Petition initiated: September 3, 2026  |  Portland, Oregon

Save the Letty Owings Center: Mayor Wilson, Fund Recovery for Oregon Mothers and Their Children

Petition Target

Mayor Keith Wilson, City of Portland

— with a direct call to engage Oregon Governor Tina Kotek and the Oregon Health Authority

Imagine arriving at a door with nothing. No money. No plan. No one to call. Just the clothes on your back and the baby in your arms — a baby you desperately want to raise, but addiction has put everything at risk. Now imagine that door opens. That someone on the other side knows your name, knows your story, and tells you: you can do this, and we will help you. For 37 years, that door was the Letty Owings Center.

We are writing to tell you that door is closing — and we refuse to accept it.

In July 2026, the Letty Owings Center (LOC) paused new admissions. In September 2026, Central City Concern announced the center's closure. Along with it, Laura's Place — the transitional housing program that gave LOC graduates a bridge to independent life — is also shutting down. After nearly four decades of helping Oregon's most vulnerable mothers and children find their footing, this community is being abandoned by the systems that should protect it.

This is not just a program ending. This is an erasure of hope. And we are here, today, to demand that our city and state leaders act before that erasure becomes permanent.

A Place Where Families Heal

The Letty Owings Center was founded in 1989 by Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon. In 1997, it became a program of Central City Concern — an organization long recognized as a cornerstone of Portland's response to homelessness, addiction, and poverty. What LOC offered was rare, perhaps singular, in this region: a 29-bed residential treatment facility where women battling substance use disorders could live with their children while working toward sobriety.

Not separated from them. Not visited by them on weekends. With them — because research and experience have consistently shown that keeping mothers and children together during recovery produces better outcomes for everyone.

LOC's programming addressed the whole person. Women received individual and group counseling, mental health assessments, life skills training, art therapy, case management, parenting education, and access to an on-site licensed nursery. Many arrived having never before received medical care, behavioral health support, or addiction treatment of any kind. Many were referred directly by child welfare agencies — because for these families, the choice was often stark: enter treatment together, or be separated by the foster care system.

LOC was not just a treatment center. It was, in every meaningful sense, the last line between a family staying together and a child growing up apart from their mother.

Thousands of Lives. One Place.

We know the power of institutions like LOC is sometimes hard to see from the outside. So let the numbers speak:

• Since 1989, the Letty Owings Center has served more than 1,479 families.
• Over 250 babies were born drug-free while their mothers were in residence at LOC.
• In recent years, LOC served an average of 100 clients per year.
• Operating costs rose 52% over five years — while funding opportunities contracted.
• LOC ended FY2026 with a measurable financial deficit, projected to more than double in FY2027 without intervention.
• When LOC closes, the Portland region will lose one of its only facilities where children can reside on-site with their mothers during residential addiction treatment.
• The closure of Laura's Place means that even the women who complete treatment will lose the transitional housing support that bridged them to stability.

These are not abstract numbers. Each one is a mother who stayed clean. A child who grew up with their mom. A family that did not fall apart. A community that is stronger because of what happened inside those walls.

The Women LOC Saved Are Fighting to Save It

Across Oregon, LOC graduates are raising children, working jobs, and rebuilding communities. They are nurses and advocates, parents and neighbors. They are living proof that this investment works — that when you give a woman in crisis the right support at the right moment, the return on that investment echoes for generations.

And right now, they are fighting. They are making calls, showing up, signing petitions, and telling their stories — because they know, better than anyone, what it means to have had that door open for them, and what it will mean for the next woman if it does not open for her.

We share one voice among many — a composite of what LOC alumni have said in their own words:

"I came to Letty Owings with my newborn and nothing else. I left 10 months later with my sobriety, my daughter, and a future I never thought I deserved. That place didn't just treat my addiction — it taught me how to be a mother. I am standing here today because of Letty Owings Center. And I am standing here today to fight for every woman who deserves the same chance I got."— Representative composite voice of LOC alumni (names withheld to protect privacy)

This is not sentimentality. This is testimony. And it is being offered, right now, by real women in this community who are asking their city and their state not to abandon them — and not to abandon the women who will come after them.

Our Demands

We call on the following leaders to take immediate, concrete action:

• Mayor Keith Wilson: Dedicate emergency City of Portland funding to immediately sustain LOC operations and halt the closure timeline. Every day of delay narrows the options for action.
• Mayor Keith Wilson: Convene an emergency task force of city, county, and state partners to identify a long-term, sustainable funding model for residential treatment services specifically designed for pregnant and parenting women in Portland and the surrounding region.
• Mayor Keith Wilson: Formally engage Oregon Governor Tina Kotek and the Oregon Health Authority to pursue state-level solutions — including regulatory reform that creates a proper funding designation for high-acuity pregnant and parenting women in residential treatment. This funding gap has been identified by Central City Concern and LOC leadership as central to the crisis driving this closure. It is a solvable problem. It requires political will.
• Governor Tina Kotek: We call on you directly. Oregon has made commitments to behavioral health, to children and families, and to the most vulnerable among us. The Letty Owings Center is where those commitments are tested. Please prioritize emergency funding and regulatory reform before LOC closes permanently and irreversibly.

Every day without action is a day another mother in crisis has nowhere to go. Every day is another child one step closer to foster care, to separation, to a childhood defined by loss that did not have to happen. The women who built their lives at the Letty Owings Center are asking you to help them pay it forward. Not for themselves — they already made it through. For the woman who will arrive at that door next week, next month, next year, and find it locked.

Sign this petition. Share it with everyone you know. And demand — loudly, persistently, and by name — that Mayor Keith Wilson and Governor Tina Kotek act before it is too late.

The Letty Owings Center has been saving families for 37 years. Let's make sure it saves families for 37 more.

By signing, I urge Mayor Keith Wilson and Oregon Governor Tina Kotek to take immediate action to fund, sustain,and protect the Letty Owings Center and the families it serves.