Business in the County:Safe, Secure and Livable Communities and Healthy People

In brief: All five Clackamas County commissioners closed out the Business in the County series in Oregon City with a wide-open question-and-answer session on three of the county’s hardest issues: affordable housing, an aging jail, and the recovery-oriented system of care breaking ground this summer.

Event Recap

The June 23 luncheon at the Abernethy Center was the final installment of Business in the County, a series of question-and-answer events for the business community to engage with the Board of County Commissioners about the county’s new strategic goals, laid out in the Performance Clackamas strategic plan. This session covered the Safe, Secure and Livable Communities and Healthy People priorities: affordable housing, the county jail, and the recovery oriented system of care. Chair Craig Roberts and Commissioners Diana Helm, Paul Savas, Martha Schrader, and Ben West each gave brief opening remarks, then spent the hour answering audience questions submitted on cards.

The program opened with a video from the county’s Business Spotlight series featuring Sauter Timber, a mass timber fabricator rooted in German timber joinery that chose Estacada for its West Coast operation, citing fast permitting and support from the county’s Enterprise Zone program. The company runs specialized Hundegger CNC machinery, the first of its kind in the United States, in a 40,000 square foot cross-laminated timber building it plans to more than double.

Clackamas County sponsored the event, and Dan Fowler, owner of the Abernethy Center, was recognized along with his staff. Elected officials in attendance included County Clerk Catherine McMullen, County Treasurer Brian Nava, Oregon City Commissioner Mike Mitchell, Chris Hawes of Clackamas Fire District, and councilors from Gladstone and Happy Valley, plus 17 members of county staff.

Key Takeaways

• Clackamas County beat its affordable housing targets by more than 50 percent. Against a Metro housing bond goal of 812 units, the county is on track for 1,254, and its next strategic goal calls for 900 additional affordable units by 2030 with an emphasis on seniors and underserved areas. Crews just broke ground at Clackamas Heights in Oregon City, replacing 100 units with 200.
• The county’s homeless services numbers are strong. Since Supportive Housing Services funding began in 2021, 2,870 people have been housed and 3,335 evictions prevented, with $73.5 million invested last fiscal year and a 95 percent retention rate in permanent supportive housing. The commissioners contrasted that record with the vacancy problems making headlines in Portland.
• The recovery campus breaks ground July 29. Fully funded for its first two phases with a $44 million investment, the campus will add 76 beds plus outpatient services, could serve about 1,000 people a year, and anchors a continuum that already includes the Lake Road Health Center, the Stabilization Center, Clackamas Village, and the Caring Place.
• The jail question is coming. The county’s linear-design jail, which Roberts said dates to about the 1950s, forces roughly 2,300 releases a year for lack of space. After voters rejected the public safety levy, the board has not decided whether to return to the ballot, but without some option, about 110 more beds will close.
• Commissioners want their results visible. Several called for elevating internal performance measures into a public dashboard, and the county is reinstituting its Managing for Results program tying outcomes to budgets.
• A funding cliff looms. The Metro housing bond and Supportive Housing Services dollars that powered the county’s progress are not guaranteed to continue, and commissioners repeatedly pointed to the state for help, especially on mental health capacity.

The Panel

Chair Craig Roberts served as Clackamas County Sheriff before his election to lead the board. Paul Savas brings 15 years on the commission, much of it focused on housing and transportation. Martha Schrader, a longtime commissioner and former state senator, has led much of the county’s housing and homeless services work. Ben West, a nurse and former Wilsonville city councilor, is the architect of the county’s recovery-oriented system of care resolution. Diana Helm, appointed to the board a year ago, carries the recovery campus and housing portfolios and presented at OCBA’s April housing forum.

Opening Remarks

Nine Decades of Housing, 900 More Units by 2030

Commissioner Savas opened with history: the Housing Authority of Clackamas County dates to 1938, the oldest in Oregon, and its first projects, Clackamas Heights in Oregon City and Hillside Park in Milwaukie, housed defense workers during the war effort. Nearly nine decades later, the county just broke ground at Clackamas Heights again, replacing 100 aging units with 200 in an amenity-rich design he called unlike anything he has seen. The 2018 Metro Affordable Housing Bond set unit goals for each county and gave the county resources it had never had, and Clackamas will exceed its 812-unit goal by more than 50 percent, on track for 1,254 bond-funded units. He ran through five years of completed projects, from Rosewood Station, Tukwila Springs in Gladstone, and Fuller Road Station and Good Shepherd Village in Happy Valley to Las Flores in Oregon City, Bear Creek Apartments in Molalla, Mercy Greenbrae in Lake Oswego, and Vuela in Wilsonville.

