Street roots., January 04, 2013, Page 3, Image 3

street roots
Jan. 4, 2013
P H O TO
BY
IS R A E L
BAYER
Ten-year plan to end homelessness gets regional redux
Portland, M ultnom ah County update their roadmap to address rise in families on the streets
— it was a requirement of federal funding,
Committee to look at refreshing the 10-year
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
but was inherently misleading.”
plan’s goals and priorities.
The plan’s philosophical driver is quickly
“It seemed to me a perfect and opportune
ow in the autumn of it’s life, the
getting a homeless person into permanent
time to take a look a t ... successes, new and
region’s 10-year plan to end
housing. This “housing first” model assumes
creative ideas that might work better than
homelessness is getting a makeover,
that once a person is housed, it is easier to
ways we’ve been doing it in the past,”
of sorts.
solve the issues compromising their ability
Kafoury says. “With any strategic plan, you
The yearlong effort by Portland and
to stay in housing.
don’t do it once and never look at it again.”
Multnomah County is referred to as the
The plan’s most prominent manifestation
The 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness
10-year reset. More than 40 people
is the resource access center in Old Town
was created in 2004 when the
representing social-service agencies and a
Chinatown. The Bud Clark Commons, as the
administration of former President George
wide variety of other organizations are
building was named, houses a large day
W. Bush directed major cities with large
involved in identifying programs and
center and a 90-bed men’s shelter, operated
homeless populations to develop a plan with
services that have been effective, areas of
by Transition Projects. Its upper levels hold
policies and strategies to end homelessness
need and refocusing service dollars and
175 units of affordable housing reserved for
within 10 years. In the Portland area, the
energy.
housing the unhealthiest and most
plan is a collaborative effort among
The reset plan is expected to be
vulnerable homeless people, managed by
Multnomah County, the City of Portland and
presented to the Portland City Council,
Home Forward.
the county’s housing authority, Home
Multnomah County Commission and the
“I think that (the 10-year plan) has been
Forward.
board of directors of the area’s housing
successful in what it set out to achieve in
The plan emphasizes ending the
authority, Home Forward, in the coming
homelessness of the “chronically homeless,” terms of using things we and our partners
months.
knew worked to end people’s
people who have been homeless for at least
The original 10-year plan is in its final two
homelessness,” says Traci Manning, the
a year. To do that, it focused on the creation
years, and service providers say it needs to
director of the Portland Housing Bureau. “In
of permanent supportive housing: housing
adapt to reflect the changing demographics
terms of the chronically homeless,
connected with wrap-around services such
of the area’s homeless population, the
supportive housing was very successful. A
as mental health and substance abuse
lingering impacts of the recession and ever-
lot of the targets that we set for ourselves ...
treatment, health care, disability services,
dwindling budgets at the federal, state and
have played out.”
employment training, access to services
local level for social services.
In many ways, by the time the recession
assisting with benefit applications, among
At stake, they say, is the ability to end
began in the fall of 2008, the 10-year plan
other programs.
homelessness — whether for an individual or
might as well have been on autopilot. The
“The reset process reflects a new
family - as quickly and efficiently as
city and county were meeting or exceeding
approach to ending homelessness. Eight
possible. There is also hope the reset plan
the vast majority of the plan’s goals, and
years into the first plan we are hitting the
will reinvigorate political and public support
while it’s debatable whether homelessness
refresh button,” Fish said.
for ending homelessness, and attract more
is something that can be completely
“We need to be clear about our
money from local organizations and the
eradicated, people were getting into
expectations. We have much to be proud of
federal government.
housing. But the recession threw the social
during the first eight years. (Former City
safety net for a loop. Suddenly, providers
Commissioner) Erik Sten, (Former County
found themselves dealing with an
Commissioner) Serena Cruz and others
iscussions about the reset plan began
emergency.
deserve much credit for designing this
approximately a year ago when County
Within months, Oregon’s unemployment
Commissioner Deborah Kafoury and City system. But the truth is that we never
expected to “end” homelessness in 10 years. shot up to 11.6 percent by the summer of
Commissioner Nick Fish, the two elected
2009, from 6 percent one year earlier.
I never liked the concept of a “10-year” plan
officials most involved in homeless issues,
convened a group now known as the Reset
BY AM A N D A WALDROUPE
N
D
Oregon still has the grim distinction of being
one of the hungriest states in the country,
with one of the highest employment rates,
and high rates of homelessness.
The recession’s most notable impact is a
sharp increase in family homelessness.
“We’ve seen a notable increase,” says Marc
John, the executive director of the outreach
agency JOIN.
Many homeless families, John and others
say, are homeless simply because a member
lost his or her job. According to the city’s
2011 street count, which provides a
snapshot of how many people are sleeping
outside on a January night, the number of
homeless families increased by 35 percent
since 2010. That year, the social service
agency Human Solutions opened a new
family shelter with a capacity of 80 families.
“It was packed,” Kafoury says of a recent
visit to a family shelter.
Identifying and serving the changing
demographics of the Portland area’s
homeless population is the main reason for
the 10-year plan’s reset.
“I think there was a desire to broaden the
scope of who was being served under the
10-year plan,” John says. “It’s been fairly
narrowly focused on chronic homelessness.”
The revised plan is still in draft form and
subject to change as the reset committee
meets for the last time in January. But a
recommendation unlikely to change is
namingTour subpopulations within the
homeless population as priorities for
services: families with children, people with
disabilities, racial and ethnical minorities,
and youth.
“There was a lot of discussion,” says Sally
Erickson, the Portland Housing Bureau’s
manager of homeless programs. “Our
resources are insufficient to meet the need.
We kept landing on vulnerability.”
See RESET, page 4