Portland's Growing Homeless Population

We all know that there is a problem surrounding the homeless community in Portland––it keeps growing. However, it is difficult to comprehend the extent of this societal trend by mere everyday observation of the city with our own eye. There is so much more that goes unseen and that is why Portland's homeless problem is one of the worst in the nation. It has been calculated that for every 165 people in Portland, at least one of them is homeless. Although, this statistic might change very soon because Multnomah County is organizing a "Point In Time" count to determine the exact amount of homeless people in Portland. The last PIT count was in 2019, and since the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic in early 2020, countless amounts of people have lost their jobs, inflation has increased consumer spending, and the housing situation in Portland continues to challenge tenants with high rent prices, small living quarters, and lack of availability. This PIT count was scheduled to start on January 25, 2022 and is currently undergo. The results will be released in summer 2022, and could assist greatly in finding an effective method of slowing down the growth of homelessness in Portland or even reversing it.  

Follow these links for more info.

“Why Portland’s Homelessness Problem Is the Worst in the Nation” https://www.heritage.org/poverty-and-inequality/commentary/why-portlands-homeless-problem-the-worst-the-nation

“Point-In-Time Count” https://ahomeforeveryone.net/point-in-time-counts

Evan Camarena

Faith and Portland's Homeless Community

In today’s world, we could all use something that brings a sense of steadfast peace, comfort, and purpose to our lives, even in our darkest hour. The homeless community all over the world faces struggles every day that many of us will never be able to comprehend. Regardless of the reasons that led them to homelessness, they still deserve the help that will guide them in the direction of living a refreshed and refined life. This kind of support can be found in Portland’s faith-based organizations and ministries that serve the homeless. A few of these organizations are Catholic Charities of Oregon, Union Gospel Mission, and CityTeam Portland. The problem, however, is Portland's rate of unsheltered homeless people is the second highest out of 10 other cities. Their faith-based organizations (FBO) also offer the least amount of emergency shelter (ES) beds. Despite not having an abundance of emergency shelter beds, being involved in a faith-based community could have an incredible and lasting impact on the homeless community as they offer church services such as counseling, chapel, bible studies, sermons, as well as basic necessities services such as cleaning stations, free hot meals, medical services, and some shelter. 

For more information, visit this link:

https://religionnews.com/2017/02/01/homeless-find-rest-in-faith-based-shelters-more-than-others/

Evan Camarena

Homelessness and Mental Illness

 Around 25% of the homeless population is suffering from some form of mental illness. The most common mental illnesses among this population are depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, and substance abuse. These mental illnesses can make it difficult for people to work and earn a steady income causing them to become homeless. From there they can often turn to drugs and alcohol which only exacerbates the problem. To help break this cycle there need to be long-term housing programs that can provide stable housing and mental care for those individuals.

-Megan Lindars

The Impact of COVID-19 on Homelessness

Social services have become limited in 2020 due to the response of Covid-19. The economic effects of this pandemic have put more Americans at risk of homelessness than ever before. One of the major negative impacts of Covid-19 was eviction rates increasing throughout the United States. This increase in evictions left many people homeless which led to a federal order to halt residential evictions until the spread of Covid-19 subsided. Along with this came rising unemployment rates meaning people were losing their jobs and were no longer able to pay their bills. 

-Megan Lindars

Job Training Opportunities for the Homeless

After sorting through resources available for the homeless population, it came to my attention that there are shelters and organizations that offer job straining opportunities for homeless people in the community. This is an excellent resource, as often times people are homeless due to the lack of income, from the loss of a job. Often times, people stay homeless even if they get help to get into housing, because they become unable to afford to stay housed, which is why staying employed is so important. 

One of the resources in the Portland area that has offers job training and focuses on sustainability is the Blanchet House. Not only do the offer shelter, clothing, care kits, and free meals, but they also offer job opportunities through their Founder’s Cafe and the Blanchet Farm. 

According to their website, “Blanchet House operates two transitional shelter programs for men struggling with addiction, unemployment, mental health, and other challenges.” By participating in the Blanchet House/Blanchet Farm programs, these individuals are able to learn skills, regain confidence, and provide to their community while also attending to their needs, such as working in a drug and alcohol free environment. 

