Recently, city hall announced its "10-Year Plan to End Homelessness." The gist of the plan is to transition city and county services from temporary fixes—like overnight shelters—to more lasting solutions like permanent housing and stable employment. The plan is certainly ambitious enough. The mayor's office promises that by the year 2015 the city will have moved 2,000 men and women permanently off the street.

But if you feel like we've been promised this before, we have.

For the past two decades, local politicians have routinely pledged to "end" or "eradicate" homelessness. When Bud Clark was mayor in 1984, he put forward a "12-Point Plan to Break the Cycle of Homelessness." That plan tried to shift the city's approach from "managing the problem through law enforcement to creating a service-delivery system," according to city hall propaganda at the time.

Yes, Clark's plan did achieve some of its goals and managed to (at least) partially reel in the city's police when it came to dealing with homeless. But even so, the number of men and women living on the city's streets and under its bridges year-round has swelled to an estimated 2,000 men and women. Moreover, during the past few years, city hall has again begun to crackdown on the homeless, with sweeps and sit-lie rules that forbid anyone from camping out on public property.

Ironically, at the same time that Mayor Tom Potter's office is pledging to "end homelessness," they also have begun a crackdown on "aggressive panhandlers" and have established a curfew in the South Park blocks. Although those policies are not necessarily directed at homeless men and women, the crackdown does muddle the issues, essentially validating the idea that "street people" are responsible for a good number of person-to-person crimes.

This Friday, November 4, the City Club is hosting a forum to earnestly look at city hall's efforts to deal with homelessness. But even the organizers seem to be approaching the idea with a bit of skepticism—they snidely entitled the event "Ending Homelessness in Portland: Déjà Vu All Over Again?" (Of course, we shouldn't overlook the irony that the City Club, one of the city's more exclusive organizations, is hosting the event at the upscale Governor Hotel.)

Even City Commissioner Erik Sten, who has been a main proponent for housing issues over the past several years, was a bit guarded in his optimism.

"If you grade us on a curve against other cities," Sten said, "we would probably be at a B+." But he added, "if you put us where any human thinks is reasonable, we're probably at a C-."

According to Sten, since the program began earlier this year, the city has already moved 500 people into permanent housing—especially impressive considering that the original goal was to move 170 people off the street by year's end.

"I was hesitant for the plan to be entitled 'ending homelessness'," admitted Sten. He went on to explain, "but at the same time you can't aspire for anything less—to have a plan for 'less homelessness' and not completely end chronic homelessness."

Sten will sit on the panel on Friday along with Genny Nelson, co-founder of the tough love social service agency, Sisters of the Road. The moderator is former City Commissioner Gretchen Kafoury. Oddly, the panel is also joined by Lisa Schroeder, a co-chair of Portland Business Alliance's Retail Council and owner of Mother's Bistro. Although her biography lists plenty of information about her restaurants and her slow-cooking philosophies, it makes no mention about any background or compassion for social services. Schroeder explained that she was invited to "represent a perspective from downtown businesses that are faced with [homeless people] sleeping or vomiting on our doorsteps."

Fri Nov 4, Governor Hotel, 614 SW 11th, doors open at 11:30 am, program at 12:15 pm, $5 for general seating