By LILLIAN MONGEAU HIGHES/The Oregonian/OregonLive
With her ceremonial signature on House Bill 3644, Gov. Tina Kotek has codified the creation of a new, permanent statewide homeless shelter system.
Run by Oregon Housing and Community Services, the new system will create several regions, none smaller than a single county, that will coordinate all local shelters that receive state funding, manage monetary awards for those shelters and collect data on shelter operations and guest outcomes.
The idea is to better coordinate and regulate state-funded homeless shelters while also creating a fairer system for the distribution of funding.
“This policy and this new program approach will provide clarity and consistency and intentionality around what we’re going to do,” Kotek said Wednesday. “That is really, really important. The state has not had that.”
Getting the votes needed to create a statewide shelter system was also a political win for the governor in a legislative session that ended with the collapse of one of her other major priorities – a bill to overhaul the state’s transportation system.
Although she’d asked for more in her proposed budget, Kotek said she was satisfied with the $205 million that lawmakers approved to stand up the new shelter system and maintain funding for existing state-funded shelters in the new biennium. The vast majority of the funds will be used to operate the existing 4,800 shelter beds the state currently helps to maintain in communities across Oregon.
In all, the state budget for direct homeless services this biennium landed at $387 million, just over half of what the governor had originally asked be allocated.
“I’ll be honest,” Kotek said last week. “I am concerned.”
The upside, she said, was that after years spent building new shelters “the system is functioning better, so hopefully that means that even if there’s less resources, we can do more.”
Vernon Baker, the executive director of Just Compassion, a homeless services nonprofit and 60-bed shelter in Tigard, thanked the governor for her commitment to housing and homelessness work at the Thursday bill signing. He said passage of the shelter system law showed a commitment from the state to local providers even as other public resources are dwindling.
“It’s really important we understand this is a collective effort,” he said.
Agency to set up system
The new state shelter system, to be stood up in the coming months within Oregon Housing and Community Services, will require all shelters receiving state funding to abide by certain rules, including that they be open for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Detailed reports on homelessness in each region will be due within the first year, to be followed by regular updates. And outcomes – like how many shelter residents are connected with other services or become housed – must now be reported to the state.
Sponsored by Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, at Kotek’s request, the legislation is the culmination of five years of shelter building work by the state, which had little to do with homeless services before 2019. But as the pandemic took hold and homelessness in Oregon rose, Kotek said it was clear the state needed to step in and help local communities to provide help to building shelters they weren’t able to create on their own.
“We have a huge homelessness issue,” Kotek said. And, she added, the state has more unsheltered homeless people “than almost every place in the country.”
Since 2020, the state has provided funding from a wide variety of sources to help local leaders build and operate shelters across the state, according to the state housing department. The department was not able to provide a complete list of state-funded shelters by deadline.
Now, Kotek and more than two thirds of state lawmakers believe it is time for a better coordinated system.
Lots of concerns
Opponents to the measure raised concerns that a statewide shelter system, although it will only regulate shelters that receive state funding, would create another layer of bureaucracy and not allow for locally driven responses.
“After many years of working in shelter and services for those experiencing houselessness, local solutions are the best solutions,” Julie Cusumano, a board member for Portland-based shelter provider Transition Projects, said in her written testimony in February when the bill first went to committee.
“Having shelter be administered statewide, creates layers of bureaucracy where none is needed,” Cusumano wrote.
More than 100 people wrote in opposition to the measure, citing concerns with government spending and outlining the argument that providing shelter enabled people to stay drug addicted and homeless without actually helping them.
“If you’re going to spend more of our hard earned taxpayers money I expect it to finally be put to something that will actually help these people,” wrote Shelby Wilson of Grants Pass. “You need to create sobering centers that work directly with housing and job programs.”
Marsh, who carried the measure, said she thinks there are many other services needed beyond shelter to fully address homelessness in Oregon. But despite her “heartburn” over priorities like rent assistance and eviction prevention that got less funding this session, she said keeping the shelter system whole “is the priority.”
“The trick is, we need to do it all,” she said. “But we’ve made such an investment in shelter, if we undermined that, those beds simply go away.”
- Lillian Mongeau Hughes covers homelessness and mental health for The Oregonian. Reach her at lmhughes@oregonian.com.
How about not diminishing rent assistance for people struggling to stay in their homes and NOT becoming homeless in the first place. The rents in this state have become predatory, especially in Multnomah county, and something should be done by way of rent control.We also need legislation to protect people in their apartments from neighbors second hand smoke, which can destroy people’s quality of life because of their neighbors self destructive habits.
Were we to own a house again in Multnomah County, we would not rent it out. Our first experience of renting out our home, then having to sell it to retire back to our other home, was not a good one. Paying $4,500 to our tenants (who were on a month to month lease at that point) was not
particularly pleasant. Perhaps the inventory of places would increase if landlords weren’t hit with such charges.
Rural WPA style work camps are needed for those who are not actively and successfully engaging in work and rehab in the city.
Structure, consequences and incentives have to be a key part of any system taking taxpayer money.
Instead of giving it away… make them work for it somehow. Give them a feeling of earning it instead of just give it to me. Help them have some some feelings of confidence in themselves.
Many homeless suffer from greater issues than laziness. The country is in its fourth generation of drug abuse. Generations have learned to live an unproductive lifestyle. Can we address this mental health crisis as a fact of ill chosen lifestyle choice? It is 60 years deep. Also economic practices have changed, school involvement has changed and family ties are shifting in an internet world. Values are hard to pin down that can apply for all. How can there be “common sense” in a culture that has so many differences when we turn our backs on conversations to help problem solve?
Supporting people’s basic needs, housing, food, shelter and health care should be a priority for everyone in this country. Not only is it the right thing to do it helps us by helping our neighbors. Why is that no longer a thing? Is been demonstrated time and again that giving those less fortunate the basic tools to survive increase their chances of getting on their feet and moving forward. Doesn’t that benefit us all?