Dissatisfaction over Mayor Ted Wheeler's inaugural budget spilled out into a tense—albeit courteous—public hearing Wednesday, as Wheeler faced questions about money he's proposing to spend on the city's homelessness crisis.

As we noted in this week's paper, Wheeler's budget proposes putting $25 million toward the city/county Joint Office of Homeless Services, the same amount that Multnomah County has proposed spending.

It's more cash than the office had last year, but because several million is restricted by state law in how it can be used, the homeless services office has suggested that $50 million isn't enough to maintain services.

In fact, in an April 21 memo [PDF] first reported on by Willamette Week, JOHS Director Marc Jolin suggested that the office might have to cut "ongoing and temporary shelter capacity" and "programs that provide housing placement from the streets and shelter" if the city didn't pony up an additional $2.6 million.

"Without the City’s contribution," he wrote, "we will not lose all the available capacity, but we will have to close some existing year-round shelters for women, DV, or families, and/or not open temporary low-barrier shelter for vulnerable adults."

That set an interesting stage Wednesday, when both Wheeler and Kafoury showed up to a meeting of the coordinating board for A Home For Everyone, the community task force that's been strategizing on how best to fight homelessness.

At the meeting's outset, Wheeler immediately broached the subject of the budget, saying "we matched the county dollar for dollar in terms of our contribution."

It wasn't enough to stave off questions: Would shelter beds really be jeopardized by the city budget? Wheeler suggested the group was getting ahead of itself, saying the budget hadn't even been voted on.

"It's my understanding that then we get to decide how those resources get allocated," he said. "Am I right or am I wrong?"

Michael Buonocore, executive director of county housing authority Home Forward, pressed, saying: "The question of a reduction in shelter beds is definitely on folks' minds."

And Kafoury added: "My budget actually proposed going above and beyond last year's funding. It's not really apples to apples to talk about it in the way it's been described."

The central difference between the county's position and the city's—at least right now—is how homeless cash should be dolled out. When the two governments began pooling cash to fend off the homelessness and housing emergency in 2015, Portland put in a larger initial chunk of cash than Multnomah County.

From the county's vantage, that allocation should serve as a baseline, and each government should match the other's increases in funding (a scenario which would mean the city is always spending more). Kafoury's budget includes $3.2 million more for homelessness than the county spent last year.

The city is more inclined to think that each jurisdiction is responsible for an equal annual stake, which gets to Wheeler's pointing out several times yesterday that he'd proposed spending just as much as Multnomah County (his budget includes around $400,000 more than former Mayor Charlie Hales offered up initially last year). The mayor also is proposing spending more money on "campsite clean-ups" a term which can mean both refuse collection and forcing campers to move along.

"The ask was $50 million," he said. "I presumed that ask was to do the things we need to do. I'm confused why... before we've allocated the budget, why we're already talking about what basic services we're not going to provide. Something is flawed here."

He continued: "Once the money's in the pot, then we get to have a conversation about how to spend it right... To be honest, I'm not seeing a narrative other than one that's sharply negative."

Then Wheeler got a touch negative himself. He noted that nearly a third of his proposed spending for the Homelessness Office—$8 million—is "one-time" money not guaranteed to be available next year, and called the debate over funding "city-county budget poker."

"I want to make sure we're not building a house of cards here and setting unrealistic expectations," he said.

To which Kafoury replied that much of the county's proposed portion of the homelessness money was already recurring, "ongoing" cash.

"We made some really tough decisions this year, and took some of the money that last year was one-time only and converted it into ongoing," she said. "We did make tough cuts."

The conversation over how much to spend on one of the city's most pressing issues is already important, but it's likely to take on a bit more urgent tone before the budgets are said and done. At some point this month, the county's expected to release the latest "official" homeless count—the best measure of how well Portland's dealing with the issue, albeit an imperfect one.

As we wrote in a 2015 story, A Home For Everyone had set forth a strategy—paid for by the city and county—for slashing 2015's homeless figures in half by this year. Essentially no one expects that to happen.