Health

Multnomah County Budget Proposal Would Mean Cuts To Oregon Youth Crisis Hotline

A recent study found that suicide rates, particularly among youth, were lower than expected as a result of the nationwide build-out of the 988 crisis hotline system.

By Andrew Schwartz

Weeks after a national study showed crisis hotlines reduced suicides in young people, a youth hotline could lose 8% of its funding if Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson’s proposed budget goes through.

The zeroing out of what had been a $245,000 county contribution to Lines for Life would partially affect the military helpline the nonprofit runs, but the larger impact would hit YouthLine, its teen-to-teen support service.

Lines for Life CEO Dwight Holton says the cuts would strain the nonprofit’s ability to do outreach and engagement in the county—efforts which he says “translate directly” into contacts to the service, lessons in schools, volunteer recruitment, and more.

As KOIN-TV reported earlier, members of the Portland-area congressional delegation wrote county commissioners late last month to oppose the cut. The county has been contributing to YouthLine for more than a decade, the lawmakers noted, calling it an “an exceptional return on investment for a service that reaches many of our young people and strengthens the county’s long-term behavioral health capacity.”

The lawmakers also noted a recent study finding d that suicide rates, particularly among youth, were lower than expected as a result of the nationwide build-out of the 988 crisis hotline system.

For his part, Matt McNally of the county chair’s office notes the hard decisions inherent to patching a major budget shortfall. He tells WW the county faces significant funding cuts of its own and must now work under a new framework from the state, which pushes state behavioral health funds toward particularly sick and complex populations (think people charged with crimes who are unfit to stand trial).

Amid these pressures, he says, the county continues to fund a variety of behavioral health crisis services. But he said a county health department review determined that call lines for veterans and youth were “very similar” to services already on offer from the county’s crisis line and Lines for Life’s statewide 988 program.

Holton, of Lines for Life, counters that these are terrific services, “but there is no substitute for a peer youth connection.”

Andrew Schwartz

Andrew Schwartz

Andrew Schwartz writes about health care. He's spent years reporting on political and spiritual movements, most recently covering religion and immigration for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, and before this as a freelancer covering labor and public policy for various magazines. He began his career at the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin.

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