By Jordyn Brown, The Register-Guard, August 5, 2020
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden introduced a new national bill Wednesday that would emphasize a health care response, instead of law enforcement, to mental health and substance abuse calls.
The mental health care and public safety proposal the Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS) Act is being put forth by Wyden and Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. It’s modeled and named after Eugene’s decades-long program and would provide funding to other states and localities to create their own unarmed, crisis response teams from Medicaid funds.
CAHOOTS, a program through White Bird Clinic, has been around in the Eugene area for 30 years. It is designed to dispatch crisis response teams to mental health calls instead of police.
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