The residents living in the Blanchet House located in Portland get the opportunity to work in the kitchen in the Founder’s Cafe while learning culinary and customer service skills by preparing and serving warm meals 3 times a day. The residents living on the Blanchet Farm located in Carlton learn skills such as caring for animals, gardening, bee keeping, and woodshop, in addition to meal preparation and cooking. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings are held durin the week on the farm.

To learn more about these programs, visit Blanchet House or Blanchet Farm

    

-Kalei Huber

The big picture of the Homeless: For the Traveler

 Portland is a compassionate city with local business, nonprofit and community support.

Portland is always welcoming and ready to give a warm welcome to visitors from all over the world.
If you are a visitor who has, is or will be planning to visit Portland for any purpose such as tourism, visiting relatives, business, etc and have a desire or plan to support or participate in helping the community homeless community here, you can refer to a few suggestions below.

How to support

You are discouraged giving panhandlers money. Instead of that, you should consider contributing to one of the following nonprofit organizations:

• Transition Projects

• Oregon Food Bank

• Central City Concern

• New Avenues for Youth

• Blanchet House

• Street Roots

How to Get Assistance

If you are in the downtown area and need non-emergency assistance with a safety or livability issue, call Clean & Safe at 503.224.7383. In other parts of the city, call the Portland Police non-emergency number: 503.823.3333. In the event of an emergency, dial 911.

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Gennie Nguyen

The big picture of the Homeless: For the Local

Homelessness is a national issue that is impacting Portland and many other cities. Portland has fewer people experiencing homelessness than other large cities, but, due to a lack of shelter availability for those in need, our unsheltered population is more visible.

So, why is this happening?

Portland used to have a 10-year plan to end homelessness by 2015, base on Housing First model. Unfortunately, the plan failed, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in investments.
About $70 million goes into the production of affordable housing, support services, and homelessness prevention each year. Despite all that effort and all that spending, the number of homeless people continues to grow in the Portland area.
Portland's homeless service response during the pandemic shows how quickly taxpayer money can evaporate without a hitch. In June 2020, the Joint Office of Homeless Services began offering vouchers for motels totalling more than 400 bedrooms across eight buildings by the end of 2020. Invoices monthly to running these programs is more than 2.2 million dollars per month. That's about $1,900 in rent per bed plus $1.4 million in services per month.
But use of these services is largely voluntary, so once funding runs out, the basics that could have left residents in need of such services could easily drag them off the streets again.

Demand for Portland real estate is contributing to the affordable housing crisis, which adds to the limited housing supply for those most in need. In 2015, the City of Portland joined several other US cities and states (including Los Angeles, Seattle, and Hawaii) to declare a housing and homeless emergency. Portland's declaration of emergency was extended for another year in April 2021. While this statement is in part intended to create more temporary housing, we are far from meeting demand.

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Gennie Nguyen

Inequality In the Housing Crisis – who is vulnerable?

Vulnerable demographics are disproportionately facing homelessness, and it provides a clearly visible example of fundamental equality issues. Homelessness is intrinsically tied to other forms of diversity issues, as it is a depressingly common end result of them. This seems verified by the disproportion of homeless demographics to national demographics, in which particular vulnerable populations are dramatically more likely to face homelessness.

I argue the trends in homelessness serve as a reflection for our societies' continual base difficulties in this area, like a test result. By comparing homeless demographics to state/city/nation demographics, we can determine who the system is failing.

Demographics for Portland homeless:

Description	%	#
Homeless people who are in shelter	51%	1,914
Homeless people who are unsheltered	49%	1,887
Families with children who are homeless	17%	653
Single adults who are homeless	83%	3,143
Adult women who are homeless	30%	1,161
Adult men who are homeless	58%	2,208
Youth younger than 24 who are homeless	6%	266**
Homeless people who are older than 55	19%	704
Homeless people who are chronically homeless	28%	1,033
Homeless people who are disabled	57%	2,177
People of color who are homeless	39%	1,477
Veterans who are homeless	11%	422
Those who were homeless for less than 6 months	33%	-
Those who were homeless for more than 2 years

 

In addition:

Nearly half of the women surveyed reported having been victims of domestic violence, and 67% reported having a disability. 

