Hundreds of homeless Portlanders report mistrust in the process for addressing complaints at the city’s alternative shelters, including concerns associated with fairness in treatment of residents, stay limits, and threatening behavior or sexual misconduct by staff. Others say they’re grateful for a roof over their head.
The Ombudsman’s office, nested in the Portland City Auditor’s office, is responsible for investigating complaints and ensuring the city treats people fairly. On Wednesday, the Ombudsman’s office released the results of a survey it conducted in April among current and former homeless Portlanders living at nine of the city’s alternative shelter sites.
Alternative shelter sites, often called Safe Rest Villages, allow people to live onsite for an extended period of time, often in single-occupancy tiny homes, or areas where people can park RVs without running the risk of being towed by the city. Alternative shelters operate differently from Mayor Keith Wilson’s emergency overnight congregate shelters, which require people to leave each morning and line up for a bed each evening.
The Ombudsman’s office wrote in its report that an increasing number of complaints have been filed from people living at alternative shelter sites since 2023.
The city sent the survey to 1,040 people, and over 200 people responded to the survey, which asked if concerns some homeless residents raised in formal complaints represented the experiences of others living at the sites.
City shelter sites have faced scrutiny in recent months, particularly sites run by the California nonprofit Urban Alchemy. The local media outlet KATU reported on the high volume of complaints out of the nonprofit’s sites earlier this year. And the Mercury reported in August that amid those serious allegations of misconduct, including sexual harassment and sexual assault, Portland Solutions coordinated with Urban Alchemy’s PR firm to polish its image.
The sites included in the Ombudsman’s survey have four different shelter operators, including five sites run by Urban Alchemy, two run by Sunstone Way, one RV park by the Salvation Army, and another village run by Cultivate Initiatives.
Portland Solutions is the office that serves under the mayor and oversees the city’s shelter program. Laura Rude, Portland Solutions spokesperson, said the office will incorporate feedback collected from the Ombudsman’s survey into its ongoing efforts to improve services.
“Our policies and practices adapt in real time whenever we see opportunities for improvement or areas where change is needed,” Rude said. “We are continuously adjusting our shelter model to better serve participants and better support staff.”
Grievances show distrust in complaint process
The results of the survey showed that with the exception of the 60-unit Menlo Park village, run by Cultivate Initiatives, guests had concerns that their grievances were not being handled properly. The most negative feedback in the survey was about staff failing to address concerns when homeless Portlanders filed a grievance. More than half of respondents said they either disagreed or strongly disagreed that issues reported to staff were handled well.
“All complaints I had would only be handled in house and never moved up the chain,” one respondent wrote. “Was pushed to believe they would retaliate towards me if I tried to pursue any issues.”
That was most acute at the North Portland Road site run by Urban Alchemy, where over 60 percent of the 45 surveyed guests felt their issues were not addressed—7 percent said they believed the issues were handled well.
At Menlo Park, for comparison, nearly 42 percent said they agreed that issues they raised with staff were handled well.
Exit process draws scrutiny
In early February, Mayor Keith Wilson began enforcing a 120-day stay limit for people living at the city’s alternative shelters. At the time, Wilson said the idea was to “incentivize individuals to move through our emergency shelter system and into permanent housing.”
Guests at the sites were required to show they were engaging with service providers, or risk losing their access to the sites.
The move upset local homeless advocates, including housing leaders at City Hall. City Councilor Candace Avalos told the Mercury at the time that “a safe bed is not a reward to be earned—it’s a baseline of human dignity.”
Other homeless Portlanders living at the sites raised concerns about staff unfairly evicting them—or “exiting” them, as the city refers to it. One survey respondent said they had experienced a wrongful exit in early January, just before Wilson’s rules went into effect across the city’s shelter continuum.
“When I was wrongfully exited at the end of January, I was told that it was due to lack of engagement, even though I had made many efforts to reach out, no one would be straight with me on who my care coordinator was,” they wrote. “I was given less than [five] hours on the same day that they exited me.”
Some respondents reported they had been kicked out for violating a rule that requires them to not leave the site for more than 72 hours at a time. But technical issues, some complained, led to managers at some sites not documenting their check-in, leading to their eviction. Others said they were kicked out after staff claimed they were using drugs, despite the guests denying the claims and sharing video evidence.
The majority of complaints about the exit process stemmed from the Clinton Triangle, run by Urban Alchemy, where just 13 percent of the 31 guests who responded said they agreed the operator made fair decisions about exits. Nearly 57 percent disagreed, and 30 percent were neutral. That raised concerns for some guests who reported they were afraid of being evicted, even if they had not been kicked out. The sites serve as a place for people experiencing homelessness to find stability and, ideally, transition to housing they can afford.
Staff conduct dominates survey responses
Analysis of the survey showed more than half of the 228 responses mentioned staff—the largest number of comments on the survey. Of those, 109 wrote purely negative comments—with most outlining concerns that staff were not doing their jobs. Others—including 35 percent of respondents—accused staff of being unfair; nearly 10 percent alleged that staff engaged in violence or threatening behavior, and seven comments alleged drug use, sales, or sexual misconduct.
“I’ve been sexually harassed by staff,” one respondent wrote. “I’ve been retaliated against. Life threatened.”
That has remained an issue, particularly at sites run by Urban Alchemy. Reporting in KATU earlier this year outlined more than 80 complaints that guests filed with the city from 2023 to 2025. A handful of those complaints alleged sexual misconduct, drug dealing, and drug use by staff at the sites.
But six city councilors blocked efforts brought by City Councilor Mitch Green in May that would have restricted funding to Urban Alchemy in an attempt to address the issues homeless Portlanders have raised. The City Council also engaged in some oversight in July regarding Urban Alchemy, after Councilors Avalos and Sameer Kanal requested information following the reports of misconduct. The Mercury reported in August that complaints had risen to at least 156, and the city appeared to work closely with the nonprofit to prioritize a public messaging strategy over full transparency about the complaints and the investigative process.
Asked how Portland Solutions can assure Portlanders that it will be transparent regarding any future oversight efforts, Rude referenced responses provided in the July oversight meeting about its processes.
Not all of the feedback was negative. Of the 128 responses, 19 people wrote positive comments about staff as well. One said they were greeted with love and respect. Another said staff works with people who want to be there and handle issues quickly and fairly.
“There are a lot of shelter staff that care about what they do,” another said. “And really want to help us.”
Rude said the needs on the street are complex, including severe mental illness, substance use disorder, trauma, long-term disability, and the challenges are shouldered by shelter staff. She added that Portland Solutions’ driving ambition is to help those living on the street find a path to stability and housing.
“We respond to community concerns about the impacts of homelessness,” Rude said. “We send our outreach team to challenging encampments, sometimes working side by side with police in highly volatile situations. And we provide shelter to thousands of people every year.”
Some residents agree, according to the report. Particularly, some survey respondents outlined gratitude for simply having a place to say, rather than living on the streets.
“First of all I want whomever to know that I’m extremely grateful for the roof over my head,” one person wrote. “I cannot stress that enough. To be a single homeless woman is borderline hell on Earth. So, I’m forever grateful for the shelter.”
Still, the Ombudsman’s survey shows there is room for improvement, if homeless Portlanders have anything to say about it.
“The night shift also rations us on water saying we can only have two fingers worth of a 1-gallon jug per night,” one homeless Portlander wrote in the survey.
