FEBRUARY 2, 2023 (Meeting Attendance: 57)
Les Wardenaar introduced Cole Merkel Co-Chair of Here Together Oregon Coalition who discussed Here Together's 2023 Roadmap: Advancing Solutions for Homelessness
Cole began by saying that his background is in direct service having worked at Operation Nightwatch and Street Roots. He is now engaged in advocacy on issues of homelessness. More than 100 community leaders and institutions have signed on as supporters of the Roadmap, including the Interfaith Alliance on Poverty.
Who are the homeless? There are 6033 people at last count sleeping outside in Portland. The Metro measure has injected more money than ever into the struggle against homelessness. We have tripled the available resources and the measure provides ongoing funding. Cole displayed a chart showing anticipated revenue. Spending is ramping up slowly but by 2025 Metro will be spending 100% of this revenue.
With the help of Metro funding more than 2000 people moved off the streets and another 10,000 others were prevented from falling into homelessness. With funding from other sources a total of 38,000 were saved.
Cole emphasized that we must not frame the issues as the current situation as shelter vs housing. We need BOTH. Shelter beds have increased but so has housing. Gov. Kotek has made it clear that she is fully committed to dealing with homelessness and from her first day she has taken action. She has released a proposal to spend $130 million. By week four she has released the rest of her budget proposal that includes millions more for addressing homelessness including funds for supportive housing, preservation of existing affordable housing, and the provision of behavioral services.
What do we need to do as advocates to accelerate the response? The Roadmap has four sections arranged in order of readability, not priority.
SECTION 1 CALLS FOR:
Expediting movement of people off the streets. Regional Long Term Rental Assistance (RLA) vouchers, one of the principles of getting people into housing, is based on Federal housing vouchers. RLA goes up to 125% of fair market rent thus providing incentives to landlords. It can be paired with other measures like the housing bond passed by the city. Money will also be allocated to Project Turnkey to use motels as affordable housing. Clackamas County is in the process of buying a hotel.
Measures to prevent evictions by providing ongoing rent assistance and for streamlining the permitting process for new construction.
Setting up a homelessness court that would help homeless people to work on themselves and expunge criminal records.
SECTION 2 CALLS FOR:
Training and retaining the workforce needed to address the problems of homelessness.
Employing people with a lived experience is critical. Supporting living wages and benefits is part of this process. We need more frontline workers. Washington County has a very effective training program to prepare such workers. They also provide a mechanism for the conversion of lived experience into college credit.
Cumbersome contracting protocols must change in dialogue between the counties and the service nonprofits. This will help small providers.
SECTION 3 IS ABOUT:
Improving efficiency through better coordination and streamlined process.
Streamlining to improve the process of people moving out of the state hospital and correctional institutions. This will require local engagement of community stakeholders.
The Roadmap also envisions seeking a Medicaid waiver to make Medicaid the payer for certain housing services such as moving in costs, updating of apartments, and food assistance. James Schroeder the new director of OHA is committed to making this happen.
SECTION 4 CALLS FOR:
Ramping up of data collection, integration, and reporting. Here Together strongly supports Built for Zero because it provides better coordinated systems. Coordination of information technology is necessary because it improves reporting and accountability. Regular Metro reports are needed to inform the public and build support.
Q & A SESSION
•Will Here Together support assistance to micro-villages like WeShine? Here Together has no say on how the money is spent, but it can advocate. Local taxes are collected by Metro and distributed to the three counties who then allocate it to services. Here Together supports micro-villages.
•How can you build capacity while simultaneously delivering services? Yes, that is a tension but it is necessary to do both at once. The pandemic made it even more necessary to get the services out as quickly as possible. At the same time, the capacity of service non-profits and workforce recruitment and retention need to be increased.
•Does Portland Street Response coordinate with non-profit service providers? Cole didn’t know but said that coordination is absolutely necessary. Built for Zero speaks to this.
•How will the Roadmap be used to track goals? Here Together tracks legislation like Homeshare Oregon’s HB3032 that incentivizes homeowners to home share.
•Building community support is needed. Yet there are still many homeless on the streets.
Will there be a positive change in 2023? By the metric of looking out our windows we are not doing well currently. Marshalling all the resources is needed. Built for Zero is a needed methodology. It’s on all of us to continue demonstrating that we believe in what is being done.
•Project Turnkey advocacy is important.
What else can we do to support the Roadmap? Signing on as supporters is one way. The Clackamas County Commission will be voting on Feb. 16 on the proposal to buy the hotel.
•The City is embracing elements of the Roadmap such a safe rest villages. We need to accelerate measures that are working.
•How is funding from Regional Long Term Rental Assistance being paired with city bond funded affordable housing? Measure 102 made public/private partners easier to establish. Subsidies come from both ARLA and the bond funded program.
•What is being proposed to use empty office buildings for housing? Working from home has grown as a result of the pandemic. The future of a lot of downtown office space is uncertain. We have an opportunity to rethink the use of office buildings. It’s complicated but must be pursued.
•Is there an audit function on the Metro fund? There is an audit function built into the Metro supportive housing measure.
•Can service dollars be used for education? Yes, there is flexibility.
•What is the progress in Built for Zero implementation? Cole put a link to a website providing reports. This spring will be when street outreach begins. https://www.multco.us/johs/news/built-zero-working-end-homelessness
•Do we need better communication to the public? Yes, we need a Regional Long Term Rental Assistance dashboard so that the public can see how many people are benefitting.
Les thanked Cole and encouraged everyone to endorse the Roadmap as individuals or congregations. The Alliance has signed up. We all should consider doing so. He added that we are all part of the apparatus for informing the public. Direct people to Here Together website. It is our responsibility to spread the information we learn at First Thursday. It is essential that we take action. There are positive statistics that we should gather and share.
Legislative Forum
Many measures are before the Legislature, such as the Homeshare bill.
Erik Anderson spoke about the Oregon Legislature Information System (OLIS) and a new tool, the Legislative Session Participation Guide developed by the House Democrats to enable people to watch hearings, get information on bills, how to find your legislator and testify. It’s an interactive site. The Legislature makes it easy to get involved.
Les urged attendees to get involved. Our faith communities provide a moral voice.