$73.5 Million in Homeless Services, and the Numbers Behind It

Commissioner Schrader credited the county’s success with Supportive Housing Services dollars to discipline and existing infrastructure: she and Savas gauged revenue carefully before scaling up, and the state’s oldest housing authority gave the county a running start. Since SHS began in 2021, 2,870 people have been housed through permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing, and 3,335 evictions have been prevented, stopping homelessness before it starts. In fiscal year 2024-25 the county invested $73.5 million, including $34.6 million in permanent supportive housing that placed 363 people with a 95 percent retention rate. Another 1,829 people received regional long-term rent assistance, 230 shelter beds served 1,426 people, 420 people were rapidly rehoused, and outreach workers connected with 1,155 people on the streets. Wraparound services, she stressed, are what make the housing stick, particularly when addiction or other barriers stand between a person and stability, and she called Clackamas one of the most successful counties in the region at meeting the need.

Building a Recovery-Oriented System of Care

Commissioner West traced the county’s Healthy People priority to a single goal: completing and operating the Clackamas County Recovery Campus by 2027. Months after joining the board in April 2023, he put forward a resolution committing the county to a recovery-oriented system of care, a coordinated, patient-centered network built on the conviction that treatment should be available, housing is part of care, and sobriety should be a stated goal. The county convened a recovery summit with national experts, then built real assets: the new and expanded Lake Road Health Center in Milwaukie for outpatient mental health and substance use treatment, the Clackamas County Stabilization Center for mental health crises, the Clackamas Village transitional community modeled on the county’s Veterans Village, support for the Caring Place hub in Oregon City, and the recovery campus itself, now fully funded for phases one and two with a $44 million investment. Nothing like it, he said, exists in the region.

The Recovery Campus Breaks Ground July 29

Commissioner Helm laid out why the campus matters. More than 65,000 people ages 12 and up in Clackamas County have a substance use disorder. Illicit drug-induced fatalities rose from 43 in 2018 to 122 in 2024, and the county logged 969 overdose-related emergency department and urgent care visits in 2025. The campus co-locates clinical and housing services, offering withdrawal management, stabilization, mental health treatment, treatment beds, medication-assisted treatment, and life skills, with peers in recovery guiding each person and no artificial 30-day timelines. Its 76 beds and outpatient services could serve about 1,000 people annually, with completion targeted for the end of next year. Groundbreaking is set for July 29.

The Case for a New Jail

Chair Roberts spoke about the jail. The facility’s outdated linear design, he explained, is the corrections equivalent of a hallway-era hospital, staff-intensive and inefficient, down to meal trays that came off World War II battleships. He called adequate jail health care a moral obligation, noting people can die during detox and that the jail has become the county’s de facto mental health crisis facility. His measure of a jail system is forced releases, and Clackamas County currently logs 2,300 a year. With voters rejecting the public safety levy, a decision he attributed to genuinely tapped-out taxpayers, the board has not decided whether to try again, but without another option, roughly 110 more beds will close. He credited the county’s whole system, from courthouse to treatment, for making Clackamas the safest county in the tri-county area.

Questions from the Floor

Q: What are the current services for post-jail residents, and what would you like to see added? Is there a transition program for people leaving the jail to connect them to services, ideally starting before they leave?

Roberts pointed to the transition center directly across the street from the jail, created by Jana Morrison, formerly of the Sheriff’s Office. “Many people start their GED program at the jail. The jail gives out more GEDs than the college does.” From there, people can move into the CSAP drug and alcohol program, which he described as “18 months long and had an 80 percent success rate.” On timing: “The best time to talk to them is when they’re sober, and that is when you have the best chance of maybe changing their trajectory.” Schrader added that the county’s workforce partnership runs an expungement program that helps people with records get employed. Asked what he would add, Roberts named more treatment beds and better services for the mentally ill, and stressed coordination with nonprofits like the Father’s Heart: “Any entity alone can’t deal with this issue.”

Q: Recently it came to light that Portland has high vacancy rates and long waits for their affordable housing. How does Clackamas County compare? Can Clackamas County lead a regional conversation with Multnomah and Washington counties to collaborate and share best practices?

West, who serves as the board’s liaison to the regional oversight committee for Supportive Housing Services, said up to 1,600 units have gone unfilled in the Portland area. “No, we don’t have that same problem in Clackamas County that you’re seeing in the other parts of the region.” He described active regional conversations about accountability, shared data systems, and the regional investment fund that pools SHS dollars, which he defined for the room: “That is a high income earner tax and also a business tax that goes to fund a lot of the homeless services that you’ve seen delivered.”

Q: Of the affordable housing units built over the last 15 years, how many are fully accessible for residents with disabilities, not just elevators and curb cutouts, but accessible kitchens and bathrooms? Is there interest in increasing accessibility so everyone can call Clackamas County home?

Helm said each county facility includes ADA set-asides and that most of the units at Hillside are accessible, deferring specifics to housing staff. “The amount of people that need affordable housing right now is crisis level,” she said, identifying seniors as the group most at risk: “They can’t afford to live in their homes anymore,” and even those who can cover a mortgage find “their cupboards are bare.” Her assessment of the county’s projects: “The facilities are beautiful. We just don’t have enough of them.”

