An around-the-clock sobering center in Multnomah County, where police can take people impaired by drugs, alcohol or both, now isn’t expected to open until fall 2026.

That will make six years without a key piece of Portland’s response to rising addiction and the alarming proliferation of fentanyl.

The sobering center is taking a back seat to the county’s plan to deal with the rollback of Oregon’s Measure 110, the voter-approved law that decriminalized possession of small amounts of street drugs.

First, the county is opening a temporary deflection center – a place where police can take people caught with drugs -- starting Sept. 1, when possession will become a misdemeanor. Lawmakers provided money to counties to steer drug users away from jail and into treatment.

The deflection center, temporarily planned for a leased building at Southeast Ninth Avenue and Sandy Boulevard, will offer screenings for substance abuse and treatment referrals but no sobering beds at first. About 10 sobering beds will come in the second quarter of 2025. Then, a future site will hold a combined deflection center and 24-hour sobering center the following fall, according to the county’s health department.

“Sobering center is the end goal in mind, where we want to get to,” county Health Director Rachael Banks told county commissioners Thursday.

But Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards called the timing unacceptable.

Brim-Edwards led a core committee that submitted a fast-track timeline in April calling for a new 35- to 50-bed sobering center to be open near a hospital emergency department by October 2025.

She took up the project after a four-year effort by a coalition of city, county and nonprofit interests stalled. Portland’s longtime sobering center, run by nonprofit Central City Concern, abruptly closed at the end of 2019 after a whistleblower complaint reported egregious safety problems.

“I’m not accepting delay,” Brim-Edwards told The Oregonian/OregonLive after the meeting.

“The county should be capable of moving ahead with two things,” she said.

“I mean that’s what our community is expecting for us, and it’s not: ‘We’re going to do this one thing first that actually doesn’t appear to help a lot of people and we’re going to wait until that’s done to start something else,’” she said.

Putting a full sobering center in the last of three phases “to me, is not at all how we should be responding to this massive crisis in our community,” Brim-Edwards said.

Jay Clark, director of public affairs for the Portland Metro Chamber, called for a sobering center to be opened at the same time as the deflection center.

He urged the county to adhere as closely as possible to the sobering center timeline that Brim-Edwards and her committee submitted in spring.

County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and Banks said the phased-in approach allows the county to ensure it can serve people’s needs while meeting licensing and other regulations.

“We’re trying to incorporate sobering because we know that’s a critical component, and it’s a critical need in our community, as soon as possible, while we’re also doing the work that we’re required to do through the legislature in setting up a deflection program,” Vega Pederson said.

Brim-Edwards noted that her committee called for acquiring a site for the sobering center by the end of June and that Banks had two people from the Health Department on the committee.

“It concerns me that the timelines are being moved, primarily because the county hasn’t acted on the things required to start the process,” Brim-Edwards told Banks.

Banks responded that her team raised a variety of operational concerns, including licensing questions. County officials said they’re looking for a future site that would combine the deflection and sobering centers.

Brim-Edwards asked what will happen to people suffering acute intoxication or who are intoxicated from alcohol and are taken to the temporary deflection center.

“What is your definition of acute? And who gets sorted in and out?” she asked. “Who is this center for? ... It seems like it’s screening out pretty much everyone we would think is going to choose deflection.”

No one from the county had a ready answer for her on Thursday.

Banks said the deflection center is not for people suffering from acute intoxication. Someone with a mental psychosis, for example, would need a higher level of care, such as hospitalization. She called it a “complex question,” and would follow up with more specifics at a future time.

Once the county selects an outfit to run the deflection center, Vega Pederson said, “I think the provider will help inform that strategy as well when they come on board.’'

Brim-Edwards pointed to the county estimate that nearly 36 people died from suspected fentanyl overdoses every month in 2023. If that pace continues through 2026, another 1,200 people will die, she said.

The county needs to “act with speed” not only to intervene with people addicted to drugs but to protect the broader public, she said.

“There’s a very negative impact on our neighborhoods and our public places and in our streets and in our community,” she said.

Commissioner Sharon Meieran, who worked with Brim-Edwards on the sobering center committee and on the earlier coalition, said the county seems to be scrambling to meet the Sept. 1 deadline without concerted thought about what’s most needed.

A sobering center, she said, is what “we’ve heard from so many partners is the most urgent need right now.”

-- Maxine Bernstein covers federal court and criminal justice. Reach her at 503-221-8212, mbernstein@oregonian.com, follow her on X @maxoregonian, or on LinkedIn.

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