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In March, as Oregon lawmakers re-criminalized hard drugs, they included $12 million in grants to county officials for programs diverting fentanyl offenders from jail to treatment. They had one example in mind: Marion County’s Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, or LEAD.
LEAD, which began in Seattle, now operates in over 20 states. Marion County has run its version since 2018. Now thanks to the new state funds, eight other counties plan to start their own LEAD programs.
But not the state’s largest county—and it’s not for lack of trying.
Multnomah County officials have attempted twice in recent years to spin up LEAD programs. The first, in partnership with the Portland Police Bureau, sputtered out. The second, in Gresham, never got off the ground.
The premise of LEAD is simple: Instead of drug offenders being taken to jail, they’re offered a case manager and ultimately treatment. Research has shown the model saves money by reducing the number of felony charges and the associated costs of prosecuting them.
But Multnomah County doesn’t have a LEAD program and doesn’t plan to use its $2 million state grant to make one, citing “staffing challenges” at PPB and a lack of a steady funding stream in Gresham.
“Law enforcement partners have been clear with us that they are committed to working on deflection programming and services, but they are not interested in pursuing the original LEAD model,” says county spokesperson Ryan Yambra.
Portland’s bike cops downtown have been working with a local nonprofit on piloting a street-level outreach program for fentanyl users since last year, so it’s not clear why PPB wasn’t interested in renewing LEAD. A spokesperson couldn’t immediately offer an explanation.
Portland isn’t the only city having trouble getting cops to buy into the program. Researchers found that “challenges in securing and maintaining police officer buy-in” led to the ending of San Francisco’s program in 2020.
“They didn’t adequately engage law enforcement and get their support,” says Jesse Rawlins, who worked as a project manager for Seattle’s successful program and now works in housing policy in Portland. He stresses the importance of having an independent project manager to keep everyone on the same page. “It’s a paradigm shift,” he says.
Here’s a timeline of the county’s previous efforts.
FEB. 27, 2017: County officials announce a one-year pilot of a LEAD program and a payment of $800,000 to Central City Concern to run it. “That means better lives for those touched by our criminal justice system and a better return of taxpayer dollars,” said Deborah Kafoury, county chair at the time. It would serve up to 500 people per year, KGW reports.
DECEMBER 2020: Two years in, barely 200 people have entered the program, according to evaluators. Still, the program “reduces jail bookings and the length of time spent in jail,” they find.
JULY 1, 2021: The county ends the program amid a decline in arrests following the decriminalization of drugs and “staffing changes among law enforcement partners, including the disbanding of PPB’s Central Street Crimes Unit,” says a county spokesman. It’s replaced by a new program inside the county’s health department offering social services to the BIPOC homeless population.
JUNE 8, 2023: County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal gets $200,000 set aside in the county budget to launch a LEAD pilot. PPB isn’t interested, so the county turns to Gresham.
NOV. 1, 2023: Jayapal steps down to run for Congress. Her successor, Jesse Beason, says his office is continuing to work with the City of Gresham and its police department to build out the program.
JANUARY 2024: The Gresham Police Department tells the county it’s backing out, citing pending budget cuts.
MAY 2, 2024: County commissioners vote to redirect the $200,000 to address a related problem. Fentanyl has seeped from the city’s streets and into its jails, where inmates are dying from overdoses. The county is hiring a consultant to help “de-silo” its health department and sheriff’s department in an effort to stop further deaths.
The idea came from Abbey Stamp, head of the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council, the office that originally created the LEAD program back in 2017. “Good facilitation, which is what this project funds, makes smart people work better together,” she says.