Q (moderator follow-up): Has the county considered freezing seniors’ property taxes and letting the amount accrue against the equity in their homes?

Helm confirmed the board has discussed it.

“I know the state of Maine instituted a freeze on property taxes for people 65 and older. It did not have a negative effect on their revenue. It did not have a negative effect on their economy.”

Savas disclosed a new development: “Just a couple hours ago when we were in session, I asked our staff to prepare a work session on the tax deferral system that Oregon has.” He noted the state-approved deferral program already exists and that “it might be better than freezing the taxes if they can defer them.”

Q: These goals are presented each year. What metrics are evaluated? Is there long-range planning? How often are these reviewed?

“This is a sore spot with me,” Savas said. Departments maintain internal performance indicators, but they are not consistently in front of the board when funding decisions get made: “We might want to put more money in a program that’s working and put less money in a program that may not be working very well.” Schrader said key performance measures are a fundamental piece of the strategic plan and voiced support for a public dashboard. Roberts recalled the county’s investment in the Managing for Results program: “The county spent about a million dollars on it, probably twice that in staff time and resources,” and “it ties your performance measures to your budget.” The county administrator is reinstituting it across departments.

Q: What will the recovery campus really achieve in the eyes of the board? Will it make an overall difference to the community considering how big the need actually is?

West reframed the measure of success: “It needs to make the difference in the community that people can feel it and be part of it in a tangible way.” He pointed to the county’s partnership model, in which Happy Valley passed its own recovery resolution and the county funded city-level recovery ideas through a grant program. Schrader supplied the model’s origin: “This model was based on Haven for Hope in San Antonio, Texas,” a co-located services campus she and West visited through the National Association of Counties. Roberts added the cost argument: “The way the system works now is crazy expensive,” with police, fire, and emergency rooms absorbing the same frequent faces, and said area hospital executives are eager for anything that frees emergency capacity.”

Q: To help stop a revolving door, when will the county focus on mental health and stable housing? Recovery becomes a barrier when someone just has mental health issues. And if you aren’t on Medicaid and not wealthy, what are they supposed to do? Too poor, but not rich enough to pay for it.

West contrasted the county’s approach with the housing-first model the federal government adopted in 2013: “Under that model, you could provide somebody an apartment, but you couldn’t require services.” Permanent supportive housing still matters, he said, but “it’s more like housing fourth and fifth as you deal with all these other issues down the line.” On coverage, he said the campus will serve people with private insurance as well as Medicaid, while acknowledging the gap in between: “There is kind of a middle gap there that is really suffering.” Savas widened the frame: “Oregon ranks at the bottom in the nation on mental health treatment investment, hospital beds, you name it,” and said populations needing lifelong intensive care are not addressed by anything discussed that day. From the Veterans Village he drew two lessons: “Not all people want help,” and the trust-based model works because “if people want the help, they can come in. If they want to leave, they can leave.”

Q: Where would the new proposed jail be built? And where is the closest homeless pod village to Oregon City going to be built? What does it take to move into one, and what does it take to qualify to move out of one?

Roberts cited a past siting study, creek constraints near the existing jail, and the cost of transporting inmates: “My goal would be get it as close as possible to the new courthouse.” On the second part, West answered: “I don’t think I would support a pod type village in or around Oregon City,” adding that no such village exists there and that Clackamas Village and the Veterans Village are not that model. Helm clarified the facilities that do exist: “The Caring Place is not pods.” She walked through the continuum, the Stabilization Center in Milwaukie for 24/7 crisis care with temporary housing on site, the Caring Place bringing nonprofits, health care, and workforce help together, and the recovery campus for long-term treatment. From her jail tour: “78 percent of the people in that jail are not there for the first time,” with fentanyl-related cognitive damage pushing the county toward difficult conversations, including civil commitment. “We’re not here to put them in cages, but we’re here to give them the help and resources they need.”

Closing Reflections

Each commissioner got one minute. Savas worried openly about the funding cliff when bond and SHS dollars run out and thanked the partners in the room. Schrader described the county’s formula as public, private, and nonprofit sectors working in tandem, a prosperity initiative in national terms. West, reflecting on his nights as a nurse caring for patients in drug-induced psychosis, called the recovery work a passion project and, noting he will soon “sail off into something different,” asked the community to protect the county’s practical, bipartisan approach. Helm thanked the board for a get-it-done culture with hawks watching taxpayer dollars. Roberts closed on economic development as the core driver, regional cooperation with Portland’s new leadership, and a personal appeal: Oregon’s suicide rate is far too high, and one person asking a struggling friend the direct, uncomfortable question, then connecting them to the 988 crisis line, can save a life.

What’s Next

Former Governor Kate Brown, president of the Willamette Falls Trust, will share plans for a public overlook of the falls on the West Linn side, joined by West Linn Council President Mary Baumgartner and City Manager John Williams on the city’s riverfront redevelopment plan. The forum is expected in late July at the Abernethy Center, and the August forum will feature the Caring Place.