PF&R community programs need 'guidance and leadership' according to new report

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- The Portland City Auditor's Office released a highly critical report of the Portland Fire Bureau's handling of popular community health programs on Wednesday.

Teams such as Portland Street Response and Community Health Assets and Treat (CHAT) are designed to meet the needs of the city's most vulnerable while freeing up emergency responders, but the report says the bureau failed to track how effective they were in reducing those calls.

The timing of this report is crucial, as it comes amid a major strain on the emergency response systems. While petitions and the community continue to argue for the expansion of these programs, their future hangs in the balance.

Despite leadership and full program shifts, KC Jones, the audit services director, says more could and should be done.

"The fire bureau could have done a better job of setting goals and targets for the divisions within the community health division to address the need for low-acuity response,” he said. "These are things that are outside the normal fire and rescue purview. So they're new, they're maybe pretty cutting edge, so they're going to take a lot more thought and intention."

The main takeaway of the new city audit report found that the fire bureau's "inconsistent commitment" to popular community health programs "magnified shortcomings and contributed to the programs' uncertain futures." The report also said PF&R needs "guidance and leadership to provide Portlanders with the services they need and reduce demands on firefighters."

"Portland Street Response and CHAT teams were still not operating 24/7, even though after our audit period ended, a hiring freeze ended and vocal members of the public expressed support for Portland Street Response. And even when the programs are operating, there may not be enough teams to meet the demand for their services," the audit says in part.

This report comes as Portland Fire & Rescue under city commissioner Rene Gonzalez's request is expected to launch a pilot of CHAT's overdose response team next week in an effort to shift some of the medical calls from firefighters.

'The lack of an adequate safety net for people experiencing mental illness or struggling with substance abuse placed extra pressure on our programs to expand, which was often done at a reckless and irresponsible pace due to external influences beyond the bureau's control. Itake it as a matter of personal pride that, with the support of Commissioner Gonzalez, one of my first actions as interim Division Chief of Community Health was to resist those external pressures to expand PS and to slow things down sufficiently to introduce plans for program stabilization and long-term success," Portland Fire Chief Sara Boone said. "Beyond this, I take strong exception to the report's assertion that a goal of Community Health is to reduce the workload of frontline crews."

As both the bureau and the report say, firefighters respond to more medical calls than fires, and those numbers are only increasing.

"Sending an entire fire truck is pretty resource intensive and maybe not what we need to do in every circumstance. So, when we're testing out new and different ways of doing it, making sure we're doing it intentionally so that we're kind of looking at that overall problem is what we're hoping for," Jones said.

The report also argues the future of Portland Street Response is less clear under Gonzalez's leadership. Despite backlash, Gonzalez confirmed with KOIN 6 last month his plans to shift the program's funding to the county.

Gonzalez sent a statement to KOIN 6 in response to the report.

"Thank you for the efforts of you and your team to critically evaluate the Community Health program in Portland Fire & Rescue. Community Health, its two programs of CHAT (Community Health Assess & Treat) and Portland Street Response, is at once newly emerging and yet critically important. At a time of perhaps unprecedented public health need due to the ravages of unmitigated substance use disorder coupled with decades of federal and state disinvestment in mental and behavioral health support programs, Community Health's mission and performance are essential to Portland's success.

"The specific programmatic opportunities for improvement your team identified reflect a desire on the part of previous elected leadership to expand Community Health as quickly as possible. While the urgency may be understandable, the need to ensure these programs are structurally sound, grounded in articulable, actionable goals, and financially cost-effective can no longer be ignored. As commissioner in charge of Portland Fire & Rescue, I am committed to these programs' long-term success and have full confidence in both bureau and program leadership to guide us there. Your audit serves as an important reminder that sometimes we need to 'slow down to speed up.' Thank you."