Kairos opens Eugene mental health clinic amid urgent need in Lane County

A new outpatient mental health clinic on West 18th Avenue near Chambers Street is set to give Lane County families another place to turn for therapy, skills coaching and family support just as local waitlists remain long. Kairos says the Eugene site will begin with a soft opening before the end of July, then hold a larger community opening in September.

The organization expects the clinic to support more than 200 patients in its first year and to staff it with roughly 15 licensed therapists and skills coaches once construction is finished. That adds a new layer to Kairos’ local presence, which already includes a residential treatment home in Eugene serving five patients.

Kairos says its outpatient programs are open to youth of all ages covered by the Oregon Health Plan. Services are designed to be trauma-informed, culturally responsive, client-centered and strengths-based, and they can take place in an office, in the community or by telehealth. For families who have struggled to find a provider, that mix matters: it means care is not limited to a single setting or a single kind of appointment.

The opening also lands in a county where the system has little slack. Scott Rogers, Kairos’ development director, has described Lane County as underserved when it comes to mental health care and said the access gap is large enough to feel close to an emergency. Families looking for regular outpatient treatment often run into long waits, few provider choices and travel beyond Eugene for care. A clinic that can take on more than 200 people in year one will not erase those shortages, but it does add capacity at a time when demand is pushing hard against supply.

Lane County Behavioral Health directs residents to child and adolescent outpatient services at 541-682-7253 and adult outpatient services at 541-682-3608. The Oregon Health Authority also points people seeking behavioral health help to their county community mental health program, 988 and county crisis services, including CAHOOTS and Mobile Crisis Services of Lane County. Lane County’s FUSE initiative, aimed at 100 people with complex behavioral health challenges who are high users of crisis-related systems, shows how much of the county’s response still depends on crisis intervention.

Kairos says its broader mission is to address mental health disparities through culturally responsive care. In Eugene, that mission now comes with a concrete local expansion, one that moves some families a little closer to outpatient treatment and a little farther from the county’s long-standing shortage.