Moving beyond addiction: Clatsop County’s deflection program shows some success
The story was originally published in Oregon Capital Chronicle with support from our 2024 National Fellowship.
Clatsop County’s new deflection program reaches residents in coastal communities like Astoria to help them exit drug addiction and enter recovery.
(Photo by Ben Botkin/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
In Clatsop County, seagulls squawk and swoop through the sky as visitors and residents stroll along windswept beaches of the Pacific Ocean. Towering pine trees and craggy peaks dot the landscape.
The county’s population hubs — Astoria to the north and Seaside further south — are tourist destinations, especially in summer. But the county is also home to a deep-seated homeless problem, with one of the highest per capita rates of homeless people in the state.
Drugs have long been a problem in the county, affecting many people. They include fishermen and timber industry workers who might take painkillers for an injury and get addicted, eventually seeking out illicit drugs. Before fentanyl, methamphetamines dominated and were often used by some in the fishing industry to stay awake while working long shifts on boats.
Then fentanyl arrived. The county’s hospitals saw 132 visits to emergency rooms for drug overdoses in 2023, up from 98 in 2019, state data shows.
Fifteen people died of drug overdoses in the county in 2023, nearly twice that of five years ago, and two-thirds were opioid-related overdoses. There was also a spike in opioid overdoses statewide, with 280 in 2019 soaring to 1,300 in 2023.
To tackle its drug problem, Clatsop County has embarked on an experiment stemming from House Bill 4002 passed last year. Lawmakers gave counties the option — and funding — to develop voluntary deflection programs that steer willing drug users into treatment and other services and away from jail. The law gives each county the flexibility to set up their programs and requirements.
Seattle has a similar system and now Oregon is trying it after recriminalizing low-level possession last year in a new attempt to tackle the drug epidemic.
In Clatsop County, one of 28 counties with a deflection program, the program lasts three months and includes group therapy sessions and modest incentives to attend.
Small cash deposits from the county kept Maksym Derevianko motivated. The 45-year-old Astoria resident is among the first people to successfully complete Clatsop County’s program.
He said the money, though not a large amount, had symbolic significance.
“It shows you that they really want you to be better, to live a better life,” he said.
He became addicted after a work accident two years ago. While on a crabbing boat, he slipped and fell and broke his leg. He needed five surgeries and suffered tremendous pain. As he recovered, methamphetamines helped him function, he said.
It shows you that they really want you to be better, to live a better life.
Maksym Derevianko, deflection program participant
But in late September, he was arrested after crashing his car, and an officer found a meth pipe in his pocket. As a result, he was facing a misdemeanor drug charge — or deflection.
He chose to enter the deflection program run by Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare, the county’s community mental health provider.
Rick Martinez, program manager for the recovery services team at Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare, said the provider used to deal with a lot of people, like Derevianko, addicted to meth but almost overnight, fentanyl use exploded.
“We started seeing numbers that were clearly just fentanyl, and we started hearing about people using five pills, 10 pills and then it quickly was 50 pills a day,” Martinez said.
Martinez said the shifting nature of the drug market forces outreach workers to be on the lookout for changes. Fentanyl pills, for some, are no longer potent enough to satisfy their cravings, and they rely upon fentanyl powder instead.
“I know it sounds almost crazy in a way, but when someone overdoses from a substance, folks will rush to where they got it, because they know that that’s stronger,” Martinez said. “When they hear someone overdosing on some supply, they want that supply.”
Rick Martinez, program manager for the recovery services team at Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare, talks about the county’s new deflection program. Clatsop County is one of 28 counties in Oregon that started deflection programs to motivate people in drug addiction to enter recovery services.
(Photo by Ben Botkin/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
‘Smile on his face’
Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare hired a peer outreach worker who has struggled with addiction and is now in recovery to take calls from law enforcement in potential deflection cases. Other staffers also in recovery go out on calls with rotating shifts, making someone available from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week.
If the police call, reporting a person found with drugs, and an outreach worker is available, they go to the person right away — at a store parking lot, on the side of a road or elsewhere — and meet them before police depart to get them entered into the deflection program. Participants enter the programs voluntarily, and if they graduate, they get their records erased.
If the outreach worker is out on another call or the location is too far away, police cite the person and they have 72 hours to enter the deflection program on their own.
