufman. I know we’re here to talk about numbers tonight, but I thought when I was preparing to speak to you all, I was thinking about: What is the true immeasurable cost of the loss of a service like CAHOOTS?

[00:05:56] We’ll count them in overdoses, people dying alone whose bodies will be recovered unceremoniously hours or days after the fact. How will we measure the interventions lost behind closed doors where a trusted source is no longer available to intervene in matters of domestic violence? How many people will get sicker without anyone to check on them take them to the hospital or take them to a shelter?

[00:06:22] The scale of suffering is unknowable. And the people most vulnerable to this suffering are not likely to show up here at City Hall to plead their cases to you. It is your job as legislators to consider them, to ask yourselves: How will my most vulnerable constituents be impacted by these decisions?

[00:06:41] I have listened to far too many City Council meetings where the central areas of concern revolve around businesses, property, and policing and ticketing individuals who infringe upon those assets. But you are not legislators of property or capital. You are legislators of people. This includes people who have to sleep on the streets and they need you.

[00:07:02] You previously expressed the sentiment that the city did not fire CAHOOTS, that CAHOOTS, through its lack of funding, quit. I’m a public school teacher. It’s my job to identify students’ needs, teach them relevant skills and employ various tactics that will support their learning. If a student was floundering, asking for help, saying they needed more support in order to accomplish a task, it would be inappropriate, certainly cruel, if I were to shrug and respond, “You have failed.”

[00:07:28] Because CAHOOTS didn’t quit. This is evidenced by the many people in the room right now who are waiting for the opportunity to get back to their jobs, to get back to supporting your constituents. It is evidenced in the many people in this room, some testifying some not of the essential nature of the services this organization provides. Our city budget can and should reflect the priorities of your community. I urge you all to heed the needs of your community and include crisis and medical services in this budget.

[00:07:56] Presenter: Athena Aguiar:

[00:07:57] Athena Aguiar: My name is Athena Aguiar. Please keep the alternative response budget line that was previously used for CAHOOTS. All the ideas that have been thrown out to resolve this issue such as beginning a new contract with a new nonprofit that may be started by fired CAHOOTS employees and the idea of starting a government program similar to CAHOOTS require money.

[00:08:15] Please retain that budget line item whether or not there is a solid plan to bring back CAHOOTS or an alternative program by the time the budget is adopted.

[00:08:21] For the reasons stated by previous speakers I think it makes the most sense to take this money from the police patrol budget.

[00:08:26] Presenter: Natalie Cheechov:

[00:08:28] Natalie Cheechov: My name is Natalie and I’m asking you all to fully fund CAHOOTS in the upcoming proposed budget.

[00:08:34] I became an EMT in 2020 at the wise age of 18, hoping to work for CAHOOTS and I had to wait till I was 23. During that time, I went to school and I studied psychology and I’m now a paramedic student at Lane. I work downtown and I volunteer with a rural fire agency in the area.

[00:08:51] Besides being just a unique and important resource for the community of Eugene, CAHOOTS is the most affordable public safety option, effectively diverting hundreds of calls a year from police, fire and emergency rooms. And tonight I ask you to consider how much the lives and livelihoods of the members of our community are worth in dollar amounts. Inappropriate or delayed responses to our community’s calls for service is the price we all will pay for the loss of public services.

[00:09:18] As the police grow more burdened, the fire department is stretched thinner than ever, and hospitals are overrun, it only makes sense to invest in a trusted community-based initiative that has been proven to work for over 30 years in our city.

[00:09:30] This response reduces emergency vehicle hours, reduces costs and burdens to taxpayers, and appropriately responds to those in need. By freeing up our highly specialized, thoroughly trained and devoted emergency responders to do what they do best by employing highly trained, highly specialized, thoroughly educated and devoted crisis counselors and medics to do what they’re trained to do, all those in our community receive the services they need when they need them.

[00:09:55] Aside from the direct diversions CAHOOTS performs, we effectively prevent calls from ever requiring emergency response. Community care and crisis intervention keeps folks out of emergency rooms, jail, and ambulances.

[00:10:06] Thank you all very much for your time and consideration and I’m hopeful with your support that I can soon return to the job and career that I’m deeply passionate about and devoted to.

[00:10:15] Presenter: Ryder Hales:

[00:10:16] Ryder Hales: I’m Ryder Hales. I love the preface for this meeting, that ‘decisions are being made here that have an impact on people without the privilege to come and speak their voice.’ Using that as a guide, I want you to consider that CAHOOTS is an essential lifesaving service.