The percentage of people surveyed who report being disabled has not changed significantly but it remains very high (57%) and it is even higher for certain groups (for example, 67% of women report being disabled)

Link : https://www.portlandoregon.gov/toolkit/article/56220

Compare these numbers to a demographics survey of Portland:

Race and Hispanic Origin              

White alone, percent     -    75.3%

Black or African American alone, percent  -  5.9%

American Indian and Alaska Native alone, percent   -  0.8%

Asian alone, percent  -  8.7%

Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone, percent  -  0.7%

Two or More Races, percent  -  6.4%

Hispanic or Latino, percent  -  9.8%

White alone, not Hispanic or Latino, percent  -  69.5%

Link : https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/portlandcityoregon

A simple comparison means people of color are 6 times more likely to be homeless than whites, and Over half our homeless population is disabled. This trend show no sign of slowing down. Government surveys reveal:

 3 fastest growing unsheltered populations: African-American adults; women; people older than 55

3 fastest growing HUD homeless populations: African-American adults; women; people older than 55

This is important, as  demographics of homelessness provide an exemplary and clear reflection of the result of diversity issues, and clear proof of their presence. I would argue that the demographics of homelessness serve as a kind of test result for who we, as a society, have chronically failed to provide for, and a target for whom we should focus our efforts on going into the future.

-James Guthrie

Heat Waves Affect On the Homeless and How We Can Help

 As we get later into the year, summer is right around the corner. For many of us this means we are going to have fun in the sun. We are going to enjoy the hot weather and do our best to stay cool in the AC when we have to. For the homeless population, summer means an entirely different thing. It increases the chance of dehydration, sunburns, exhaustion, and has even caused death when heat waves hit Portland. 

Last year, Portland Oregon hit a record at 116 degrees fahrenheit. This extreme weather left many Portlanders to suffer in the heat. None were more affected by this than the homeless population in Portland. “At least 71 people are confirmed or suspected to have died of heat-related causes in Multnomah County”, says Adam Mahoney, a reporter for the Grist that focuses on environmental justice and investigations. Knowing that summers are getting hotter and how much this can affect and even kill the homeless population, we must figure out a solution to the housing crisis they face and also have additional resources to help them during these extreme temperatures. 

“Organizations like Blanchet House have had to stop up to fill the gaps in homeless-specific services.. distributing more than 2,000 meals every single day. During the June heat wave, the organization quickly moved to distribute cold water, reusable bottles, water-rich produce, and heat-protective clothes.” 

The Blanchet House and other organizations rushed into action and should be looked at in a leadership role this next summer if temperatures are as high. To help the homeless we all need to do part of obviously solving the housing crisis, but also donating water, food, and other necessities to survive extreme weather. 

To donate to the Blanchet House or contact them, use their website https://blanchethouse.org/.

Or call them at 503-241-4340. We must help them or face repercussions we faced last year. 

Michael Dougherty

Stop and Prevent Homelessness

 

The current situation of homelessness in the U.S. is rising, and it is known that one of the main causes of this is living costs, and the weight that it carries on one's shoulders. It doesn’t help when the wage isn’t increasing for minimum wage paying jobs either. If we keep things the way they are now, those who are of low socioeconomic status will keep losing their homes and the numbers will increase over time. It is true that there are programs to help the situation, however, only after someone has lost their home, and it is only a temporary solution that does not solve the issue at hand. According to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, “New York State has the fourth-highest housing wage required: In order to afford a one-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent, a minimum-wage employee would have to work 98 hours every week”. The amount of hours one has to work to afford living is outrageous, in time these individuals will experience stress, burnout, and may even fall into health issues. We need to find a permanent solution that will stop and prevent people from getting into that situation in the first place. Currently, Coalition for the homeless offers programs that help with eviction prevention to save people from losing their homes and falling into homelessness. 

The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) has highlighted solutions that can do what it takes to end homelessness and prevention. These solutions include acting on: Housing, Integrating Health Care, Building Career Pathways, Fostering Education Connections, Strengthening Crisis Response systems, Reducing Criminal Justice Involvement, Building Partnerships and most importantly Preventing Homelesness. To learn more specifically how you can help or about how it works please visit their website: https://www.usich.gov/solutions/ 

- Elizabeth Tangkilisan

Example of NIMBY-ism (Not In My Backyard mentality) in Portland Oregon and How to Solve the Problem

Throughout Oregon's history of relations of people without homes, there has always seemed to be voices speaking out against providing some form of help for the people in need. 

