A Homeless Solution in Portland Blocked by Financial Problems

By Cole Gerig

August 4, 2018

 (Photo Taken by Free-Photos; Part of Public Domain)

In the previous blog posts I’ve published, I mainly focused on homelessness on a national level. However, sometimes, it can be best to look at the issue on a local level to understand the issue and how some cities are dealing with it. And in the state of Oregon, homelessness is not exactly a common issue. In 2017, “the number of people experiencing homelessness in Oregon was 13,953” on just a single night and around 57% of that group was unsheltered (OHCS). Taking into account that Oregon was estimated to have a population of 4.1 million in 2017, doing the math right, this means that one in around 294 people were homeless in Oregon in 2017 (The Associated Press). Now, that might not seem that bad since percentage wise, that’s around .34 percent of people in the entire Oregon population. However, even when a big city like Portland tried to combat this problem on a local level, what they got was a financial block.

Opened in February of 2016, a homeless shelter known as Human Solutions opened in Multnomah County. Serving an initial “150 people a night” at its launch, the shelter itself is funded primarily “by the city of Portland and Multnomah County through the Joint Office of Homeless Services” (Templeton). Initial and up to a good chunk of 2017, the shelter used a “no-turn-away policy” as a way of ensuring housing for the homeless and combating the still current housing crisis in Portland (Templeton). While a formidable and moral policy, the shelter ran into one major issue: finances.

More families came into the shelter overtime and by October of 2017, “the nightly census hit 468 people”, over three times its initial turnout (Templeton). It was at this point that Portland just didn’t have enough money to house anymore people and thus, after October, “the Joint Office of Homeless Services capped the number of people in the system and started placing homeless families on a waitlist” (Templeton). This meant that the no-turn-away policy was taken away and the shelter now had to turn down people if their cap was met for the night. In a sense, Human Solutions was very ambitious with its own policy. However, even so, this situation could get worse in the future.

With the numbers stated earlier around homelessness in Oregon and how Portland runs into financial snags in areas, financial support is important. And then, there’s the new presidential budget mentioned in my last blog post. As a reminder, this 2019 budget, while claimed to combat mental health, can potential cuts 1.4 trillion dollars in funds towards mental health or addiction treatment of substances over the next ten years and for that, states will have to cut funds to some programs (Zaldivar, Danilova). With over 40 percent of the homeless in America suffering from either mental health or substance abuse in early 2016, there’s a good chance that this shelter will suffer from the budget as well (SAMHSA). It’s not entirely guaranteed that Human Solutions might take a massive hit. But, the fact that it has a good chance should be terrifying enough for those who rely on it.

Sources:

“2017 Point-in-Time Estimates of Homelessness in Oregon.” Oregon Housing and Community Services, https://www.oregon.gov/ohcs/ISD/RA/2017-Point-in-Time-Estimates-Homelessness-Oregon.pdf

Alonso-Zaldivar, Ricardo and Maria Danilova. "Budget Undercuts Trump Focus on Mental Health, School Safety." USNews, 15 Feb. 2018, https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2018-02-15/budget-undercuts-trump-focus-on-mental-health-school-safety

"Homelessness and Housing." SAMHSA, 15 Sept. 2017, https://www.samhsa.gov/homelessness-housing

Templeton, Amelia. “How Portland Tried, And Failed, To Provide A Bed For All Its Homeless Children.” Oregon Public Broadcasting, 13 Mar. 2018, https://www.opb.org/news/article/portland-oregon-homeless-children-shelter-families/

The Associated Press. “Oregon population surges to 4.1 million in 2017, PSU report says.” Oregon Live, 17 Nov. 2017, https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2017/11/oregon_population_surges_to_41.html