Lack of Public Lockers Fuels Homelessness in Portland

 

The lack of public storage lockers acts as a structural barrier and might end up costing the taxpayers more money. In Multnomah county, which includes Portland, deaths among people experiencing homelessness have risen sharply over the last several years. According to ProPublica, deaths increased from 113 in 2019 to more than 450 in 2023. This surge occurred even as the city spent roughly $1.3 billion on homelessness responses between 2021 and 2024. Researchers interviewed in the article argue that Portland’s strategy, heavy encampment sweeps combined with a shift away from permanent housing, may actually worsen risks for people living outside. People experiencing homelessness in the county also face dramatically higher mortality risks, according to Oregon Public Broadcast, they are 6x higher at risk of death overall, and 40x higher risk of death from an overdose, compared with the general population.

According to the investigation, Portland has dramatically increased camp removals, since 2021 the city has carried out about 19,000 sweeps and In 2024 alone, city crews dismantled over 20 encampments per day. Researchers told the reporters that frequent displacement can make unhoused people less safe and harder to reach with services. When a camp is cleared, people often lose essential belongings like medication, identification, phones, survival gear, and documents needed for housing or benefits. 

The role of public storage lockers continues to be overlooked. Without safe storage, people experiencing homelessness must constantly carry or guard everything they own. ID cards, Social Security documents, and medical paperwork are frequently lost during sweeps or theft. Without them, it becomes harder to apply for housing, access benefits, enter treatment programs, and secure employment to name a few. 

There are also health and survival risks, essential survival gear like blankets, medications, mobility devices, or overdose-reversal supplies can be confiscated or discarded at any time. Losing these items can directly increase risk of illness, exposure, or overdose.Without storage, belongings become targets, forcing people to stay with their possessions rather than seek services. The ProPublica investigation emphasizes that housing stability is central to reducing deaths, with researchers stating solutions “begin and end with housing.” However, storage access can function as a harm-reduction step when housing isn’t immediately available. In cities that provide lockers or storage programs, service providers often report improved engagement with outreach programs because people can temporarily separate survival needs from their belongings.

The rising number of deaths among people experiencing homelessness in Portland reflects more than a housing shortage, it reveals the consequences of constant instability. When encampments are cleared and people have nowhere safe to store their belongings, they risk losing the documents, medications, and survival gear that help them stay alive and move toward stability. Without basic infrastructure like public lockers or storage programs, people are forced to carry everything they own or risk losing it at any moment. That instability makes it harder to access services, secure housing, maintain health, and rebuild a life. If Portland is serious about reducing homelessness and preventing further deaths, solutions must go beyond temporary displacement. Providing safe storage, along with housing and supportive services, is a practical step toward restoring dignity, stability, and a pathway out of homelessness.

ProPublica Statistics

OPB Article and Graphics

What Homelessness Costs Taxpayers (And How to Change That)

A chronically homeless person costs taxpayer an average of about $35,500 per year. For a little comparison, that sum is over twice the federal minimum wage ($15,080) and a little over one and a half times Oregon’s lowest minimum wage ($23,400) in a year’s gross pay. Spending that much money on a single chronically homeless person gives many people a sour taste in their mouths, probably even yours, but there are ways to sweeten the palate by understanding where that money is spent and how to reduce the costs.

For many, there is an underlying assumption that homelessness is expensive due to government handouts and welfare programs. While these are certainly costly, two other elements are more costly. Payment for emergency healthcare for injuries, untreated wounds, and diseases that often requires emergency ambulance rides, hospital stays, and treatment that amasses well over a third of the annual costs. Hospital stays are not cheap for anyone, let alone uninsured unhoused persons. The second most costly component is policing and enforcement, making street sweeps, camp breakdowns, arrests, court fees, and jail time for criminalized homelessness rack up over a fifth of the taxpayer’s bill. There is an irony in how those efforts to control homelessness are not only ineffective but also expensive to maintain.

Shelters, temporary housing, and social services like welfare outreach and addiction assistance are at the bottom of the tab, accounting for around two fifths of the annual total costs to taxpayers. Incredibly, studies conducted by both government agencies and nonprofits have indicated the most effective methods to curtail homelessness are through housing and support services. 

People without homes and the safety they provide incur costs from public funds because they are heavily reliant on expensive systems. As the old adage goes, you can get something cheap and fast but it won’t be good, and something fast and good will never be cheap. Emergency responses, treatment, last-resort housing, and law enforcement all are the most expensive ways to exist. On the other hand, stability and dependability are the most economical.

Nobody likes throwing money at a pit, but the math isn’t deceiving you: Expensive healthcare and law enforcement accounts for anywhere between 60-75% of the costs annually, and the most effective way to reduce the tax burden of homelessness is by reducing the need for medical interventions and cutting police responses that aren’t useful.

