Multnomah County’s Behavioral Well being Resource Center in downtown Portland, which serves the city’s homeless population as a day center, abruptly shut down at the finish of final week.

It will stay closed till April 17, according to the county web site. An announcement on the web site cited “building improvements and employees coaching.” But the lengthy closure occurred with small advance notice on a Friday evening.

County spokeswoman Julie Sullivan-Springhetti says the center will “undergo developing improvements relating to safety and employees coaching,” and “there had been some programmatic and infrastructure requirements that required to be addressed, and this is the time to do it.”

The timing is peculiar, seeing as on Friday alone 11 people today overdosed downtown—all inside six blocks of the center. 3 died. A quantity of these overdoses occurred at or close to the block of abandoned industrial properties at Southwest 4th Avenue and Washington Street that is grow to be a fentanyl marketplace. (The properties are owned by LLCs controlled by the Menashes, a single of the city’s most prominent actual estate households.)

The sudden closure comes just a single week just after the county announced the second phase of the center: a behavioral wellness residential system that seeks to transition people today off the streets into permanent housing inside 30 days, and a 19-bed system on the fourth floor that seeks to spot people today in housing inside 90 days. The county mentioned the two applications would be up and operating this spring, but provided no precise date.

The day center, which initially opened in December, is run by the nonprofit Mental Well being &amp Addiction Association of Oregon.

The day center on the initially floor at present offers an indoor respite for homeless people today and aids connect them to solutions like addiction remedy and mental wellness providers. The center, according to the county, serves about 1,one hundred people today per week. They’re provided showers, laundry solutions and a secure spot to rest.

Staffers there have all seasoned either homelessness, addiction or mental wellness diagnoses prior to that peer assistance, specialists say, creates deeper connections amongst consumers and service providers.

Final month, WW reported on the issues of surrounding business enterprise owners about spill-more than effects from the BHRC. Enterprise owners cited improved vandalism, drug use and threats to physical security given that the center opened in December.