Ahead of the Springfield City Council’s annexation vote on November 2, Matt Sayre, executive director of Collaborative EDO, wrote a guest column for Lookout Eugene-Springfield on a side of the behavioral health campus that got less attention: its economic impact. The council has since approved the annexation unanimously.
The column draws on an analysis by Business Oregon’s economist of Lane County’s crisis stabilization center. At full staffing, the center is expected to employ 93 people and support about 280 jobs across the local economy, adding more than $49 million a year to Lane County’s economy. That analysis does not include PeaceHealth’s Timber Springs Behavioral Health Hospital, the larger of the two facilities planned for the site.
Matt also writes about workforce. Through the healthcare sector partnership CEDO convenes with Lane County hospitals and clinics, he hears the same thing again and again: there aren’t enough places to train. A campus built for crisis and inpatient psychiatric care would add clinical placements for nursing and behavioral health students.