White Bird Turns Fifty & CAHOOTS is Thirty!
White Bird Clinic has been serving the community since 1969, and CAHOOTS began in July of 1989.
EUGENE, OREGON – A celebration for White Bird and CAHOOTS will take place at WildCraft Cider House at 232 Lincoln St. on Friday, 8/30. Music from The Dirty Dandelions, Muddy Souls, and Cedar Teeth will begin at 7pm. Minimum donation of $10 at the door.
In 1969, a small group of student activists and concerned practitioners founded White Bird Socio-Medical Aid Station to provide crisis services and free medical care to counter-culture youth in Eugene. Having grown continuously for fifty years, White Bird Clinic now has ten programs, 200 staff members, and more than 400 volunteers. In response to burgeoning community need, White Bird is expanding medical, dental, CAHOOTS, and crisis services.
The new crisis center will house the 24/7 crisis line phone service as well as walk-in services in a trauma-informed space intended to minimize environmental triggers that may be re-traumatizing.
White Bird opened a new crisis center adjacent to the Whiteaker neighborhood in late July. The center houses the 24/7 crisis line as well as walk in services in a trauma informed space. White Bird now offers the Whitaker and West Eugene neighborhoods an opportunity to reach out without having to travel across town. We’re also building a new dental clinic that will increase capacity by 50 patients a week and will allow us to serve more elderly patients, children, and families. White Bird Medical is reducing barriers to accessing care in multiple ways: the clinic is now open forty hours a week, and we’re launching White Bird Street Medicine to bring care to a diverse range of sites, reaching individuals who are transportation insecure. A walk-in primary care service will open later this fall in the Medical Clinic.
CAHOOTS is celebrating 30 years of providing mobile crisis intervention as an alternative to traditional public safety response. CAHOOTS has attracted notice from national news media as well as from communities across the country. The Wall Street Journal and the CBS Evening News have showcased CAHOOTS as an innovative model for reducing the risk of violent civilian/police encounters. Communities from California to New York have requested strategic guidance and training in order to implement CAHOOTS’ model of mobile crisis intervention. CAHOOTS operates 24/7 in Eugene and Springfield and handled over 17% of the total Eugene public safety calls last year.
In order to care for our most vulnerable community members, White Bird is taking a risk by expanding many different programs at once, and we’re turning to the community for support and partnership. Please call 541.342.8255 or click here to donate to the project of your choice.
