9
Street roots
May 10, 2013
Safety net weathers local budget storms
STAFF REPORTS
afety net services for Portland’s poor
and homeless faced down another
season of funding cuts and emerged
virtually intact in Mayor Charlie Hales’
proposed budget, released April 30.
While federal cuts are still going to hit
the city’s housing and homeless services,
Hales proposes fully funding a span of vital
programs, preserving $1.04 million for
emergency shelter, mental health outreach,
at risk students and teens, addiction
services and housing retention, among
other services.
At the start of his term, Hales asked all
bureaus to cut 10 percent from their
submitted budgets. For the Portland
Housing Bureau (PHB) - which provides
homeless and housing services for
Portland’s poorest individuals — that meant
$2.3 million in cuts when combined with
federal reductions. The PHB had requested
the city restore the city’s portion, just over
$1 million. Without that funding, the city
was looking at closing a 90-bed shelter for
men, ending emergency shelter and losing
immediate funding to prevent foreclosures,
“The entire safety net is back in this
budget,” said City Commissioner Nick Fish,
who has headed the Portland Housing
Bureau. “This is the fifth year in a row,
during a recession, that a mayor has;
stepped up to fund the safety net ... I am
pleased that the mayor has recognized that
with this fragile economy and so many
working families struggling, that he
continued to invest in safety net services.”
Preserving the safely netwas the focus
of a campaign by supporters and users of
the myriad programs that address the
needs of the city’s most vulnerable
populations.
.
At the start of the budget process, Hales
put all of the city bureaus under the control
of the mayor’s office, and has yet to
redistribute them to the individual
commissioners.
Funding for the safety net was made
possible in part by a $500,000 funding shift
between the city and Multnomah County.
The city cut it from its short-term rent
assistance program, and thè county is
filling the gap with a one-time increase on
its end.
The county was also helping ease the
city’s pain with some funding for school
meals and centers for low-income seniors.
Some cuts, however, are hot likely to be
restored. In February, the housing bureau
had proposed more than $460,000 in
permanent cuts across several programs.
That included discontinuing funding for the
Community Warehouse which helps
provide used household furnishings to
people in need. Funding was also reduced
for some permanent supportive housing
programs, shelter services, renters’
assistance, some basic homeless services
and foreclosure prevention. Also left out of
the budget was Outside In’s needle
S
VAN VLIET, from page 8
it was intended.
And I also hope that access is easier, that
when a low-income person walks through
the door of one of the agencies, whether
they’re coming in for a food box or need
help paying a bill during the winter, that
nonprofits are prepared to address what this
person needs. Sure, they need a food box,
but what is their housing situation? When
the system is really aligned at the local
level, people have much easier access to
what they’re entitled to, and the resources
that can move them back into prosperity
and out of poverty.
J.Z.: Are local governments going to see
fewer dollars, on top o f the sequestration cuts
exchange program.
While many of the safety net programs
were preserved, the budget still cuts $21.5
million in funding, and among the biggest
hit is the Portland Police Bureau.
“There were no sacred cows,” Hales told
members of the press during the budget
unveiling. Hales called it a back-to-the-
basics budget, with “an eye on the future
and a heart in the community.”
The police bureau is taking
unprecedented cuts, losing funding for the
mounted pafrol, and taking a Significant
reduction in staffing. Overall, the budget
trims more than 180 full time staff from
city bureaus, with 55 of them expected to
cóme from the police bureau. However,
that mayor included more than $700,000 in
bridge funding to delay those layoffs until
next year when a wave of retirements is
expected. Without the bridge funding,
layoffs this year would disproportionately
impact minority and female employees with
less seniority.
Also hit was the Portland Development
Commission, which is taking a $782,000
cut, with none of its nearly $600,000 in
add-back requests approved by the mayor.
“This is not a happy day,” Hales noted
during the conference. “I think we’ve done
it in a way that’s both collaborative and
thoughtful and positions thè city well for
the years ahead.”
Just days after Hales unveiled his budget,
Multnomah County Chairman Jeff Cogen
presented his budget proposal, which
reflects a more solid footing financially
than the city.
Cogen’s budget maintains funding for
homeless services and adds $1.5 million in
one-time-only county money to help thè
city and Home Forward secure .short-term ,
assistance for people at risk of becoming
homeless. The proposed budget also
includes $1 million for enhanced
coordination to increase immediate
temporary housing access for hundreds of
homeless families.