[00:10:32] Yes, Eugene has budget problems. What town doesn’t? But saying that we need to solve the budget crisis by cutting CAHOOTS is like saying we need to cut the fire department. And there are patchwork solutions being proposed, but they’re not sufficient.

[00:10:47] As I said, CAHOOTS is an essential lifesaving service. And more than that, it’s a precedent-setter, it’s nationally-known. It was one of the first mobile crisis units in the country.

[00:10:59] Everyone here in the Budget Committee has a choice. Eugene can set an example for the nation, one way or another. You can set an example to reconsider your decision and show compassion to our city’s and community’s most vulnerable members. Or you can set an example to show a city and a city government that’s willing to let people suffer and die.

[00:11:22] I encourage you to make the right choice for all of these services and resources—CAHOOTS, the library, Amazon Pool, animal shelter—obviously for the people in our community who need it and for the well-being of our community, but also just for your own sense of morality and doing the right thing with the opportunity and privilege you have to be part of this committee.

[00:11:44] Presenter: Alicia Rabideau:

[00:11:45] Alicia Rabideau: Hello, my name is Alicia. I’m here to add my voice to the many people asking you to maintain a budget line item for CAHOOTS. I am speaking to you as an EMT, a crisis worker, and a former CAHOOTS van worker. These last few weeks have been dystopic, walking around Eugene, seeing crises, and knowing that CAHOOTS won’t be able to respond.

[00:12:07] I personally have maybe out of my best interest approached multiple situations where police officers were engaging in offering support to people and tried instead to offer resources or such because that has worked familiar to me and was asked to move along.

[00:12:22] I think that not only is maintaining CAHOOTS or reinvesting in a new CAHOOTS the compassionate decision for this city. I do firmly believe it’s the economic one.

[00:12:33] As a van worker I can say, as Natalie and Laurel—many people—have pointed out, there’s just so many instances where people have been diverted from the most expensive forms of emergency care, emergency rooms, ambulances, police responses, jail cells, courtrooms. It’s incredible how much money this city pours into all of those things, whereas those could be redirected by two people’s hourly wage in a van.

[00:12:55] I recently just learned tonight actually from some records requests that the lowest-paid police officers at EPD make $36 an hour. The lowest-paid Cahootsian makes $22 an hour and the highest-paid makes $34 an hour. So, I am urging you to consider to look at the EPD budget as a source for money to move that into new CAHOOTS. I think this is like a golden opportunity.

[00:13:20] We can say candidly now that, like, White Bird, we understand, was a really difficult body to work with. Now, as a former Whitebirder, we’re seeing things, like, coming out around embezzlement and difficulties with our former leadership, and I think that so many of those problems will be avoided now, working directly with direct service providers to create something new.

[00:13:41] This new form of CAHOOTS would be again an incredible opportunity and those are the folks who know most intimately the needs of this town and how to develop a new service for that. And I think this opportunity cannot be missed. We cannot go another two years without capitalizing on this moment.

[00:13:55] So I urge you to continue communication with those folks and create something new.

[00:14:00] Presenter: Michael Williams:

[00:14:02] Michael Williams: Hey there, my name is Michael. I am a recently laid-off crisis counselor and medic with CAHOOTS. I had been with them since 2019. The closure of the CAHOOTS program in Eugene has been very devastating as a former employee.

[00:14:18] And it’s really difficult to actually put into words just the feelings that we have had around this—not only former employees, but also the community as a whole.

[00:14:30] It’s very clear to me that the community of Eugene takes a lot of pride in having CAHOOTS here and having it started here.

[00:14:37] I too am very concerned when I hear that the library, the Sheldon Pool, the Amazon Pool, Greenhill, all of those other very important social safety nets are also closing, primarily because, you know, as a CAHOOTS employee I’ve personally worked with all of those different social spaces and found they’re—to be incredibly helpful.

[00:14:59] And I just think that the need will continue to grow to just exponential levels with those other support systems being closed down. And I really implore the city to consider a way to keep CAHOOTS in service, whether with White Bird or without White Bird.

[00:15:15] Presenter: JoJo Breslin:

[00:15:16] JoJo Breslin: My name is JoJo. I could speak today on many of the services that are unfortunately being defunded in our city with the proposed budget, but I want to focus today on CAHOOTS.

