The Multnomah County Commission voted unanimously Thursday to direct $28 million in excess funds toward an array of rental assistance programs, dodging a request from Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office to spend some of those dollars on the city’s mass homeless encampment plan. Due to an unpredicted influx in revenue collected through the regional homeless services […]
City Hall
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Portland Street Response Sees 700 Percent Increase In Workload After Citywide Expansion
The latest report on the first response team exposes weak spots in the rapidly expanding program.
Portland Street Response (PSR) has experienced a surge in demand following the first response team’s citywide expansion in April 2022. In the six-month window following the expansion, PSR workers responded to 717 percent more calls than they did during the same time period in 2021, according to a Portland State University study released Thursday. While […]
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How a California Nonprofit Has Shaped City Council’s Homeless Encampment Plan
Email records shows how input from an out-of-state organization took precedent over local expertise.
Portland homeless shelter providers were taken by surprise in October when Mayor Ted Wheeler and City Commissioner Dan Ryan unveiled a plan to open several large-scale outdoor homeless encampments across town. Many longtime organizations, several of which already ran outdoor shelters similar to the proposed camps, had expected the city to seek their input in […]
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Q&A: Small Business Advocate Ashley Henry on How City Money Goes Into the Pockets of the PBA
Henry says city dollars are directly subsidizing the work and the political views of the powerful lobbying group.
In June 2022, Ashley Henry stepped down as the head of Business for a Better Portland—a Portland business advocacy organization Henry had founded five years prior—and handed the role over to former state Representative Karin Power. At the time, it was characterized as a standard decision to transition leadership, rooted in Henry’s need to take […]
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City Council Passes $27 Million Budget Package to Fund Homeless Encampment Plan
According to the county, the budget package requires cuts that could lead to at least two current homeless shelters shuttering within the year—and the elimination of rent assistance programs.
Portland City Council voted 3-0 Wednesday morning to approve a controversial budget package that lays the groundwork for a plan to criminalize street camping and build mass encampments to hold unhoused Portlanders by 2024. Both city commissioners Carmen Rubio and Jo Ann Hardesty were absent for the morning’s vote. (According to council staff, Hardesty is […]
Posted inHousing
City Council Will Threaten to Withhold Homeless Service Funding Unless County Pays for Rental Assistance
Those who’ve been closely following the city’s relationship with the county in recent years consider this a political play.
Portland City Council is prepared Thursday to gut the annual budget for the region’s agency dedicated to addressing homelessness if county legislators don’t dole out additional funding to cover regional rent assistance. The request illustrates a growing animosity between members of city council and the county board of commissioners, and has been characterized as “political […]
Posted inCity Hall
But Wait, There’s More: The Next Phase of Portland Charter Amendments
The Charter Review Commission wants your feedback on another round of potenial amendments.
Just over a week after Portlanders voted to significantly alter the city’s form of government through amendments to the city charter, residents will have another opportunity to shape Portland’s founding document. On Thursday, the volunteer commission appointed to review the charter will hold its first public hearing on additional proposed amendments to the charter, which […]
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Mayor Proposes First Round of Funding to Run Sanctioned Homeless Encampments
The complete proposal will need significantly more funding—and the buy-in of skeptical neighborhood groups—to be realized.
Mayor Ted Wheeler has outlined the preliminary costs of City Council’s plan to build sanctioned camping sites across the city in conjunction with a citywide ban on unsheltered homelessness. At a council work session Thursday, he put a $27 million price tag on the start-up costs of the sweeping proposal, which pledges to create up […]
Posted inElection 2022
Portland Voters Approved Sweeping Charter Reforms: What Happens Now?
Portland voters approved a package of city charter amendments Tuesday that would expand city council, hire a city administrator, and alter the city’s voting system, launching a two year process of significantly overhauling Portland’s governance structure. The new system laid out in Measure 26-228, which had collected 56 percent of the vote as of Wednesday […]
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City Council Approves Unfunded Plan to Criminalize Unsheltered Homelessness
Portland City Council voted Thursday to approve a plan to ban unsheltered homelessness and create mass outdoor homeless encampments across the city. The package of five resolutions, introduced by Mayor Ted Wheeler and City Commissioner Dan Ryan two weeks ago, outlines a number of aspirational and unfunded plans to address homelessness and housing needs. The […]
Posted inHousing
Is City Council’s Proposal to Ban Unsheltered Homelessness Legal?
A review of recent cases by attorneys familiar with laws regarding homelessness finds that it might not be.
As Mayor Ted Wheeler and Commissioner Dan Ryan have fast-tracked a proposal to criminalize homeless camping and create mass encampments through City Council, few have discussed whether or not the plan would pass legal muster. A review of recent cases by attorneys familiar with laws regarding homelessness, however, finds that it might not. “No matter […]
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Homeless Portlanders Urge City Officials to Reconsider Mass Encampment Plan
Mayor Wheeler and Commissioner Ryan were asked to involve the perspective of homeless Portlanders before passing a plan to criminalize homelessness in Portland.
Homeless Portlanders had a captive audience in Mayor Ted Wheeler and City Commissioner Dan Ryan Tuesday afternoon in a public forum where Portlanders who’ve experienced homelessness were invited to share their thoughts on the politicians’ joint proposal to ban camping citywide. “With the camping ban, you’re saying the one space we’re carved out to be […]