Page 4
News
No, Portland is not sending all its
homeless people to small Oregon towns
Since the city rolled out the Ticket Home program, its been blamed
for increases in homelessness in more rural areas o f the state
BY EM ILY GREEN
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
I
t’s a story Street Roots reporters heard
again and again as they traveled to small
towns around Oregon: “Portland is
sending all its homeless people here on
buses.”
The rumors began when the city of
Portland launched its Ticket Home pilot-
project, then-called Homeward Bound, two
years ago.
At the time, The Washington Post ran a
headline declaring, “Portland wants to give
homeless people a free bus ticket out of
town.” The Statesman Journal’s
headline read, “Portland buys
bus tickets for homeless to
leave Portland.”
While the headlines made an
impression, the details of the
program were lost on many
readers - for example, thè
requirement that recipients
prove they have a job or place
to live lined-up at their desired
destination before they can
obtàiri ab u s plane or trz ^ 3**
ticket.
“There was an article in one
of the Portland papers that
talked about money being spent
to bus people back home,” said
Tara Johnson, a homeless
services provider in Coos Bay.
Now, she said, there is a vocal
group of locals “trying to push
forward this idea that people
are being bused here
from Portland
and
Salem.”
While she said it’s true that homelessness
appears to be increasing in the Coos Bay area,
“They’re from here. Their ours.”
After speaking with Johnson, Street Roots
traveled down to nearby Bastendorff Beach,
known at the time for being the most popular
place in the area for homeless folks.
While camping at the federally managed
beach has since been banned, those that S treet'
Roots found there this spring all said they were
either born and raised in the area or had lived
there since a young age.
According to data provided to Street Roots by
Portland and Multnomah County’s Joint Office
of Homeless Services, just three Ticket Home
recipients have traveled from Portland to Coos
Bay since the program’s inception.
Farther up the coastline, Rep. David
Gomberg’s (D-Central Coast) office requested
destination information from Ticket Home after
receiving repeated complaints from constituents
in Lincoln County that Portland was using the
program to send homeless people their way.
The data supported what Gomberg already
suspected: The area’s shortage of livable and
affordable homes, not Portland’s ticket program,
is driving homelessness in the area. Just one
person has traveled to Lincoln Couoty via Ticket
Home.
While the $200,000-a-year program has
funded more than 110 tickets destined for
California, nearly 40 to both Florida and Nevada
and about 50 to Washington, it’s only arranged
instate travel for 25 people.
The most popular destination has been Las
Vegas, followed by Seattle, then Phoenix.
Those who remained in Oregon
dispersed widely, with
Street Roots • Aug. 17-23, 2018
one or two people at most traveling to the
majority of destinations.
The reason homelessness is increasing, say
housing advocates around the state, is the
housing crisis. Whether driven by population
growth, an influx of tourism and vacation
rentals, soaring building costs, a declining
economy or all of the above, communities all
over Oregon are seeing the effects widespread
housing insecurity.
Although much of the increased
homelessness is invisible, with families doubled-
up in single homes or sleeping in vehicles and
trailers. Among the more visible homeless
population, however, traveling can be frequent -
especially along the coast
In Lincoln City, one homeless services
provider told Street Roots about 60 percent of
her clients were travelers.
Several people living in Tillamook told Street
Roots they see people who appear to be
homeless getting off buses arriving from
Portland on a regular basis.
“I can see outside my window, and when the
bus comes in from Portland, there’s usually
three or four homeless folks that pop off the
bus and they end up under our bridges/’ said
Tillamook County Commissioner Bill Baertlein.
He works in the courthouse, which sits across
the street from Tillamook’s bus station.
If they’re arriving in Tillamook from Portland,
however, it isn’t because the city sent them.
Ticket Home hasn’t funded any tickets to the
town of Tillamook or anywhere else in
Tillamook County.
Despite what Baertlein sees through his
window, he knows that to ease the homeless
crisis, housing needs in his community need to
be addressed. He’s hapmg legislation he’s «**
working on for the 2019 legislative session will
make it possible to fund affordable housing with
revenue from transient lodging taxes.
Multnomah County spokesperson Denis
Theriault explained that since the program
began, caseworkers have learned to ask “more
thorough questions” when speaking with the
See BUSING, page 7