T.H.E. Van Provides Unhoused Teens with Mental Health and Substance Use Care, Removing Traditional Barriers
Homeless teens in Eugene, Oregon, may find support in a refurbished Sprinter van coming soon to a parking lot near them. T.H.E. Van, which stands for Teen Health and Empowerment, is a new project designed to provide a listening ear and real human connection to teens in need of therapy or substance use services.
Meeting Teens Where They Are
The interior of T.H.E. Van has been converted into a therapist’s office on wheels. With this powerful tool and its staff of mental health and substance use counselors, T.H.E. Van is equipped to travel wherever it is needed—whether in rural areas or in front of youth centers and shelters in the city. By meeting unhoused youth where they are, literally and metaphorically, T.H.E. Van breaks down common barriers that keep youth from accessing its services, like lack of transportation, stigma against mental health treatment, or fear of being turned away for not being able to pay.
T.H.E. Van can provide service to anyone between the ages of 16 and 25, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay. It is able to bill clients through Medicaid, but if that’s not an option, grant funding covers any expenses. For those who come to T.H.E. Van seeking services, there are never any out-of-pocket costs.
How T.H.E. Van Can Help
“There are shelters in town, and places to go get a warm meal, but when it comes to health care, there aren’t many options,” director Michael McCart told Lookout Eugene-Springfield. “T.H.E. Van is mental health and substance use counseling or therapy, just like you would get in an office building, but we’re just sort of bringing it to their doorstep.”
The unique operating model of T.H.E. Van takes the burden of navigating complex healthcare systems away from homeless youth seeking to access services, who are already dealing with enough, and puts more of the responsibility onto care providers to make their services accessible to those who need them.
T.H.E. Van is an offshoot of the nonprofit Oregon Social Learning Center, and it is run by a team of mental health and substance use counselors who all have an extensive background in low-barrier engagement, crisis de-escalation, harm reduction, and community-based support.
All of its interventions are evidence-based and grounded in dignity and voluntary participation, which should be a given, but is actually a breath of fresh air in a political environment where the involuntary institutionalization of unhoused people is dominating discussion.
T.H.E. Van is well equipped to offer robust therapy services as needed. Treatment begins with a full diagnostic assessment in which a therapist will speak with the person to determine what challenges they’re facing and if they meet certain criteria for a specific diagnosis.
After the assessment, a treatment plan will be developed that can help a client move toward a goal and track their progress along the way. This can be anything from developing life skills to starting medication to control a mental illness to learning to identify and respond to the triggers that lead to substance use. It is all customized to each individual’s goals and needs.
Beyond clinical services, T.H.E. Van can offer a place for unhoused youth to simply feel heard, seen, and supported.
For many teens experiencing homelessness, supportive adults have been few and far between in their lives. Staff at T.H.E. Van have an opportunity to correct that. Counselor Emily Houck said, “I would love for T.H.E. Van to be life-changing, and I think that it already is in a lot of ways, but I think that it’s creating space and just being a listening ear and being, like, a human connection that’s real and that’s positive, and that doesn’t feel super white coat.”
Funding and the Future of T.H.E. Van
Since its launch in September 2025, T.H.E. Van has developed a schedule of visiting a local youth services center two days a week. It sees an estimated 10 clients per week for either new or repeat visits and hopes to soon expand its services into more rural parts of the surrounding county, where fewer services are available to homeless youth.
In a push to develop more Behavioral Health Resource Networks (BHRNS) statewide, the Oregon Health Authority awarded a $2 million grant to the Oregon Social Learning Center. T.H.E. Van received $190,000 of that grant and used the initial funding to purchase and convert the van.
For ongoing funding, T.H.E. Van and other BHRNS like it rely on money from Oregon Measure 110, which earmarked a portion of the tax dollars made from cannabis sales within the state to fund drug addiction treatment and recovery programs. That funding source is still in place, but cannabis sales are falling, and so too is funding for BHRNS. Latest numbers estimate a 14.06% budget reduction for BHRNS due to this decline in cannabis revenue.
However, McCart is optimistic about the future of T.H.E. Van and is moving ahead with plans to expand services. Funding cuts may mean that T.H.E. Van can only operate 4 days a week instead of 5, but since they’re currently only operating consistently 2 days a week, there is still room to grow, and who knows—the budget may have recovered by the time T.H.E. Van is in a position to operate 5 days a week. T.H.E. Van also has the option of being reimbursed for its services through Medicaid for clients who are covered by it.
For now, the future looks bright for T.H.E. Van and the homeless youth it serves.