COQUILLE — Two county departments will soon shuffle employees into new buildings.

Coos County’s Health and Human Services department is “bursting at the seams,” said Ginger Swan, of Coos County Mental Health. The department is renting new space by both the North Bend Annex and the Coquille Courthouse to accommodate increased staffing levels.

“We’ve had an increase in the Oregon Health Plan, and that increase forced us into hiring more staff to attend to the demand of folks coming in,” she said. “We had state general fund dollars come in to the department unsolicited with very specific requirements to hire staff for very specific types of duties. We’re growing exponentially.”

Coos County Veterans Services is also moving in part-time to Oregon Coast Community Action in Coos Bay. County commissioners approved both departments’ moves at their Tuesday meeting.

The move will allow veterans services officer Eric Gleason to better serve his clients, he said. Unlike his Coquille office, Gleason will be able to give veterans more privacy during appointments in Coos Bay.

While Southwestern Oregon Veterans Outreach offered veterans services office space for free, Gleason said it wasn’t enough room to accommodate all of his files.

Out of his 1,500 clients last year, Gleason said he saw more than 900 outside the office, more than 800 of whom lived in Coos Bay and North Bend.

“In one day in North Bend I see more people than I see in an entire week in Coquille, but I will go wherever I’m needed, as I do now,” he said at the July 29 commissioners meeting, responding to concerns from Fairview resident Jaye Bell that the move would take away service from south county and rural veterans.

The Coquille veterans services office will remain, with Gleason there on Wednesdays and part-time staffing Mondays and Wednesdays. All calls made to the Coquille office will automatically forward to his ORCCA office.