The public policy word this summer is “leaning back”

deviation (noun):

to deviate (something) especially from a straight course or established direction. —Merriam Webster

tilt program:

a collaborative program between law enforcement and mental health providers that helps individuals with substance use disorders, other mental disorders, or co-occurring disorders create community-based pathways to treatment, recovery support services, housing, case management, or other services. —Oregon House of Representatives Bill 4002

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The word for summer in Multnomah County is “diversion.” The consistent direction county officials want to steer people away from is prison.

In the face of public outrage, the Oregon Legislature this year reversed part of Act 110 and re-criminalized hard drugs, with the condition that Oregon counties develop programs that reverse People who are caught using fentanyl and methamphetamine can be thrown out of jail.

But figuring out what variance means for Portland is harder than reaching for a dictionary or checking Oregon law. At a meeting in late May, Multnomah County commissioners spent most of a two-hour hearing trying to nail down a definition. It’s important they do it quickly. House Bill 4002, the bill that amended Measure 110, requires counties to be ready for a major variance by Sept. 1 because the bill’s authors don’t want to fill jails again.

“The more I hear about it, the more confused I am,” County Commissioner Sharon Meieran said at the meeting.

She’s not alone. Many Portlanders are also confused, especially those who live near the old Precision Images printing plant at the corner of Southeast Sandy Boulevard and 9th Avenue in the Buckman neighborhood, where the diversion will take place under a two-year lease. The “treatment readiness center” planned there would be “a diversion site while a larger continuum of care is built that will include sober living and other services,” the county said in a news release last week.

After the announcement, several WW Readers wrote in to ask what would happen to the people police brought to the new location. A May 23 email from Alicia Temple, an “HB 4002 advisor” to County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, provides some clues.

“A successful diversion to avoid arrest and further involvement in the criminal justice system is defined as an individual being connected to services,” Temple wrote. “Examples of what would constitute a successful diversion included an individual going to a drop-off center or meeting with a peer relations worker at the time of interaction with law enforcement.”

Temple wrote that “Successful diversion does not require evidence of an assessment or reporting of specific follow-up actions to the criminal justice system.”

Asked for details about the diversion, the county sent a 500-word email outlining what it knows so far. First, when people show up or are dropped off at a diversion center, they will be required to undergo screening and be directed to appropriate services, the county said.

This is different from what anonymous county officials said. The Oregonian last month: “People will not be required to undergo substance use screening or participate in treatment.”

What happened?

“That has changed,” county spokeswoman Julie Sullivan-Springhetti said in an email. “Our work is evolving, we have changed the way this system works and will continue to do so.”

Under the legislature’s recommendations, diversion is defined and implemented by a group made up of representatives from the county, the district attorney’s office and local behavioral health groups. It hasn’t been determined how many times a person can be divert, but they won’t have unlimited chances, the county says. Experts say people need multiple sobriety tests, so there will be more than one.

However, the county says the deviation is not that simple; it is more of a “complete rupture.”

“Before HB 4002, law enforcement had no way to stop anyone,” the county says. “All they could do was give the person a ticket and a piece of paper with a phone number on it. Now, law enforcement has the tools to act in the moment.”

The harder line suggests the deviation plan has evolved a lot since Alicia Temple wrote her email. State Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Southeast Portland) says he’s happy with the direction the deviation is headed. Nosse has a stake in it. He worked on HB 4002, and the new deviation median is in his district.

“Some of my constituents are a little grumpy about the temporary location in Southeast Portland,” Nosse says WW“I told them this isn’t a place to just show up. I think that’s a good thing. I feel like we’re on the right track.”