Will Portland’s Efforts Be Enough?!

    

Like many metropolitan areas, Portland Oregon is faced with a visibility crisis regarding the homeless. 

There has been no official count of the homeless in Portland since 2019 so it is difficult to connect the visibility of the homeless to an actual increase of these populations. 

This visibility crisis may actually be connected to a different trend. According to hungercenter.org homeless populations decreased from 2007 to 2019 but unsheltered homelessness within the community rose by nearly 25%.

It’s not so much that there is a greater homeless population but that a larger proportion of this population goes unsheltered, therefore occupying more public spaces.

For the city, there are generally TWO broad ways of solving this homelessness problem.

Short-term solutions through emergency shelters, and offering immediate assistance to the homeless helping them survive.

Long-term solutions that focus more on permanent housing and ensuring people can not only find but keep a home.

The city of Portland has branded themselves as prioritizing the Housing First model which focuses on these long-term solutions. However as Rebecca Ellis laid, the city of Portland and Multnomah county have been at odds over the best way to address homelessness. The city, prioritizing getting people into shelters and the county, favoring slower, long term proposals to keep people off the street for good.

A complex issue like the housing crisis doesn’t have one correct solution, it requires a multi-faceted plan that addresses many areas of the problem.

Luckily, in large part to a significant business income tax surplus (thanks to the pandemic) Portland, Multnomah county agreed on a $38 million package for homeless services. The unique thing about this package is it focuses on BOTH short and long term solutions. Half of which will be used for homeless services like trash pickup and new shelter beds. 

This is on top of the already $150 million allotted for homeless services for the current fiscal year from the joint office of the city and county.

However Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, pleads that without necessary supplementary aid from the federal government these efforts may not fully materialize. Acknowledging that the city-county package contains “a lot of good things”, Portland city Mayor, Ted Wheeler implores the federal government for necessary support in helping solve the region’s homeless crisis.

Will Wheeler and the city of Portland get the help from the federal government that they so desperately need, or will many of these efforts be all for not if these drastic measures are not taken?