This Week in the Mercury
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
News Oregon #1 in Homelessness
Posted by Rachael the Unpaid News Intern on Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 2:56 PM
Bad news—Oregon now ranks first in the nation for homelessness per capita, according to a newly released federal report from the Housing and Urban Development agency. Homelessness in Oregon has grown a whopping 35% since last year, and 17,000 Oregonians are now experiencing homelessness.
The Annual Homelessness Assessment Report found Oregon has a homelessness rate of .54 percent, compared to, for example, New York’s .31 percent.
In the past couple years, affordable housing in Oregon has made several advancements, including the document recording fee at the state level and actions taken in alignment with Portland’s Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness. Despite this progress, Portland affordable housing activists estimate the city needs 16,000 more affordable units to meet demand. The Housing Authority of Portland’s waitlist for cheap housing is years long. Last year when they opened the list to new applicants for the first time in two years, 2,000 hopeful households signed up in just four days.
“We as a state need to wrestle with how we tax and fund services so that we can provide the opportunity for all families to succeed,” says Patti Whitney-Wise, Executive Director of the Oregon Hunger Relief Task Force.
-Rachael Marcus
1
What?! This is a bad thing?
But, but, we Portlanders LOVE the homeless! We gave them dignity village, we let them sit and lie at city hall, we give them bathrooms, we give out free needles, we give homeless "youth" countless city resources and health care, we have a bottle bill so they can return cans for a living, we build them bathrooms, city leaders want to build more more more free housing for them!
WHY I ask you, would homeless people ever want to come to Portland?
But, but, we Portlanders LOVE the homeless! We gave them dignity village, we let them sit and lie at city hall, we give them bathrooms, we give out free needles, we give homeless "youth" countless city resources and health care, we have a bottle bill so they can return cans for a living, we build them bathrooms, city leaders want to build more more more free housing for them!
WHY I ask you, would homeless people ever want to come to Portland?
2
"We as a state need to wrestle with how we tax and fund services..."
California's got a pretty good idea with their bill to potentially legalize and tax marijuana.
Just sayin'.
California's got a pretty good idea with their bill to potentially legalize and tax marijuana.
Just sayin'.
3
Nobody wants to be homeless. Legalizing dope is stupid.
The three principles of our 10 year plan are good.
1. Focus on the most chronically homeless populations.
2. Streamline access to existing services in order to prevent and reduce other homelessness.
3. Concentrate resources on programs that offer measurable results.
But the committee which wrote the principles were different than the fed fund-seeking knuckleheads who adopted the nine strategies, starting with the Housing First strategy, which ignored the primary cause of chronic homelessness - addiction and acute mental illness - which require treatment and transitional housing to be intimately coupled. This is a basic common sense stuff people, stuff we had worked out before you all showed up and started fighting over grant money.
God damn do-gooders.
The three principles of our 10 year plan are good.
1. Focus on the most chronically homeless populations.
2. Streamline access to existing services in order to prevent and reduce other homelessness.
3. Concentrate resources on programs that offer measurable results.
But the committee which wrote the principles were different than the fed fund-seeking knuckleheads who adopted the nine strategies, starting with the Housing First strategy, which ignored the primary cause of chronic homelessness - addiction and acute mental illness - which require treatment and transitional housing to be intimately coupled. This is a basic common sense stuff people, stuff we had worked out before you all showed up and started fighting over grant money.
God damn do-gooders.
4
"3. Concentrate resources on programs that offer measurable results."
This is the stickler. Cause if there's no more homelessness - there's no more government grant money gravy!
This is the stickler. Cause if there's no more homelessness - there's no more government grant money gravy!
5
Good thing we've got $60+ million to throw around to donate to a soccer stadium so some rich people can get even richer.
6
Name goes on the top, Rachael. They can add it into your byline so it says "rachael marcus the unpaid news intern" if you want. Let's not have three more months of this.
7
This is truly sad. 16,000 new affordable units is impossible. You might as well say "we need to build a ladder to the moon." You build 50 units here, 10 units there. It costs a ton of money, and you haven't made a dent.
Drug/alcohol treatment is a good place to start. What we need longterm is jobs for everyone. That's much better than trying to subsidize the lives of thousands of people in perpetuity.
If you want affordable housing, growth constraints like the UGB oon't help.
Drug/alcohol treatment is a good place to start. What we need longterm is jobs for everyone. That's much better than trying to subsidize the lives of thousands of people in perpetuity.
If you want affordable housing, growth constraints like the UGB oon't help.
8
@ pdx 97217. I'm really impressed to see that someone can actually quote the 10 year plan. However, I do want to provide some clarification on "Housing First." At least the intention of Housing First as we wrote it in the plan. It does NOT mean housing absent treatment services. The intent of Housing First was to not require treatment prior to getting housing. Perhaps, homeless people would respond better to treatment if they have housing, ahem, first, rather than if they are required to go though treatment before they were "qualified" to enter housing, either transitional or permanent.
