street roots
February 6, 2009
NEWSBRIEFS
Leaner resource access center has support, less money
BY MARA GRUNBAUM
Audit Oregonians with serious
mental illnesses left untreated
Oregon's mental health care needs are not being
met, an independent audit of the Department of
Human Services has found. According to the report,
about 15,500 Oregonians with serious mental
illnesses do not have insurance coverage or mental
health services from the state. Many of the unserved
are seniors, individuals with physical or mental
disabilities, and members of minority groups.
The auditors also note that in recent years, the
criminal justice system has become on
largest providers of mental health services in the
state. According to the Department of Corrections,
41 percent of inmates have a mental health
diagnosis.
The report's recommendations include increasing
the availaolity and funding for community-based
mental healtn programs, emphasizing early
prevention strategies, and expanding diversion
programs so that individuals with mental illness stay
out of the prison system. Providing services to
people who aren't currently cared for would require
an additional $290 million a year, the auditors
determined.
Oregon has been spending about $447 million a
year of local and federal money on mental health
services, but proposed budget cuts for the next two
years would strip substance abuse treatment and
community-based mental health programs of much
of their funding.
Poverty line inches up for 2009,
qualifying more families for help
On Jan. 23, the U.S. government raised the
federal poverty line, which will qualify more
Oregonians for public assistance. In 2008, a family of
three with less than $17,600 in annual income
qualified as poor by federal standards. For 2009, the
same-sized family making less than $18,310 is
considered poor.
Oregon bases eligibility for some public
assistance programs on federal poverty guidelines.
With the increase, more families will qualify for food
stamps, reduced-price school lunches, child care
subsidies and health care.
But not everyone newly eligible for assistance
will necessarily receive it, according to the Oregon
Center for Public Policy. Currently, the Employment
Related Day Care program is available to any family
with an income under 185 percent of the poverty
line, or $33,874 for a three-person family under the
new guidelines. With Governor Ted Kulongoski s
budget cuts, the subsidy would be restricted to
people who found new jobs after receiving cash
assistance from the state.
STAFF WRITER
| ^ough they don’t know yet where
I the money to operate it will come
X from, city council voted on Jan. 28
to push forward with construction of the
long-awaited Resource Access Center,
which will provide low-income housing,
shelter beds and social services to over
1,000 people.
The center was originally slated to open
this year, but a land use appeal held back
most of the project’s construction money
until a resolution was reached on Jan. 30.
Now the Housing Authority of Portland, in
charge of developing the center, says it
can start digging in September and open
the doors by April 2011.
“This day has been a long time coming,”
said Housing Commissioner Nick Fish at
the council meeting.
Another financial hiccup — the
devaluation of low-income housing tax
credits in the economic collapse - spurred
the city to shave $3 million off the
construction budget by amending the
DOCUMENT FEE, from page 1
Director of Neighborhood Partnerships
and convener of The Housing Alliance, a
statewide coalition of housing advocates.
“There will be some additional revenue
pushes for affordable housing that will
come around the Housing and Community
Services Department budget”
Byrd says they will be asking the
department for bonding authority backed
by future lottery revenues.
“We have very little state resources
dedicated to affordable housing,” Byrd
says. “At this point, we have about $13
million that goes from state revenues
straight into affordable housing and ending
homelessness.”
The document fee would double that,
she says, and give local communities more
flexibility and stability in planning
solutions.
“It is an ongoing, dedicated source of
revenue that’s going to increase over time.
It allows communities to start making
longer-term plans, knowing there’s money
in the pipeline,” Byrd says.
The fee would apply to deed and
mortgage records in each of the state s
counties. The money would be collected
plans for the center.
The origin al d esi gn call e d fo r a ful 1-
block, five-story building with a 90-bed
men’s shelter, 152 units of permanent
supportive housing and a resource center
serving 1,000 people a day.
In the redesign, the building’s footprint
shrinks to a half-block along Northwest
Broadway, between Irving and Hoyt It will
stand eight stories tall, but a loss in square
footage means the number of permanent
supportive housing units will drop to 130.
The shelter and resource center’s
capacities will not change, said Michael
Andrews, the HAP developer on the
project
“The function remains there,” Andrews
said. “It’s a tighter building. It’s a better
building for the block."
Doreen Binder of Transition Projects,
Inc., which will run the shelter and
resource center, told the council she was
initially skeptical about the redesign, but
she feels the new plan fits the center’s
needs. “I think the current incarnation of
this plan is beautiful,” Binder said. “It has
been a lifelong dream to get this building
done.”
With a unanimous vote, city council
authorized the plan and committed to help
secure the $920,000 to $1.2 million yearly
support necessary to operate the center
once it is complete.
Though money is tight now, Andrews is
confident that the Resource Access Center
won’t be “another Wapato" - the $58-
million county jail built in 2004 that sits
unused for lack of funding.
“We have contingency plans to cover
the operating costs" if private grants and
foundation money don’t come through,
Fish said. “The city has fully commited to
operate this building.”
The access center, a key component of
the city’s Ten-Year Plan to End
Homelessness, has been years in the
making.
“It has been on the agenda since I
started working here in 1995,” Mayor Sam
Adams said. “This has never been needed
more.”
by the Housing and Community Services
Department and then channeled to fund
three primary programs: General
Housing, Emergency Housing, and
Homeownership Assistance.
“The document recording fee has
money for the emergency housing account
which is rental assistance, and that is
going to be something there’s never been
enough of, and now we’re going to need it
more than ever,” Anderson said.
Several housing industry groups have
facing in general is that real relief needs to
happen at the federal level, says Anderson.
“But because that’s not going to change in
the near future, we need the state of
Oregon to step up and get in line with
states like Washington to do more to
provide affordable housing opportunities.
Things like local 10-year plans can’t go
very far unless the state has more
resources.”
That’s the case for Washington County,
which last year created a 10-year plan to
opposed other proposals to generate
ongoing funds for affordable housing,
specifically the real estate transfer fee,
which would have tacked on a small
end homelessness, based on Portland and
Multnomah County’s model, but has no
funding to effectively back it up. In the
meantime, most of Washington County’s
1,400-plus homeless population is relying
on the shelters provided by a network of
churches who open their doors in extreme
weather.
On a federal level, housing advocates
are calling for gap funding to be included
in the Economic Stimulus Plan to cover
the losses to the Low Income Housing Tax
Credit program. The program, which is
the leading single funder for affordable
housing, has languished as the market for
tax credits has dried up, and projects in
the pipeline relying on that funding are
unable to move forward.
percentage to the cost of home sales
above a certain price. The document fee,
however, has garnered support from
homebuilders, bankers and Realtors.
“We recognize that affordable housing
helps people - from kids who need stable
housing to succeed in school, to seniors
who need a place where they feel safe and
comfortable,” says Linda Navarro,
president and CEO of the Oregon Bankers
Association. “It gives people the
opportunity to live in dignity and
independence.”
Part of the problem that Oregon is
Social-activist groups claim
illegal targeting by police
Civil liberties activists in Tacoma, Wash, say local
police are targeting them for surveillance, collecting
information on their events and activities, and using
what they find in ways that may impinge on the
groups'right to peaceably assemble.
According to Timothy Smith of the Bill of Rights
Defense Committee, a monthly Homeland Security
report lists events and activities where Tacoma police
collected information on social-activist groups.
Documents also reveal that information has been
shared between the police, federal authorities and a
private company that owns a local detention facility,
Smith said.
About 40 organizations have been monitored,
Smith said, including the Tacoma branch of the
ACLU and an immigrant aid group that sometimes
visits the detention facility.
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