When we spoke last week to some Central Oregon legislators, state Sen. Anthony Broadman and Reps. Emerson Levy and Jason Kropf, they talked about gaps in care for mental health.

When Gov. Tina Kotek gave her state of the speech this year, she talked about Oregonians struggling with mental health and addiction. Not “everyone who’s experiencing homelessness is dealing with a mental health or addiction challenge. But many are,” as she said.

Oregon doesn’t have the residential beds it needs to treat people with behavioral health disorders. The state has not had enough for years. Legislators were warned the state would face a deficit of beds. They funded other priorities.

The state is tracking the beds it has and the beds it believes it needs. It has set goals for 2029.

The Oregon Health Authority says Oregon has 1,374 residential beds for substance use disorder and another 144 are in development. The goal is 2,256 more.

The state has 546 beds in secure residential treatment facilities and 58 in development. The goal is 182 more.

It has 317 beds for withdrawal management and 20 in development. The goal is 551 more.

Those numbers change, but you get the idea: There’s a gap.

Kotek has targeted the gap.

“My recommended budget for the next two years continues to deploy a dual strategy of increasing treatment capacity and strengthening the available workforce, with $90 million for another 363 treatment beds and $50 million to bolster the provider pipeline and stabilize worker retention,” she said in her state of the state address.

Money is not the only answer. A lot of it is about money and how the state prioritizes the money it has. You can’t just blame past legislators. They had to make difficult decisions about where to spend what revenues they had. But where Oregon is now is a bed deficit and that can translate into a surplus of problems with people struggling with behavioral health. What are they going to do about it this session?