"Housing First" also means that people should be able to move directly to housing without having to first prove themselves housing “able”, through a series of shelter and transitional housing stays that do not lead to permanent housing. If you only provide transitional housing and treatment, and there isn’t a placement for people to go after that, your recidivism rate will continue to rise.
Another component of the 10 YP was to create permanent supportive housing, so that people could receive the kind of supportive services (both clinical and social) that they needed - without an artificial timeline, created by service funders and providers so that they could serve more people in their programs.
As far as the numbers go, I am truly saddened to see that Oregon is number 1 in homelessness (per capita), knowing what I know about all the do-gooders out there who work their asses off to transform lives and provide opportunities to hundreds of people daily.
I don’t have access to all of the back-up documentation for the report, but based on the Portland area street count, my sense is that rise occurred primarily among people who are homeless due to economic reasons and have experienced a loss of housing for the first time. Because of our unemployment rate and other economic factors, sadly, this makes sense.
Sorry for the long post. And, I agree, nobody wants to be homeless, and to use this report as a way to promote legalizing pot (even if it is for more revenue) is stupid.
More...
"Housing First" also means that people should be able to move directly to housing without having to first prove themselves housing “able”, through a series of shelter and transitional housing stays that do not lead to permanent housing. If you only provide transitional housing and treatment, and there isn’t a placement for people to go after that, your recidivism rate will continue to rise.
Another component of the 10 YP was to create permanent supportive housing, so that people could receive the kind of supportive services (both clinical and social) that they needed - without an artificial timeline, created by service funders and providers so that they could serve more people in their programs.
As far as the numbers go, I am truly saddened to see that Oregon is number 1 in homelessness (per capita), knowing what I know about all the do-gooders out there who work their asses off to transform lives and provide opportunities to hundreds of people daily.
I don’t have access to all of the back-up documentation for the report, but based on the Portland area street count, my sense is that rise occurred primarily among people who are homeless due to economic reasons and have experienced a loss of housing for the first time. Because of our unemployment rate and other economic factors, sadly, this makes sense.
Sorry for the long post. And, I agree, nobody wants to be homeless, and to use this report as a way to promote legalizing pot (even if it is for more revenue) is stupid.
9
It's only the context of the company I keep which causes incredulity.
Heather, thanks for chiming in.
But I am going to have to stand with the pleebs, with Blabby. Off with their heads. The powers that be are now proven failures, and when the table of decision-makers reconvenes questioning their very presence at the table is the first item on the agenda. New voices, new ideas, new blood, new money, new leaders.
Housing delayed is housing denied.
Heather, thanks for chiming in.
But I am going to have to stand with the pleebs, with Blabby. Off with their heads. The powers that be are now proven failures, and when the table of decision-makers reconvenes questioning their very presence at the table is the first item on the agenda. New voices, new ideas, new blood, new money, new leaders.
Housing delayed is housing denied.
10
'At least the intention ... '
'my sense is that...'
'knowing what I know about all the do-gooders out there who work their asses off to transform lives and provide opportunities to hundreds of people daily.'
Basing sensible programs that produce actual RESULTS will not happen until such government policy rely on SOLUTIONS instead of the insane intention based foolishness that has landed Portland at the top of the homeless heap.
WE'RE NUMBER 1! WE'RE NUMBER 1! WE'RE NUMBER 1!
'my sense is that...'
'knowing what I know about all the do-gooders out there who work their asses off to transform lives and provide opportunities to hundreds of people daily.'
Basing sensible programs that produce actual RESULTS will not happen until such government policy rely on SOLUTIONS instead of the insane intention based foolishness that has landed Portland at the top of the homeless heap.
WE'RE NUMBER 1! WE'RE NUMBER 1! WE'RE NUMBER 1!
11
I don't disagree with either of you, and in the spirit of full disclosure, I am a pleeb, now. I left the City over a year ago. I would also say while aiming 16,000 affordable units is like building a ladder to the moon, I think an attempt has to happen in coordination with trying to secure jobs (also like building a ladder to the moon in this economy, frankly) and integrated care for people who need it.
If you don't try, what have you got then?
If you don't try, what have you got then?
13
Close in core is the most affordable area in the region when you factor in housing and transportation costs. It's far more expensive to build where you need all new infrastructure.
More importantly...where is Nick Fish's povery summit? Where is the Section 8 Task Force? Where are all the improvements from Nick and the PDC's scheme to consolidate housing work? Promises broken. Results easy to see.
More importantly...where is Nick Fish's povery summit? Where is the Section 8 Task Force? Where are all the improvements from Nick and the PDC's scheme to consolidate housing work? Promises broken. Results easy to see.
14
The problem is that we've got thousands of available rental units, even in the low income bracket, but Portland area rental properties are mostly controlled and managed by OUT OF STATE real estate "management" companies who have no ties to Portland and set requirements well out of reach for those transitioning from homelessness to working and living in their own apartments. Oregon is one of the FEW states in the nation that have structured laws governing rental properties to favor landlords instead of renters, and we see this being played-out in our high level of homelessness.
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