During that period, outreach workers also try to contact them and encourage them to get an assessment and start the program.
Martinez said the county’s first deflection case was a man in Warrenton when police were cleaning up a homeless camp. Faced with the choice of entering deflection or receiving a misdemeanor drug possession charge in court with the possibility of probation or jail, he opted for the former.
The man had just finished probation and wanted to stay out of the court system, Martinez said.
Another early hook that helped that client: a free cell phone when he entered the program, a tool that has helped the provider stay in touch with him.
“The counselor saw him out in the parking lot listening to music on his phone, a smile on his face,” Martinez said.
A city-designated site for homeless camping in Seaside on Oct. 8, 2024. Clatsop County started a deflection program to help people in addiction enter recovery services.
(Photo by Ben Botkin/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Clatsop County officials say the modest incentives they give, like a cell phone or $50 when they start the program, help motivate participants to stay in the program and sign up for group sessions.
After they get assessed and receive a treatment plan, they get another $25. From there, they get $10 a week for each group therapy session they attend. The sessions give the people a place to share their stories and talk about their challenges and steps toward recovery. And they can include education in life skills like financial management.
The money is loaded onto a cash app that makes cell phones ding with a notification when the funding is loaded. The aim is to replace the pleasure they receive from drugs.
“The reward needs to be equal to or greater than the effects they’re getting from the substance,” Martinez said. “It’s all about hitting the pleasure part of the brain. We send the money. It gives them a notification on the phone that dings.”
Program officials also hold raffles for practical items like toothbrushes or socks and they try to fulfill other needs, like getting people started on medication.
Christina Schulz, deflection program coordinator for the Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office, talks about the program in her office on Oct. 7, 2024.
(Photo by Ben Botkin/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
The cases are tracked by Christina Schulz, deflection program coordinator at the Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office. Four people are in the program, and they are required to stay in it for 90 days. Two have successfully finished the program. If they do, they will no longer be charged with drug possession.
If they drop out, that information is forwarded to the police agency that wrote the citation and to the district attorney’s office for possible prosecution.
At this point, Clatsop County police are not making widespread arrests: just 17 people have been arrested since Sept. 1, when the law put the new misdemeanor penalty in place, state data shows. Some of those people are not eligible for deflection because they are facing other charges or have warrants for earlier cases.
For those who qualify, the tight deadline to get an assessment within 72 hours is intended to motivate a quick decision.
“We want to get them in while it’s still fresh in their mind that they want to do this,” Schulz said. “They want to get clean.”
Years of anguish
Not everyone is likely to opt for deflection.
Michael, 45, who asked that his last name not be used because he is trying to rebuild his life, is trying to recover from a fentanyl addiction. Michael lives in a city-designated camp for the houseless in Seaside near a recycling center.
Michael said he was hurt in Tillamook County during a logging accident in 2010. His addiction started with oxycodone, which a doctor prescribed for work-related injuries.
A discarded drug needle litters a gravel lot in a Seaside park on Oct. 8, 2024.
(Photo by Ben Botkin/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Court records back up other details of his account, like his 2014 misdemeanor conviction of delivery of a controlled substance after he gave an oxycodone pill he was prescribed to another person to take.
He later turned to fentanyl, which was easy to obtain on the streets.
He doubts the county’s deflection program would help him, even if that were an option.
But others, like Derevianko, the Astoria crabber, remain hopeful for a new chapter in their lives. He was depressed after his accident and fighting pain. The car crash and his arrest was enough to make him realize he needed help.
And he wanted to recover and return to work.
He said the peer workers who related to his struggles and the group therapy have helped him recover. He trusted the peer workers. They showed him that a future without meth was possible.
For Oregonians who struggle with drugs, Derevianko said participating in group therapy can remind them they are not alone in their challenges. For those who consider entering the program, he recommends they approach the situation with openness.
“Don’t be angry,” he said. “Just relax and go with it. Everybody there is just regular people like you.”
Brandy Cook, 43, who lives in a Seaside homeless camp in Clatsop County, on Oct. 8, 2024. Cook, who avoids drugs herself, said the county’s deflection program could give people the needed push to enter recovery.
(Photo by Ben Botkin/Oregon Capital Chronicle)