Pre pandemic, in 2016, commissioners of the county of Multnomah approved of a shelter program which would enable the city to house 100-120 homeless people from Southeast Portland. According to Amanda Waldroupe from StreetRoots, "Dozens of residents from the Foster-Powell and Mt. Scott-Arleta neighborhoods attended the Board of Commissioners meeting to testify for or against the shelter." During the commission meeting, the participants voted for providing a building to house the homeless. As further stated in Wldroupe's analysis, "some booed, others hissed and a couple of people threw up their hands or shook their heads. There was also some applause." 

While the decision was favored of helping the homeless population, it still left people with the same sentiments going in. That sentiment being NIMBY-ism, which can be interpreted as the viewpoint one would take in saying "Not In My Backyard" or the standpoint of not wanting to help homeless people stay in a place close or in the realm of their homes. But why would residents have such views against trying to help those without homes stay in a place which gave them shelter? 

In a forum later held held by the mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Chair, Deborah Kafoury, 150 residents appeared to the forum who disagreed and booed at the idea of a confirmed shelter being put up near their neighborhood. According to Waldroupe, Kafoury told Street Roots, “I think they’re afraid of the unknown... They don’t trust government. They see all these social ills occurring, and they don’t see that government is working hard enough to change it.”

In 2018, a letter, which was sent from the Neighborhood Association to the once-was Mayor Charlies Hale, initiated the engagement of the Village Coalition and some staff of the Joint Office of Homeless Services. The two services provided information to the neighborhood citizens how they would enforce a protective environment for them and the housed homeless, and they also provided an open house of the housing area. After all the information was provided to the residents, Waldroupe writes, "There was even a vote to approve the village, an unprecedented step taken to garner support. The vote was held in early March, and neighbors overwhelmingly voted in favor of the village, 178 to 75." 

As of today, the homeless housing shelter known as the Kenton Women's Village is still up and running today and provides a safe and welcomed community of once homeless women. There they receive help in mental health services and housing. 

If you would like to donate or simply view how the Kenton Women's Village is helping women of the homeless population, visit their website: Kenton Women's Village.

-Dustin G-C

Source: Waldroupe, Amanda. "'Not in my backyard': Neighbors demand a say in homeless solutions," Street Roots. https://www.streetroots.org/news/2018/02/02/not-my-backyard-neighbors-demand-say-homeless-solutions, article published February 2, 2018. 

Health in Homeless Communities

Homeless people are at significantly greater risk of health issues, both physical and mental, than housed people. The high cost of healthcare and basic medical treatment, psychiatric or otherwise, in the United States makes it increasingly difficult for homeless communities to seek help when in need of medical attention. As a result, money that they possess is more likely to go towards paying for food, water, or shelter than the high cost of hospital bills—no matter how much they may need the treatment. 

According to the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, homelessness itself can be an extremely traumatic experience, and can cause mental health issues that can have lasting impacts on homeless people and their respective conditions. According to an article by Psychiatric Times, the following are the leading reasons why homeless people ultimately avoid medical treatment: transportation, cost of care, communication, and stigma and vulnerability. The article mentions that common preconceptions about homeless communities leads to violence being perpetrated against them, with a noticeably higher rate of violence being inflicted on those with mental health struggles. They also often lack access to safe and affordable transportation that could take them to a doctor, which creates another barrier that prevents their access to healthcare.

In 2021, Portland launched the Portland Street Response program, which is a non-police response team trained specifically in assisting homeless individuals who are experiencing emergencies. The pilot program tended only to certain neighborhoods, but is expanding citywide at the end of this month. This is undoubtedly a mark of progress for homeless individuals in Portland, but it is only the beginning of an issue that needs to be more heavily addressed and understood. You can read more about the Portland Street Response program at https://www.portland.gov/streetresponse.

Graph courtesy of National Alliance to End Homelessness.

