Update: Find the latest on Columbia River Mental Health Services financial situation here.
Financial woes forced Columbia River Mental Health Services to suddenly suspend operations Monday. The move leaves thousands of people who rely on the Vancouver-based nonprofit for counseling and psychiatric treatment in the lurch.
The agency, Southwest Washington’s oldest behavioral health provider, serves 5,000 people each year, according to its website.
The services halted include adult, children and family mental health counseling, and psychiatric mental health medication management, according to an email Chief Medical Officer Kevin Fischer sent Monday to the agency’s partners.
“To put the matter simply, Clark County’s hospitals, ER’s, crisis beds, primary care offices and facilities that offer withdrawal management (detox) are at very high, imminent risk of being overwhelmed with individuals withdrawing from their medications — with impacts beginning now and potentially accelerating later this week,” Fischer said in the email.
Columbia River Mental Health Services has four locations, including its main offices at 6926 N.E. Fourth Plain Blvd., and its NorthStar Clinic at 7105 N.E. 40th St. NorthStar offers methadone and other medications to manage opioid withdrawal.
Fischer’s email said Columbia River Mental Health Services board planned to meet at 4 p.m. Monday “to review updated financial data and determine the operational viability of our NorthStar opioid treatment program.”
“Abrupt closure of the NorthStar opioid treatment program this week is a very real possibility and I have a public health obligation to share the information now,” Fischer said in the email.
The state Employment Securities Department issued a notice Monday that Columbia River Mental Health Services began rolling furloughs Nov. 4, affecting 112 workers.
Fischer’s email also said employees would be furloughed.
“The cause of this circumstance is an evolving shortfall of monthly cash flow against clinic expenses, coupled to inability to access equity in the organization’s real estate holdings in the timeline necessary to meet current obligations,” Fischer said.
Uncertain future
Troy Stevens received a brief and vague voicemail from Columbia River Mental Health Services on Friday telling him to report to NorthStar on Monday. A line of about 100 people wrapped around the building Monday morning.
Stevens has been in recovery for about two decades and uses methadone to stay stable.
NorthStar opened in August 2023. It serves about 850 people with opioid-use disorder, 800 of whom are on methadone and cannot access their medication anywhere but a federally licensed opioid treatment program.
“It’s frightening,” Stevens said. “I count on this stuff every day to get to work and go through my life. To not have it is a big deal.”
Others in line said they found out about the agency’s potential closure over the weekend or when they arrived Monday morning. NorthStar Clinic staff told a reporter and photographer from The Columbian to leave the premises and curtailed interviews with those affected by the closure.
“(Methadone) stops the seeking behavior. It helps you focus on your day-to-day tasks. That’s what it’s done for me,” said Butch Gramer, who has been using Columbia River Mental Health Services for about four years. “I’m nervous.”
Clark County’s only other methadone clinic is Comprehensive Treatment Center in the Salmon Creek area north of Vancouver. In his email, Fischer said the clinic is staffed and resourced to treat a clinic population roughly one-third the size of NorthStar’s patient population.
“Although a few dozen clients will be able to access services in Cowlitz County — that resource is also significantly smaller in scale and will be unable to meet the sudden need of Clark County’s most vulnerable,” Fischer said.
Columbia River Mental Health Services recently started a mobile clinic out of a recreational vehicle that will go to homeless camps in Clark County. The agency also recently signed a contract with the city to provide services at the city of Vancouver’s upcoming 150-bed homeless shelter.
Community partnerships
Clark County’s Department of Community Services, which offers housing, mental health and behavioral health support programs to the community, has three contracts with Columbia River Mental Health Services.
One contract allocates $819,523 to the nonprofit’s Mobile Intensive Behavioral Health Housing Team, which has been effective since January 2023 and will continue until Dec. 31, Clark County Community Housing and Development Manager Michael Torres said.
Another contract for $84,000 — effective from January through December 2026 — provides funding for office space at the Clark County Youth House.
The third contract for $89,000 was awarded in 2019 to reconstruct Elahan Place, which the nonprofit uses to provide private alcohol and drug rehabilitation. That contract will be effective until June 30.
Torres said if Columbia River Mental Health Services were to shut down permanently, the county would immediately terminate its contracts with the nonprofit.
Ruby Lewis, founder of Vancouver nonprofit Please Don’t Die Black Men, said the closure of Columbia River Mental Health Services would be a travesty, as thousands of individuals — many of them low-income and underserved — would not have access to critical services.
Lewis, whose organization serves Black and low-income youth, said she is extremely worried about the implications the closure would have on that population.
“We cannot ignore this,” Lewis said. “When an institution like CRMHS shuts down without transparency, contingency plans or communication — it’s not just a bureaucratic failure. It is a public health emergency.”
