In 2019, Portland’s lone drop-off center for people experiencing severe intoxication from drugs or alcohol abruptly shuttered.

The closure left a massive gap in how Oregon’s largest city could respond to those in the throes of visible — and often dangerous — bouts of crisis, just as drug use and overdose deaths began to soar.

Dozens of local leaders began immediately working on a plan to replace Portland’s decades-old Sobering Station.

After four years, the effort largely collapsed this fall. The fate of a new — and desperately needed — sobering center in Portland remains uncertain, even as other communities throughout the state successfully create their own.

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