New Recovery Housing Facility Set to Open in Portland
Featured on Oregon Public Broadcasting on 09/09/24
4D Recovery facility will serve 40 people after they leave residential treatment centers.
In Northeast Portland, a new recovery housing facility will keep 40 people off the city’s streets and accountable to others as they journey away from drug addiction to sobriety.
4D Recovery, a nonprofit in Portland, is launching a housing facility that, in November, will start accepting people who are in treatment and need a support system to live on their own. The organization had a grand opening and tour of the three-story, 13,000-square-foot facility on Friday.
The plans come amid a shifting landscape as Oregon looks for ways to curb fatal fentanyl overdoses, which killed about 1,400 Oregonians in 2023. Twenty-eight Oregon counties, including Multnomah County, have launched or plan to start new deflection programs under House Bill 4002, which recriminalized low-level drug possession and allows counties to put deflection programs in place to divert people away from the court system and into programs that provide treatment and other recovery services.
4D Recovery’s new facility is a reminder that the new county program will not serve or reach everyone battling drug addiction. Some of the future residents may be in a deflection program after being arrested for drug possession and others will not. People can enter treatment and recovery before a police officer interacts with them, which is a necessary step for deflection.
The recovery house will offer a place for people to live for up to 12 months after they have been in a residential treatment facility, acting as a bridge to independent living. For some of the future residents, it will help them avoid homelessness or a prior living environment that pulled them into addiction.
“The journey of recovery takes time, so housing sites like this afford the opportunity for folks to take a step back and build that recovery,” said Monta Knudson, a consultant for 4D Recovery.
How it Works
Typically, residents will enter the recovery house with help from their residential treatment facility. Each one will have a single room with a bed, dresser and closet, with shared living spaces for preparing food and socializing.
The facility will be staffed with two 24-hour house managers and three peer mentors will be assigned to work with residents. Peer mentors have overcome a drug addiction and can relate to people who face similar struggles.
The housing will be free, but it will have requirements. Participants will need to have a treatment plan, join support group activities and have a plan for full independence.
But the goal is to do more than simply help people stay off drugs. A full recovery also means developing a “recovery identity” with new friends and a new social network to replace their past identity.
“We give them time to formulate their recovery identity while working with a mentor to take them and introduce them to different groups and different people,” said Cody Roberts, director of recovery services for 4D Recovery. “They’ll figure out who they are.”
As the year progresses, they will get help securing employment or pursuing education and moving into permanent housing.
4D Recovery is a nonprofit with more than 100 employees in the Portland area.
The organization runs recovery houses, recovery centers with social activities and plans to eventually launch clinics with treatment. The group’s outreach workers meet people on Portland streets, sometimes through the county’s deflection program and sometimes in other settings.
CareOregon Covers Costs
In early 2022, Ethos Development, a Portland developer, started to work on planning the new facility, which it owns.
4D Recovery leases the building from Ethos Development. Knudson, the consultant, said 4D Recovery has a five-year lease with an option to buy, which the nonprofit would like to do after raising the money.
CareOregon, an Oregon Medicaid insurer, agreed to step in with funding so 4D Recovery can lease the building and run its program. CareOregon will pay $3.5 million during the next four years to cover the lease and other program costs.
In an interview, Eric Hunter, president and CEO of CareOregon, said his organization focuses on helping communities accomplish new ideas rather than purchasing and owning buildings.
“We have the ability to help craft agendas and programs in partnership with people who can identify properties, who can say, ‘Hey, you know, we need to help getting started,’” Hunter said in an interview. “And that’s where we like to play in this type of thing. That’s network effort.”