Cogen, however, was critical of the
Hales’ decision to discontinue funding for
the county’s Crisis Assessment Treatment
Center, opened in 2010. See page 13 for
Cogen’s thoughts on the CATC and the
county’s funding agenda on mental health
issues.
Cogen’s budget also includes:
■ $986,000 to fund the eight high-
poverty School Uniting Neighborhoods
(SUN) community school sites that were
formerly funded by Portland’s Children’s
Levy.
■ $3.34 million for the newly expanded
Southeast Health Center, which provides
low-cost primary care, behavioral health,
pharmacy, laboratory and other support
services to residents of Southeast Portland
who lack health insurance.
■ $2.1 million to mitigate the worst
impact of the federal sequester and
potential for state cuts.
to federal housing and assistance programs?
M.V.V.: Certainly to the extent that we’re
passing through federal dollars, those
dollars will get shaved back. And to that
extent, fewer dollars will be on the ground
in communities. So yes, resources are
getting cut We have limited dollars and they
aren’t going up in the foreseeable future. It’s
all the more important that at the state and
local level we’re more crisp about our
priorities, helping people in poverty both
with emergency/safety net services, but also
linking people to a pathway to prosperity.
And that sounds very cliché but it’s real.
Housing is a bedrock piece of economic self-
sufficiency. ...We have to make sure our
systems talk to each other, that there’s a
way to connect them to other support so
Needle exchange program
loses valuable city dollars
STAFF REPORTS
Iii 1989, Portland'- Out-id( In, which
provides varied services and health care
to homeless youth and low-income
communities, began a revolutionary
needle exchange program. One of the first
in the country to offer needle exchange,
Outside In ha- battled through more than
two decades of controversy and
leces-ions to tonliuut uttering ihi
The program is currently at risk, failing
• to secuie its annual funding in Mayor
Charlie Hale-' proposed uty budget.
Due Lo a federal ban on tin- program
created in 2011, Outside In relies solely
on local tax dollars to fund the program.
Multnomah County and the cit> of
Portland have worked together for 20
years to pay for the; service. Last year the
counu contributed S126,00i) and the city
$65,000 toward the piogiain.
Multnomah County funds the program
primarily for public health reasons, a part
of their public health response lo HIV and
hepatitis among drug injectors. The city
funds the program for public safety
reasons.
“We prevent half a million syringes
annually from being tossed,” says Outside
In Executive Director Kathy Olivet.
“We’re keeping clients alive and -afe.
Giving them the means lo protect
themselves.”
“HIV is one disease that's pi event abk*."
say- Oliver “We know exactly how to
“It'.- also a benefit lor the community --
preventing accidental needle sticks;
pi eventing the need for costly treatment
for people with HIV/AIDS, helping people
enter trt atment when they're ready to do
so,” Oliver says. “We’re often the only
point of contact our clients have with the
world of health and social service. We
serve as an important bridge to treatment
and other services."
“It’s a vital program and a high priority
for me,” »ays city Commissioner Steve
Novick. “I am confident that one wav or
another, it will be funded."
In December 2009, Piesident Barack
Ohania signed a law lifting a 21-year ban
on federal funding lor needle exchange
programs. The Obama administration's
position was that needle exchange clinics
are an evidence-based practice that lowers
the transmission of 1IIV and other
infections among injection drug users.
In 2011, Congress reversed the policy-
on federal funding tor syringe exchange
programs, leaving it up to local
commuuiliea to fund the harm-reduction
program.
they can get out of poverty. Our systems
don’t aim people in a systematic or long
term way to getting them back out of
poverty. The governor talks a lot about this.
We can’t keep putting Band-Aids on the
system and keep giving utility bill
assistance, more food stamps, more
emergency housing assistance.
J.Z.: After two decades working in the
affordable housing industry, including finance
and development and government
management. Are there goals you have
personally on how you would like to see the
state address housing?
M.V.V.: It is personal. I’ve invested my
whole career in questions of housing. And
what I just know in my core is if wè make
decisions in isolation, than we’re not really
helping people who are experiencing
poverty in the way that we should. I just
think the system is crying out for a different
way to make decisions and spend the limited
resources so that we can help more people
The housing crisis is getting worse. You see
it in Portland. It’s everywhere. We’re not
going to get more money. So how can we
help more people and move to prosperity?
How can we help them get there and break
the generational cycles of poverty that we
know exist out there?
Government is a tool, and it sort of gets
in the way of communities and local experts
doing what they know how to do b est I
think we can do better.