[00:15:24] It’s been a highly successful program for over 35 years and Eugene has been the model for the entire nation when it comes to similar mobile crisis units. And so it’s very disheartening to see Eugene turn its back on the progress by not putting any funding towards CAHOOTS or an alternative in any sense.

[00:15:43] CAHOOTS pays for itself in dividends that go beyond what can be found on any financial sheet. They directly impact and save the lives of our most vulnerable who would otherwise be subject to our costly health care system in a city that doesn’t even have a hospital in its limits.

[00:15:57] They save money by having calls directed to them that would otherwise be responded to by the police who will need to respond to more of these calls in their absence, where police are paid more than the CAHOOTS workers, they accrue more overtime than CAHOOTS workers, and through the militarization of our police department, having much costlier equipment cost than the CAHOOTS workers.

[00:16:18] It seems that in the aftermath of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 that the city’s priorities for funding alternatives have, kind of, fell on deaf ears, and the steps today show a complete leap in the wrong direction for the city.

[00:16:31] The county’s mobile crisis service is the only place that we can now point them to in need, yet they do not do first aid or nonemergency medical care, housing-related interventions, or welfare checks that folks could rely on with CAHOOTS.

[00:16:44] Our citizens, the police department, fire and emergency services all benefit and they save too, when asked about CAHOOTS’ importance. They handle a great chunk of police calls in Eugene with an incredibly small rate of requiring police backup, not to mention the fact that they have not reported a casualty or injury of any sense. And they also de-escalate and prevent many situations that would otherwise have become more emergent.

[00:17:07] I agree with the city councilors who have mentioned that we need to look forward to long-term investments in our community and I don’t see any clearer slam-dunk than prioritizing CAHOOTS funding at this time.

[00:17:19] As one city councilor had put it in Monday’s meeting, the police are one piece of the puzzle among others. And though I agree this is true, right now as far as this budget is concerned, it seems like they are the only piece being considered.

[00:17:33] Presenter: Jacob Trewe:

[00:17:34] Jacob Trewe: Hi there, everybody. I’m Jacob Trewe. We’ve had a lot of talk supporting about CAHOOTS and I agree with them strongly. I want to drill down a little bit into some of the numbers that we do have—it’s a budget meeting! We haven’t talked about numbers that much yet.

[00:17:48] So the CAHOOTS / White Bird had been funded by the city to the tune of just under $1 million. According to a FOIA request, it looks like the funding for CAHOOTS overall after that just under $1 million: There was bit of money from the CSI and the vehicles were paid for.

[00:18:04] Adding that all up, it comes to $1.3 million. Double that for two years, ’cause we’ve got the two-year budget that’s been going on here, that comes to just under $3 (million).

[00:18:14] Compare that to the police. The police right now from the general fund and the CSI are getting $172 million, $173 just about, and per the Eugene CAHOOTS Town Hall, part of why you know the White Bird folks needed to close things down was that only 40% of the costs of the CAHOOTS folks here in Eugene were covered by the Eugene city government. They were covered by grants and by personal donations to White Bird.

[00:18:38] When the Eugene was cut even more, they were no longer to do so and that’s why we no longer have CAHOOTS. So but if we wanted to square that up, get up to 100% for two years, we’ve been looking at about $5.5 million dollars. I’d say that’s pretty fantastic. That is 3% of the police budget as it stands right now and we’ll take a look at the calls for service in the CAHOOTS Town Hall.

My estimate is that we’re looking at about 12,000 calls for service in Eugene. Police overall had 115,000. This is all in 2024. So that is 10%.

So we’re looking at, if you fund CAHOOTS to the tune of what they’re worth, which is about $5.5 million—talk to the workers, of course, get the actual figures based on, work it out exactly how you’re going to do that—but based on my calculations, 3% there, and they’re covering 10 % of the calls, that’s a fantastic value.

[00:19:30] So above and beyond all the moral aspects of it, not funding CAHOOTS is a pretty penny-foolish way to do it. Thank you now.

[00:19:39] Presenter: Cahootsians and allies at the Budget Committee May 14 point to the value of the CAHOOTS street response service. The City Council and Budget Committee both meet again Wednesday, May 21.

This story produced by John Q for KEPW 97.3, an organizational member of the Whole Community Time Bank. For more about the role of time banks in preparedness, see TimeBanks.org.