CAHOOTS effectively ends service in Eugene

CAHOOTS services in Eugene will operate only six hours every week as the White Bird Board of Directors lay off over 20 crisis response workers this Monday, April 7. In a little under one year since CAHOOTS workers secured their first union contract, employees were notified on March 7 about the layoffs in their first ever effects bargaining session. The layoffs represent the end of over 30 years of the groundbreaking community response program in Eugene and will have the concrete effect of destroying the new union. With the loss of Eugene City funding, only Springfield will maintain its contract for services.

“I’ve worked for CAHOOTS for 11 years and I was planning on going on maternity leave in two months,” says an employee who will be laid off Monday.

In February, CAHOOTS workers were informed that their contract with the city of Eugene may not be renewed. In addition, Lane County made the decision to create its own scaled back crisis response service that attempts to ape the CAHOOTS model but fails to align with its nationally lauded community mission. Workers say the central mission of the organization is to provide a low barrier, no cost crisis intervention is at stake. Real concerns center around the new Lane County services being able to put “psychiatric holds” on patients in the field and administer treatment without voluntary consent. Such “psychiatric holds,” also known as peace officer holds (POH), would involve Lane County Behavioral Health and could significantly erode community trust in crisis response services. Workers have also pointed out that the Lane County service has very limited hours and no medic on the response team.

Some of the difficulty CAHOOTS is facing stems from the federal legislation sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden known as the CAHOOTS act. Despite bearing the organization’s name, the mission for community response teams outlined in the federal legislation focuses on insurance mandated services and is part of a broader push to make CAHOOTS a billable service. Following federal guidelines, Lane County chose to build its own crisis response following insurance guidelines around legal liability and law enforcement policies. Having seen the mission of their organization bait and switched, CAHOOTS also lost a significant local funding opportunity which their namesake should have assured.

During the 2020 George Floyde protests, CAHOOTS gained national recognition as a community-based crisis response alternative to law enforcement. As the Black Lives Matter protests unfolded tensions in CAHOOTS’ parent organization, White Bird Clinic, saw the dismissal of employees openly supporting the protests. Others met resistance for attempting to advocate for the community-based crisis intervention model nationally. This tension with the White Bird board of directors eventually saw the board take the dramatic step of undergoing a lengthy copyright process for the organization’s name and logo.

The community trust developed by CAHOOTS over decades has seen a dramatic demand for their services throughout Eugene. Facing low wages, long hours, and a lack of significant benefits, workers won their first contract in 2024. The unionization efforts at White Bird eventually culminated in three bargaining units, including White Bird’s Front Rooms services/ NEST case management, the crisis intervention hotline, and CAHOOTS itself.  In December 2024 White Bird’s Frontrooms Services employees were all laid off and its offices closed. Now with another bargaining unit completely on the chopping block, the employees and community members are desperate to understand the opaque finances occurring within the non-profit. With less than a week before services end, many CAHOOTS employees found that emergency responders, dispatchers, and a variety of community workers had no idea services would end April 7 in Eugene. 

No guarantees have been given that union employees will be rehired if funding issues are resolved and any part-time employees maintained by White Bird will not be eligible for union membership. Even facing the reality of budget shortfalls, it is difficult for employees and community members not to recognize naked union busting being the effect of funding cuts and actions taken by White Bird’s board.

For such nationally recognized models of crisis intervention to have completely capsized beggars belief. But as CAHOOTS undermined not only American law enforcement models of emergency response and non-profit control of community organizations by unionizing, CAHOOTS’ legacy itself may have become a target.  Workers are very worried about what shape the organization will take, as many of the employees who helped develop policy, procedure, and mission are laid off. Though the community has come to depend on the services it provides, the larger battle for community control of emergency response and crisis intervention may be at stake.

Many public services face budget shortfalls due in part to the turmoil of the Trump administration. Time will tell if CAHOOTS revives to the level of community service and worker control that Eugene demands. With a large part of its union employees effectively purged, only the community can hold White Bird accountable for union busting. For many the worst fear is that if funding levels are restored, CAHOOTS will have lost community trust and newly hired employees will effectively be scabs.