Portland-area officials OK new approach to curtail homelessness; it could fall apart in 3 months

Multnomah County and Portland officials have finally reached a deal on a joint approach to reduce homelessness in the coming three years. But their partnership nevertheless remains on rocky ground.

On a 4-1 vote, county commissioners on Thursday passed a new version of a “homelessness response system” agreement that county leaders proposed and City Council members subsequently tweaked — with Sharon Meieran voting no. The vote solidified the partnership and an ambitious plan linked to it to cut the number of people living on the street in half by 2025.

“This is not the (intergovernmental agreement) that we sent over” to the Portland City Council, Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said. “But that is the art of the politics of what we do in trying to get to negotiation and shared agreement.”

As a stipulation to approving the contract last week, Portland commissioners set 12 benchmarks they expect the new homelessness strategy to meet by Oct. 15. Those outcomes are part of a separate city ordinance, not the city-county agreement itself. But if the goals aren’t met, city officials have threatened to end the agreement for good.

County officials told The Oregonian/OregonLive that they’re confident they’ll meet those expectations, which include launching dashboards to show shelter bed availability, quarterly updates on homelessness abatement goals and spending. The Portland ordinance also calls on the city and county to make final decisions on whether to allow tent and tarp distribution and, if they do, under what circumstances.

“We’re going to push hard to not only make the October date but make all the other dates that we’ve set for ourselves,” said Dan Field, director of the county-run homelessness services agency charged with leading the work.

Under their stipulations, City Council members expect the county to launch a program to secure 200 apartments to rapidly rehouse people living in temporary shelter or on the street and provide a detailed plan for how the county’s homeless services department will add 555 shelter beds by the end of the year, among other things.

Meieran called for the county board to add the city’s October goals to the final agreement as a show of good faith. All commission members except Julia Brim-Edwards shot down the idea, saying they wanted to avoid more back and forth between the county and city governments. Vega Pederson also pointed out that many of the goals are included in the 55-page homelessness response plan.

City officials also changed the agreement to expand a key oversight committee which originally consisted of four elected Portland and county officials, including the mayor and county chair, and the mayor of one east county city. The city’s modification adds five non-voting members: a business representative, high income earner who pays the Metro homelessness services tax, behavioral health expert and the CEOs of Health Share of Oregon and housing provider Home Forward.

Brim-Edwards raised concerns that those oversight committee meetings would happen behind closed doors, barring the public from routine updates on how the efforts are shaping up. Vega Pederson said she’d be willing to have the meetings open to the public.

This revamped plan is the latest attempt by county and city officials to better coordinate their fragmented services, which they began jointly funding and at least partially offering through a single county-run agency in 2016. It will shift the responsibility of operating Portland’s once contested safe rest villages and alternative shelter sites to the county starting in 2025, while still giving city officials oversight and influence over how services are handled.

The city must ante up to wield that influence. Portland’s buy in is $25 million dollars this year — less than 10% of the overall budget for homelessness services — and at least $31 million in the two years after.

As part of the new plan, the county is also expanding its reach by adding a new Homelessness Response System director. That role will be filled in the interim by Ryan Deibert, who served as former Gov. Kate Brown’s health and housing policy adviser.

Deibert said county leaders added the new branch because the task of reducing homelessness and keeping people housed was too big for the joint city-county funded office. That office will be renamed in the coming months as part of the plan.

“We need a much broader set of partners than the joint office alone if we’re going to sufficiently address homelessness,” Deibert said.

The homelessness response director will tackle coordination and policy work and provide oversight for the overall strategy, while the joint office will focus on providing services like outreach and shelter to get those goals met, Field said.

“Ryan is keeping his eye on the overarching picture, and the joint office team is focused on delivering on all the programs that we’re responsible for,” Field said.

Now that the agreement is final, the county is tasked with moving nearly 2,700 people living on the street into shelter or housing by the end of 2025 and adding 1,000 shelter beds by 2026. The homelessness response plan includes dozens of other goals with specific deadlines, such as expanding supportive housing, housing retention programs and domestic violence shelters.

Meieran shared her dissatisfaction with the new strategy, as she did when the county originally voted on it last month.

“I would love to be wrong about all of this, but it is a flawed plan beginning to end,” Meieran said.

Commissioner Jesse Beason supported the agreement and homelessness approach but said the Board of Commissioners didn’t get enough time to consider the October goals put forward by Portland City Council.

“I will be supporting the (intergovernmental agreement), with caveats,” Beason said. “I don’t believe we actually got to joint agreement on plenty of the benchmarks.”

— Austin De Dios covers Multnomah County politics, programs and more. Reach him at 503-319-9744, adedios@oregonian.com or @AustinDeDios.

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