Iron Tribe Network

When Iron Tribe Network’s clean and sober housing in Astoria opened in April, it filled up almost immediately. An allocation of a little over $1 million through Measure 110 — Oregon’s landmark drug decriminalization law — funded the opportunity for people to apply for housing through a Behavioral Health Resource Network.

“All the people that receive BHRN dollars in Clatsop County can refer their clients to this house,” said Meli Rose, the housing director for Iron Tribe Network. “There’s a decent waitlist because housing is the greatest need.”

The Astoria house is Iron Tribe Network’s 31st property across six counties. The properties range from a more independent self-pay model to program-specific housing funded by Oregon Department of Human Services and the drug law.

Rose said the self-pay model is a great form of transitional housing for people graduating from a Department of Human Services or Behavioral Health Resource Network program.

“It’s a good place to start,” she said. “There’s a lot of money for Housing First, but if you take someone straight from the streets and put them in a Housing First apartment without any treatment, they end up back on the streets. And then they end up in our housing, and they get some clean time, and then they do well in those apartments. So recovery housing is really part of the continuum of getting people out of homelessness.”

Housing First offers unconditional housing to homeless people and operates on the concept that the first and primary need is to obtain stable housing. A housing-readiness approach requires that an individual or household address other issues that may have led to homelessness prior to entering independent housing.

Rose said that the home in Astoria, which has five bedrooms, is a place where Iron Tribe Network can provide for residents’ basic needs as they work on their recovery and goals to return to self-sustainability. The residents also get assistance from partners in the area, like Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare, Clatsop Community Action and Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Centers.

“Sometimes people don’t even know what their goals are, they just don’t want to go back to prison, or they want their children back,” Rose said. “Our housing is different from other styles of clean, sober housing because we offer family housing. We’re about bringing the kiddos home.”

Since opening, Iron Tribe Network reports they have already had the success of one child being returned to a parent, in addition to other achievements, like people finding jobs and obtaining driver’s licenses.

The Behavioral Health Resource Network grant is part of the strategy to tackle homelessness and substance abuse in Clatsop County.

“We need more inpatient treatment, more recovery housing or transitional housing. And even after that, the issue we’re running into the most at the coast is that you just don’t have enough housing, period,” Rose said. “It’s a crisis down here. In my opinion, the perfect recipe for somebody is to do some inpatient time, get into an outpatient stay in a clean and sober housing environment and then move into their own place.”

Measure 110, approved by voters in 2020, decriminalized the possession of small amounts of drugs such as heroin and methamphetamine and directed money toward treatment. But few people who have received citations for possession under the law have followed up with drug treatment screening.

Funding and other resources from the measure have also been slow to reach some communities, leading to growing frustration about the law and calls for significant changes and even repeal.

“The whole country’s got their eyes on us, because we’re the first ones doing this,” Rose said. “And I know there’s been blowback, but if we can just all get on the same page of helping these people in a more trauma-informed way, in a more care-minded way, then we’re not clogging up the justice system with all these people in jail, and it leaves funds for other things.”

Rose said she is encouraged by statistics from the Oregon Health Authority that show growth in the percentages of people seeking services.

“I think once we start getting those stats back, people will start changing their minds about how they view these programs,” she said. “Oregon’s unique public health approach gives us a tool that no other state in the country has: getting to the root cause of addiction and ending the revolving jail door that keeps people trapped in addiction and despair.”