A recently announced plan may be the headway Portland has been looking for with the homelessness crisis. The initiative is called Housing Multnomah Now and is incentivizing landlord’s quickly house hundreds of people who are living unsheltered in Portland, OR. This plan is fast acting and works within a one year time constraint. Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson stated that Portland hopes to combat homelessness by guaranteeing private landlords one year of rent for each houseless person they rent to. This plan utilizes a 14 million dollar fund that will pay hundreds of homeless people’s rent for the one year and the focus is on that timeline with not much on what comes after at the moment.
Tents line both sides of SW 13th Avenue in Portland, shown in this April 4, 2022 file photo. Many campers have stayed in this area because of the close proximity Outside In where they are able to access support services.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
In an interview with The Oregonian, Vega Pederson said, “the plan will build off the county’s successful 2022 Move In Multnomah pilot program, which used $4 million to place people into 214 privately owned apartments and houses over the course of four months.” This initiative will begin in downtown Portland, Old Town and the Central Eastside through May, and then the county will work to house people living unsheltered in the Gresham area for the next many months.
The initial goal is to move 300 people within the next few months and will utilize the systems already in place to move these residents.
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