Room 219 at the Letty Owings Center in northeast Portland doesn’t look like much more than a cramped dorm room, but it’s where Ashley Amorim spent her first night with Jeremiah, the smiley, blue-eyed baby who she said gave her the motivation to change her life.

Inside Oregon’s largest residential treatment center for pregnant and parenting women, Amorim spent the past four months working to break what she said was a 16-year cycle of using drugs. She took her medication each day and wrote down goals and strategies to prevent relapse. She processed grief and trauma with other moms and counselors. Child welfare workers allowed four-month-old Jeremiah to spend two nights a week with her, critical bonding time that most residential treatment programs can’t accommodate.

For 37 years, the center has offered mothers with children up to age 5 one of their best shots at accessing treatment while avoiding separation through foster care.

“It’s a great program,” Amorim, 36, said.…