PORTLAND, Ore.–The Portland Street Response team held their first town hall meeting. They describe what they see on the streets as they help people experiencing mental and behavioral health crises.
The team includes people with different specialties. “We’ve got April Roa with us, our program manager. Brett Zimmerman, our EMS specialist. Maria Nora, one of our supervisors for our mental health crisis responder. Stephanie Howard, our Director of Public Safety.”
“Walk into so many different homes and you are seeing a lot of the same problems. Folks living in pretty deep poverty, people living with maybe acute, maybe undiagnosed mental illness folks who are living with addiction, folks who are just very socially isolated.”…