On the other hand, focusing on the root issues and helping homeless people get back on their feet would cost the taxpayers an average of $13,000 per year. That’s far less than it costs now, and adding that it gives people a fighting chance to get out of homelessness altogether makes it sound like a sweet investment instead.

So, what can you do to turn this around?

Vote for local measures that take a housing-first approach and provide homeless people a modicum of safety they can rely on. Giving them a space to call home for longer than a few nights provides the chance to have belongings and get non-emergency services. It also lets people pursue dreams like having a job again and earning a wage.

Support programs that allow homeless people to possess objects safety, like community safekeeping lockers.

Write to your representatives about how emergency services are an industry in and of itself that drains public coffers and that there are better ways to curb the cost of homelessness. Raise awareness of the numbers and facts.

But most importantly, treat homeless people as humans worthy of dignity and safety. Lowering the expenses incurred on the taxpayer dime starts by seeing them as humans deserving of responsible investments rather than an endless epidemic to be chased around the city.

To learn more about the cost of homelessness, check these links out:
Ending Chronic Homelessness Saves Taxpayers Money and The Costs and Harms of Homelessness

Safety of Belongings: A privilege or a right?

Are your things safe?

I don’t mean protected by insurance, rather I’m talking about safe from a loss in the first place. Is your wallet accounted for? How about your clothes, your electronics, your tools, your bike? If so, that safety likely comes from having a place for you to keep your things.

I’m talking about safety from having a place you call home, or a car you control, or even a dry storage box. Keeping these spaces that are exclusively yours lets you keep your assets where they are in custody and protected from theft or loss. 

Safety becomes is a privilege enjoyed by affording those services. Knowing your things are all accounted for enables you to have freedom of movement, engage in hobbies you like, and see people you care about. That safety also lets you get on with your day knowing there’s security of your self and your possessions. We can figure out the extent we depend on our sense of safety by how we would react without personal security.

Without personal safety of your possessions, you are less likely to feel empowered to make decisions that you may consider second-nature and part of life. Instead, you’d have to carry everything you own around and take risks when doing so. Things become risks, making activities like these become harder:

• look for or have a job
• keeping your identification
• traveling virtually any distance
• entering buildings
• sleeping
• simply having belongings

All of activities that we can take for granted become part of a gauntlet you’re forced to navigate every day and night if you don't have a place to keep your things. 

But what about people who cannot afford the luxury of keeping things safe? What if we can make safety less of a luxury service and something accessible to everyone? We’ve already figured out it’s rather essential to have a life. 

Safety shouldn’t be a service bought and acquired, but a common benefit for everyone to enjoy. Thankfully, there are agencies and nonprofits out there making safety accessible, but together we can do more through awareness and advocacy to expand these services to more places. 

You can learn more about safekeeping programs here. 

Clean Clothes, Fresh Start: How Portland's Wash House Supports the Unhoused

 Clean Clothes, Fresh Start: How Portland’s Wash House Supports the Unhoused

By Nnamdi Ugonna

When people think about solutions to homelessness, they often imagine large-scale housing projects or major policy changes. While those are important, smaller community programs can also make a powerful difference in people’s everyday lives. In Portland, services that address basic needs such as hygiene, storage, and access to resources, help people maintain dignity and stability while they work towards long-term housing.

One example is Portland’s new laundry facility program designed to support people experiencing homelessness. The program, known as The Wash House, allows individuals to drop off a bag of laundry and pick it up, cleaned and dried later the same day. Programs like this may seem simple, but they address a real challenge for people living outside. Without access to laundry, clothing and bedding often have to be thrown away when they become dirty or wet, which increases waste and makes daily life more difficult. According to the City of Portland, the program not only helps people maintain hygiene and health, but also creates job opportunities for participants who may face barriers to employment. 

Services like laundry access, safe storage, and outreach programs highlight an important idea: solving homelessness requires more than just shelter. It requires support systems that help people maintain their health, belongings, and dignity. These smaller services can reduce stigma, improve wellbeing, and help people stay connected to employment and housing opportunities.

If communities want to make real progress on homelessness, investing in practical programs like these is a step in the right direction. Something as simple as access to clean clothes can restore confidence and create new opportunities. 

Want to learn more about Portland’s Wash House program and how it supports people experiencing homelessness? Click here to read more:
https://www.portland.gov/homelessness-impact-reduction/news/2024/11/26/city-launches-laundry-program-serving-people

What makes Mobile Asset Storage Security Programs not as good as they seem?

An in-depth analysis on the measures of break-ins on mobile assets storage security programs and their rates

Mobile asset storage programs are designed to deter break-ins and robberies, with many different kinds of effective security measures. Automated locks, cameras, motion censored lights, you name it. But just how effective is this equipment, and does it truly make a difference? 

When first hearing about this tech, it can be pretty easy to immediately assume that this would work. Outdoor locks, cameras to pick up license plates and faces, alarms to be sounded when there is an intruder. This begins to sound even more enticing when there can be a layered approach to how much security you use. But let's go over it a little more in-depthly.

