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At annual address, Marion County commissioners revisit wildfire recovery efforts, talk plans for behavioral health services

Livestream of the State of the County address on Wednesday (Facebook/Marion County)

Danielle Bethell remembers speaking about what she thought it would be like to be a county commissioner before she was elected in fall 2020.

“I thought maybe I had a clue. But I can tell you today I did not. There’s really no preparation for this job,” she said Wednesday during the annual State of the County address.

The commissioners looked back at the county’s wildfire recovery work in the Santiam Canyon, discussed plans to expand addiction and mental health services, and highlighted the need for more housing units in helping people transition out of homelessness.

Marion County is the only county in Oregon that’s had four presidential declarations of emergency issued in the past two years, Bethell told the crowd at the Salem Convention Center.

“That is ridiculous,” she said.

Since being elected, she said she’s been persistent in trying to get help from the state Housing and Community Services department for wildfire recovery in the Santiam Canyon.

Salem Reporter has reported that hundreds of people displaced by the Beachie Creek and Lionshead fires in September 2020 were still struggling to find permanent homes more than a year later.

“They have buckets and buckets of money from the feds and the state to deal with five counties that caught on fire, and I can tell you right now they haven’t even spent a third of it,” she said of the state housing agency. “We have over 300 Marion County citizens, households, navigating couches and homes and whatnot because their homes burned down … it’s not fair to them that this money is sitting in someone’s bank account, because they have to create a policy to be able to figure out how to get it in the community.”

Delia Hernández, spokeswoman for Oregon Housing and Community Services, said in an email that Bethell’s statement is “not accurate.” The agency, she said, provided $750,000 to help acquire the former Super 8 Motel on Hawthorne in Salem where displaced Santiam Canyon residents can access shelter, and over $3 million to the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency for “flexible resources to support the needs of wildfire survivors.” She said in an email that construction will also begin soon on state-funded permanent affordable housing developments, with 54 homes in Mill City and 72 in Stayton.

Commissioner Colm Willis highlighted efforts by the county to help rebuild critical infrastructure in the Santiam Canyon. “This past year has been a year of renewal and hope. The destruction that we endured in 2020 gave way to rebirth and 2021, and now we’re seeing our community blossom in the new year,” said Willis. “When you come to Marion County the warmth of people here is apparent, and in contrast with the stagnation that we see to the north of us, here in the heart of Oregon, we still work together. We collaborate and we innovate. That’s why our recovery from the 2020 wildfires has been so successful.”

Willis said the county secured $50 million from the state to build a sewer system in Mill City and Gates and to update septic systems in Detroit and Idanha. They hired temporary city managers who helped Detroit rebuild its destroyed water system and helped Gates “stave off bankruptcy,” he said.

The county also provided over $2.7 million in property tax relief to people who lost their homes to wildfire and waived building fees for families who were impacted. As a result, Willis said around half the homes that were destroyed now have building permits and “are either going up or have already been built,” he said. “Most of our citizens in the Santiam Canyon are on the road to recovery.”

Commissioner Kevin Cameron said the county refunded 10 of 12 months of property taxes for anyone impacted by the Santiam Canyon wildfires.

The county allocated $9 million in federal dollars to rebuild the county’s radio system that was “partially burned” in the fire, Willis said.

As Covid cases spiked last year, Cameron said Marion County gave out about $1.8 million in grants to community organizations to help get people in underserved communities vaccinated.

The county also gave out $2.1 million in grants to businesses that were forced to shut down in 2020 or 2021, he said.

Cameron during his speech thanked all health care professionals in the county. “I visited Salem Health a way back and I went to the intensive care unit and saw the nurses and the doctors and listened to him and saw the tears,” he said.

Over a six-month period in 2021, Bethell said Marion County’s behavioral health team provided more than 119,000 contacts to county residents for addiction treatment or mental health services.

“We’re going to get more money and we’re looking on ways to expand our programs and gain access, because Marion Square Park unfortunately is going to keep happening, until we get people in services,” Bethell said. City leaders forced dozens of people to leave the park on March 3, while acknowledging beforehand that there isn’t enough shelter space or available housing for those who would be displaced. Residents on March 1 estimated at least 75 people were living there.

Bethell said people need to engage services that are available to them. “You just have to show up at the door. It’s open,” she said.

Bethell said she is excited to look at expanding the Marion County Sheriff’s Office’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, which diverts people who commit low-level crimes away from the criminal justice system and into services.

“How do we take real life experiences and get people to success to return them back to the quality of life that they really, really want? It’s through lived experience,” she said. “We have mentorship programs all over this community. We invest in individuals so we can break the cycle, and we’re going to keep doing that.”

County officials are looking at buying a home in Woodburn for His Place, a new treatment based transitional housing program run by the county’s Health and Human Services department. Similar to Her Place in northeast Salem, the program will offer childcare and other services for fathers with substance use disorders to help them with long-term recovery, as well as regaining custody of or reuniting with their children.

Cameron said the county can’t help people get out of homelessness without building more affordable housing units. He said the county has to do everything it can to build more housing.

“I don’t care if they’re low-income, if they’re downtown, or if they’re apartments or whatever,” he said. “Build them, and then people will have a better market to get involved with, and then the services come along with them. But you can’t just have services without places that people could go.”

A recording of the State of the County address can be watched on Marion County’s Facebook page.

Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.

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