Bridgeway ends plan for recovery home as local treatment providers brace for state funding cuts

This story was updated to include a response from the Oregon Health Authority.

Salem’s largest addiction treatment provider is scrapping plans to open a recovery center for men after the state shifted millions of dollars in treatment funding to Portland-area providers.

Bridgeway Community Health leaders learned this week they would receive $1.4 million per year from the Oregon Health Authority starting in July, an annual cut of $3 million. The funding drop led the nonprofit to cut a counseling program and freeze hiring for a program that connects people in recovery with social services.

Marion County Health and Human Services will also see a cut of $1 million per year.

The money comes from marijuana taxes and is required by the voter-approved Measure 110 law to fund addiction treatment.

Over the last three years, six Marion County treatment providers were allocated $29 million to provide recovery services. This year, a state council split Marion County’s money among 13 providers, including several based in Portland who operate telehealth and housing services.

Over $5 million is slated to go to those Portland-based organizations for services provided in Marion County, according to a funding breakdown from OHA.

The total money available for treatment in Marion County is also slightly less, $28 million, because Oregon is seeing declining marijuana tax revenue. That money will fund treatment through 2029.

Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell said OHA did not tell the county government the revenue decrease affected funding and was shocked at the large drop in initial awards.

She was also concerned that current providers with trusted, stable services, like Bridgeway and the county’s Health and Human Services Department, were not prioritized in award decisions.

“Even if it has to do with a decrease in allocation, the fact that they looked at … Marion County and Bridgeway, the two biggest consistent, stable providers and reduced our overhead by such a significant amount and then reallocated it to three organizations that aren’t currently here in my county today providing services, makes no sense,” Bethell said in an interview.

OHA spokesperson Kim Lippert did not explain why new providers based in Portland received millions to provide services in Marion County.

The state council in charge of funding decisions prioritized current providers, like Marion County and Bridgeway, and keeping service levels stable, Lippert said in an email.

Award amounts were “not made lightly,” she said, and the decrease in marijuana tax revenue and increase in applications guided funding decisions and changes.

The health authority initially awarded Bridgeway and Marion County even less money. Funding decisions announced in late February would have cut millions more dollars out of both providers’ budgets.

Clackamas and Washington counties also saw what they believed were unfair funding amounts and joined Bethell in testifying at the state legislature to push for changes in funding calculation and awards.

A recently introduced bill, sponsored by Sen. Wlnsvey Campos, would require OHA to reevaluate the funding formula to more heavily weigh county population. According to a submitted projection of the new formula, it would give Marion County providers almost $9 million more.

In submitted written testimony, Bethell supported the bill, citing the number of state-run institutions housing people in need of treatment services, including prisons and the Oregon State Hospital.

“These institutions create a higher-than-average need for addiction and mental health services in Marion County, yet the current funding formula does not account for this burden,” Bethell wrote.

Their push led the health authority’s council last week to recalculate grant amounts and restore some funding.

“Everyone across the state feels like they want the same outcomes, which is we want people who need treatment to be able to access it,” Marion County Health and Human Services Director Ryan Matthews said. “Luckily enough, people intervened, and were able to kind of change course-correct the direction that we were headed.”

Impacts

Bridgeway planned to open a men’s stabilization house early this year, according to Eli Kinsley, Bridgeway’s director of community services.

The house would have given six to eight men a safe, sober place to live and connect with resources for their substance use or mental health challenges, according to Kinsley.

When OHA’s council made funding cuts, the organization pulled the project.

Bridgeway will also end a program that provides counseling for family members of people with substance use and mental health challenges, Kinsley said. The program, called Moving Forward, started a couple of years ago using the state money.

The hiring for several jobs will also be frozen. Not hiring for open positions will affect Bridgeway Community Connect, a program that addresses education, employment and childcare needs, Kinsley said.

“It will really decrease the frequency of services,” Kinsley said.

The program is usually open seven days a week, but that may be reduced to five days due to funding changes, he said.

“These programs provide crucial support to individuals who often lack medical coverage and may not yet be ready for treatment services but still need help connecting to community resources,” Bridgeway CEO Carlos Texidor Maldonado said in an email.

None of Marion County’s direct treatment services will be affected by the funding loss, Matthews said, but the loss of $1 million per year will cut staff hours available to provide services like help finding jobs for those in treatment. It will also limit the county’s funding of local community grants.

Measure 110 funding supports screenings and assessments, counseling, peer support and employment resources provided by the county’s health department.

Between July 2022 and September 2024, the county used state funding to provide over 48,000 services to people in Marion County, according to Matthews.

In February, Marion County received an initial award of $850,000 annually, which would have been a $2.5 million cut per year.

“​​When they were reducing our funding to a small percentage, it’s like, wow, that’s a lot of services that we were doing in our community that people would no longer have access to,” Matthews said. “We were pretty nervous about what the ramifications could be for that.”

The decrease would have left the county unable to hire and fund three recovery positions, including a program coordinator, a treatment counselor and a recovery mentor, according to county officials.

Because the council partially restored money, the mentor and counselor roles will be hired for, but the coordinator position will still be frozen.

Matthews said the decision to restore two positions was made by weighing which jobs will have more of an impact on people in need of treatment services. The coordinator is an administrative position that tracks data and manages grants and contracts.

Contact reporter Madeleine Moore: [email protected].

A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE– If you found this story useful, consider subscribing to Salem Reporter if you don’t already. Work such as this, done by local professionals, depends on community support from subscribers. Please take a moment and sign up now – easy and secure: SUBSCRIBE.