Mental illness

Escaped Oregon State Hospital patient Christopher Pray is back in police custody after a madcap 36 hours that began with stealing a van while in shackles and ended with firefighters tugging him out of a muddy pond with a rope.

A handcuffed and shackled Oregon State Hospital patient with pending felony charges stole a van and escaped from the state-run psychiatric hospital in Salem late Wednesday night, commandeering it southbound on Interstate 5.

Mental health care is severely lacking in Humboldt County, which has only one inpatient psychiatric hospital. The rural area has been impacted by compounding factors, like the opioid epidemic and COVID, and lacks funding for behavioral health treatment services.

The largest survey of homeless Californians in decades aims to dispel myths about what drives that state’s most pressing crisis. It found that addiction and mental health conditions rarely cause homelessness.

The rural Northern California community has its sights set on a new emergency mental health care facility to fill chronic gaps in resources.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing to shift more money to housing severely mentally ill homeless people. Some officials at mental health organizations fear that funding will come from cuts to other services they provide.

Democratic leaders in California and Oregon are becoming more open to using involuntary psychiatric commitment to combat homelessness, drug abuse and untreated mental illness.

Oregon's system for people with profound mental illness is broken. We examine two major problems and two promising strategies.

Klamath County’s behavioral health program is expanding with a grant from the Oregon Health Authority. The expansion will include a new 24/7 crisis care center.

Newly acquired state data shows that the Corrections Department transferred patients with serious mental illnesses an average of five times over a six-year period, underscoring a CalMatters’ investigation this year that revealed the practice and raised questions about the harm it could cause.

Oregon’s three largest health systems, multiple state court judges, and several counties all sought to convince Judge Michael Mosman to withdraw his order limiting stays at the state hospital. A written decision is pending, but Judge Mosman said "For now assume we are moving forward."

The Oregon State Hospital has been cited for three workplace safety violations by Oregon OSHA.