Mayor Wilson expands Portland Street Response

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Years after the City of Portland implemented the Portland Street Response program to help those having mental health crises on the streets, Mayor Keith Wilson is expanding it.

The new policies will now allow PSR to shuttle people to homeless shelters and addiction treatment centers, respond to calls inside commercial and government buildings and join police officers and firefighters at emergencies.

“Once these changes have been fully implemented, PSR personnel will be able to respond to more call types, connect more individuals to the help they need most, and create better outcomes for those they serve,” Wilson said in a statement.

Portland City Council members who spoke with KOIN 6 News said before these new policies, PSR teams would respond to a person in crisis but would eventually have to leave them where they found them. With this expansion, PSR teams can shuttle those in crisis to get help.

“It’s very important to meet people where they’re at,” Councilor Dan Ryan said. “But you don’t want to leave them where they’re at.”

Ryan added he thinks “they’ll see a more responsive Portland Street Response.”

“The administration is not able to spend more money on this work without coming to council and asking us for the authority to spend that money,” Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney said. “So our understanding right now is that they will be doing this work within the resources Portland Street Response already has. ”

Aaron Schmautz, the president of the Portland Police Union, said the PSR expansion is an “exciting continuation of a conversation which has been ongoing since 2021. The City and the PPA have long valued integrating PSR with Police to ensure that we have the right resources to serve our community.”

He said the full integration is designed to keep PSR staff safe and sent to the spots where they are most needed.

Wilson has the ability to make these changes, council members said. But at least one councilor wished they were informed before the announcement was made public.

“I think the ideal for me,” Councilor Mitch Green said, “would be for something like this to have a little more engagement, you know, if there’s an idea to kind of change, change a contract, to expand the scope of any bureau.”

But it didn’t bother Ryan.

“When there’s good news, I’ll take it any way I receive it. So I was fine with the process,” he said.