- Seamus Coyle

Trauma Responsive Shelters

     In the TEDx lecture “How trauma-informed design could transform homeless shelters” given by Brandi Tuck in 2019, Tuck argues that the current state of homeless shelters in the United States not only cannot handle the scale of homelessness, but the architecture, rules, and physical layout further enforces the trauma response for incoming homeless guests. 

Tuck states early into her lecture that living on the street is directly correlated to the triggering human trauma response, or as it is commonly referred to as, flight or fight. This response within the brain releases a chemical that shuts down our prefrontal cortex which we use for critical thinking and decision making.  This response is useful when we need to flee the scene of a fire, or perhaps someone is being chased by a wild animal. Humans can shut down parts of the brain that require energy and blood, so we can solely focus on our getaway. The problem is the trauma response can be triggered by assault, food insecurity, or freezing through cold winter nights. This in turn affects many of our homeless neighbors by preventing positive decision-making on the street, and in turn, preventing them from ever standing a chance of getting off of the streets and into secure housing. The same chemical response in the brain is also known to cause emotional outbursts, high levels of depression and suicide, and if sustained for long enough, cancer, hepatitis, and C.O.P.D. It is for these reasons that Tuck believes that the most effective measure a city could take is further investment into shelters that have “trauma-responsive architecture”.

Trauma responsive architecture is not so dissimilar from what housed individuals are used to. The buildings should imbue a sense of dignity and comfort, rather than pure utility and function. The interior spaces provide “flex” spaces for a mixed variety of uses and age groups. Tuck also posits color theory into her assessment of mitigating trauma responses. Colors like cool blues, soft greens, and connection to natural materials like wood and vegetation all ease the brain's response to living hard on the street.  Trauma responsive architecture is often round, soft to the feel, avoiding layout in rows, or with hard edges. 

If this sounds like Tuck is describing the ideal home, then I believe that may just be her point. We have to realize that most of these people need to feel as positive as we do when we wake up to go off and tend to our lives and work schedule. How can you expect a person to be jammed into cold, inhospitable sleeping conditions to then wake and hit the ground running putting their life back in order? We have all stayed in a terrible hotel, but many of those accommodations are far better than an average homeless shelter, which is strict with rules and regulations, and have an unintended outcome of stripping humanity away from people who are struggling to hold onto it. Funding should be allocated to Tuck’s review of a trauma-responsive shelter, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because at this point it is the only thing we haven't tried, and we know that this type of comforting environment makes our lives more comfortable, so why wouldn't it make theirs. 

Please click here for more information and ways to get involved: The Increasing Need for Trauma-informed Care Shelters

-Mason Martinez

The Future of Portland

The current situation in Portland is pretty alarming; there’s a possible chance that we can end the houseless crisis sooner rather than later. We can repurpose old buildings that aren’t being used and turn them into shelters. Each shelter can only house so much; shelters on average can hold about 100 people. For example, the Laurelwood center use to be a grocery store that can house up to 120 people. Take in people who are vulnerable like women, children, and disabled. Has a commercial kitchen that will feed the residents twice a day, a clinic, and an astroturf area for residents that have pets. There are thousands of houseless people on the streets now, the least we can do is find new ways of action that can happen fast, smoothly, and consistently.  

The reason we should repurpose buildings rather than build new ones. It’s easier to renovate, it takes a while to find an affordable empty lot, get funding, develop plans or blueprints on what to build, the process of building it, and check for health safety guidelines. The whole process takes months maybe a whole year to get it approved and developed. If we want to get the houseless population down, we have to plan quicker. The only repercussion in doing this is that it could bring down the value of an area. An example of this situation is Santa Fe, New Mexico, they developed an area that supports the houseless community but now it's known as a slums area. To combat that we would have to enforce community guidelines, rehab centers, social services nearby, last thing we want is the houseless community relapsing and never getting out of the cycle. 

Portland is a pretty condensed area, the amount of property available is limited and prices don’t seem to change anytime soon. It doesn’t help that Portland’s housing market is high, apartments in downtown Portland are crazy expensive even low-income housing is getting expensive. At the moment a lot of houseless communities don’t trust the local government to help. They initiated a 2.5 billion plan to get rid of it, but as we have seen through our own eyes, we haven’t seen anything change. Let’s make it more aware to the public that it starts with the people.