CAHOOTS Eugene and Springfield’s premiere crisis response program that provides mobile intervention in mental and medical crises, is itself in crisis due to a budget shortfall.
The White Bird Clinic, CAHOOTS’ parent program, announced in a press release March 25 that Eugene’s CAHOOTS services will be reduced to one shift per week — rather than 24/7 — starting April 7.
While White Bird’s press release announcing the shift in hours did not give reason for the change in hours, the CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets), and HOOTS (Helping Out Our Teens in Schools) Workers Union publicized why in an open letter to White Bird.
According to the union letter, only seven CAHOOTS workers will still have a job after April 7, with the rest of the team being laid off. The approximately 20 workers who face layoff will only receive $1,500 in severance pay.
“Almost everyone being laid off is a union member because our contract only allows for three non-union relief pool members,” Chelsea Swift, CAHOOTS union representative, tells Eugene Weekly. “We agreed to expand the relief pool in our layoff agreement so that people can still have access to the job they love and get income, so it is possible that after [April 7] there will be more non-union than union staff on the roster.”
HOOTS workers staff are not included in the layoffs, Swift says.
The layoffs and subsequent reduction of hours comes just months after the clinic’s Dec. 13, 2024, closure of its Front Rooms program due to ongoing financial issues.
Amée Markwardt, White Bird interim executive director, says the nonprofit’s funding shortfalls have been a topic of discussion at board meetings for the past six months.
“Part of what came out of that was this need to undergo this restructure in order to survive as an agency and as a nonprofit,” she says. “We need to find a method to serve our clients the best we can with the money that we have, whilst looking at diversifying our funding, looking at different grants from different sources, looking at fundraising campaigns.”
“Cutting client services is the last thing we want to do,” she adds. “That’s the most horrible part of this. At the end of the day, there’s still too much of a budget shortfall not to make these changes right now.”
Markhardt says that Springfield’s CAHOOTS is not affected because its contract covers its operating costs.
While Eugene’s CAHOOTS hours have not been finalized or announced, Markwardt says White Bird’s administration will “figure out this week” when the one shift will be, and that while only seven workers will be retained as full time, “most other staff have the opportunity to stay on the relief pool and stay employed in that avenue.”
Markwardt says that employees in the relief pool can pick up open shifts and come back to fill time once White Bird secures extra funding.
“It seems White Bird has the hope that this will all be temporary and they can recall us back to work once they secure new funding,” Swift says, “but that doesn’t account for how demoralizing this has all been.”
Swift says that, although she has worked with White Bird for a decade and started the union to make it a career, she will be taking the voluntary layoff, despite being offered a position to stay.
“This is too much to come back from this time,” she says.