There are many companies that will go over their decreased rates of theft or loss, but that is a key word. Loss. Most companies cannot or do not measure this based solely off of theft. So there is no true measure to what is lost or stolen. Some forms of tech can measure this best, this is true. But most companies will measure it as a whole, skewing the data. My point is, there is little to no hard evidence that their products work! One example is the RFID. RFID Tracking is a tracking company that is known for saving the usual hassle and time of scanning barcodes, and also shows real-time inventory visibility. This is great, but as of its security measures? One thing that this company noticed when they started implementing their technology into companies was a 50–70% reduction in asset loss or theft compared with manual tracking systems. Again. Key word, loss. This is great for keeping track of inventory, but by no means shows or prevents how much of the given product has been stolen. It will only tell you how much is missing, after it's gone.

The cost of this tech is also an important play on mobile asset storage prices. Many companies do not see the value of it. There is a high upfront cost to this. Cameras are expensive and hard to replace/repair, expensive automated locks are nice, but how much of a difference does that really make compared to regular steel locks? What is an automated light to a brazen burglar who already has his face covered? 

There is also another consideration; many companies don’t need this. Deep in rural country, neighborhoods, and small towns do not tend to need this technology. Its excessive! Cities may be different, but then there are still so many people around, so it can become absolute. There are, of course, times when it is smart or necessary to invest in this, but many companies do not see the need, and don’t end up needing it. 

There is also the overreliance on technology. Many people forget that technology isn’t foolproof. Business owners may not wish to solely rely on tech, or it can be confusing and overly complicated. Maybe they don’t want to spend the time and energy on training their employees with the new technology. There could be false alarms, they could lose power, or even the tech itself could be stolen. The tech that is supposed to protect their goods could be more valuable than the actual goods themselves! To many people, there are too many variables and too many risks to owning mobile asset storage programs. 

These businesses promise peace of mind and security, but to many business owners, this only promises them high costs, repairs, risk of damage, extra work, and no guarantee against the risk of theft. With all of this in mind, is it really always the smartest decision to invest in mobile asset storage security?

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Click here: https://owasp.org/www-project-mobile-top-10/2023-risks/m9-insecure-data-storage to learn more about where mobile asset storage security programs have failed and proven to be faulty.

How Secure Storage Helps People Rebuild Stability

How Secure Storage Helps People Rebuild Stability

By: Aidan Paul

A common worry for many homeless people is that their possessions might be lost, stolen, or thrown away. Since there is nowhere safe to keep important things like identification cards, prescription drugs, clothes, and personal documents, they are frequently carried at all times. While this may seem like a small issue from the outside, secure storage can actually play a major role in helping people rebuild stability.

One of the most valuable things a person can own are identification documents. It might be quite challenging to apply for jobs, get certain social assistance, or finish housing applications without an ID. Many homeless people just do not have the time or money to replace these documents in the event that they are lost or stolen. Another essential thing is medication. Prescription drugs are used by many people to treat medical issues, but it can be difficult to keep medications safe when living outside. A person's capacity to maintain their health can be interfered with by weather, theft, and unintentional loss. Work-related items are also crucial. Having the right tools, uniforms, and clean clothes can make all the difference in whether or not you can attend a job interview. Losing these things can make it more difficult for someone to get or keep a job.

Several areas have started experimenting with storage systems for homeless people, and these initiatives have shown that offering secure locations for possessions may improve stability. By delivering secure storage to the locations where people most need it, mobile asset storage initiatives could expand on these concepts and make it even more accessible. Although it can seem like a small effort, helping people safeguard their possessions can make a big difference. People are better able to concentrate on reconstructing their lives and pursuing long-term stability when essential objects are secure.

Click Here for information about homeless storage in the Portland area.

 What If You Had Nowhere Safe to Put the Most Important Things in Your Life?

 Picture this.

You’re trying to keep a job.

You have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow.

You’re waiting to hear back about housing.

Now imagine that everything you own fits in one backpack — and that backpack could disappear tonight.

For many people living outside in Portland, this isn’t a thought experiment. It’s daily life.

IDs get stolen.

Medications are ruined by rain.

Work clothes disappear during sweeps.

Phones — lifelines to jobs, family, and services — vanish.

When that happens, people don’t just lose belongings. They lose momentum.

One missing ID can mean no job application. One stolen prescription can mean a hospital visit. One lost phone can mean missed housing placement.

And suddenly someone who was moving forward is pushed months back.

If we are serious about reducing homelessness, we have to stop ignoring these quieter setbacks that keep people stuck.

You can help change that.

Support practical, immediate solutions that protect people’s documents, medications, and essential belongings — the small stabilizers that make big progress possible.

https://www.myshyft.com/blog/secure-employee-locker-systems-portland-oregon/