Note: This story has been corrected to fix a typo in the amount of Supportive Housing Services tax revenue taken in.

It was supposed to be a routine update with no vote. 

A week after a joint meeting between Portland City Council and the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners, the City Council met to outline the takeaways and progress in a recently adopted Homelessness Response Action Plan. But by the end of the presentation, Portland City Council took the first steps toward severing the city’s intergovernmental agreement with the county.

With the approval of City Commissioners Dan Ryan, Mingus Mapps and Rene Gonzalez, the Council directed the city’s attorney to draft an ordinance that effectively terminates the IGA. The agreement, which was set to be in effect until 2027, lays out how the city and county will collaborate on services surrounding homelessness. The most visible byproduct of the city and county’s collaboration is the Joint Office of Homeless Services (JOHS). Established in 2016, JOHS coordinates funding and services for homeless residents in Portland and throughout the county.

Despite an agreement in place and millions put toward shelters, services, and housing placement, Portland has seen slow progress on moving people off the streets. For more than a year, city commissioners have complained about what they say is a lack of assistance and action from Multnomah County. 

The Council, especially the mayor, say they’ve seen a marked improvement in communication and cross-jurisdictional collaboration to solve homelessness over the past year, but for some city leaders, it hasn’t been enough.

The latest version of the agreement, approved just months ago, stipulates that if the plan didn’t meet certain contract milestones, City Council would “decide whether or not to terminate the Homelessness Response System Intergovernmental Agreement.” The Council now seems poised to do just that.

The move was done without buy-in from City Commissioner Carmen Rubio or Mayor Ted Wheeler, who was absent. Even if the current Council dissolves the agreement, it won’t be around to inherit the outcome. An ordinance wouldn’t go into effect for four months—well into the new year when a new City Council is in place.

For more than two hours, city commissioners took turns airing grievances and asking questions of city staff Wednesday. 

Commissioner Mingus Mapps lamented the inordinate amount of money the cash-strapped Portland Bureau of Transportation spends to clear encampments off roadways and sidewalks. Mapps also cited a lack of clear responsibilities in the current IGA.

“I want to be clear, the city and the county have to work together to solve our homelessness problem,” Mapps said. “I feel like we are ceding an awful lot of our authority and our focus with the current IGA. I think it’s quite clear that the county is trying to solve a different problem and the current [agreement] is not helping us solve our current challenge. I’d like to do a reboot of the current IGA.”

Mapps said the mayor promised the city would get more leverage over the county’s budget and be able to hand over the Safe Rest Villages to the county to manage, but neither of those have happened. He was also dumbfounded by the city’s lack of access to rental assistance vouchers to move people from shelter to housing. 

“It seems to me that it is a completely reasonable ask for the county to prioritize our clients in our Safe Rest Villages,” Mapps asserted. “If we don't prioritize that, our whole system falls apart. It’s also human cruelty. I’m not sure why we send $20-if not more-million dollars a year over to the county to support the Joint Office. In exchange, I'm not sure what we get.”

Commissioner Dan Ryan, who was responsible for getting the Safe Rest Villages up and running, said the city should be “focusing on action and results.”

“Financial swaps with no substance? It’s just time to move forward,” Ryan concluded. “There's just no reason to keep this non-joint office limping along.”

Wednesday’s move by the Council was unexpected. Commissioner Rubio said she had no inkling there would be a decision made about the future of the IGA. 

The move also shocked Multnomah County Board Chair Jessica Vega Pederson, who wasn't at the Council meeting to give feedback or answer questions.

"The majority of City Council says they don’t want to work with the County to end homelessness—the number one issue our community cares about. That is the opposite of responsible leadership,” Vega Pederson wrote in a statement released late Wednesday. “When I’m faced with hard problems I dive in and try to make the decision that will help the most people. It’s clear these officials—candidates desperately vying for your vote this month—have their eyes on their own future and not our collective one. Disappointing.”

Part of the fuel feeding the fire during Wednesday’s lengthy discussion came from Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran, who showed up to give public testimony and stuck around to answer questions. Meieran, who’s been a fierce critic of the county’s response to homelessness, complimented the work done by the Council, while diminishing the actions of her own board. 

Meieran, an emergency room physician, said the county lacks focus and meaningful action, and despite receiving millions in Supportive Housing Services tax revenue, has little to show for it.

“If our people were working together in the way we could, this county should be giving–either by formula or depending on what services–we should be giving the city a significant portion of that [money]  and I can’t believe that we don't, and in fact, we extract money from you, to do what should be our job,” Meieran told the council. “A $395 million budget for homelessness and things are worsening. That should give us pause.”

The Supportive Housing Services (SHS) tax revenue plays a key role in the delivery of services to the unhoused populations in Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties. 

Passed by voters in 2020, the funding is generated through a 1 percent tax on high-income households and businesses that bring in more than $5 million in revenue. The latest round of collections brought in $335.1 million. The money is then doled out to the three counties in the greater Portland region by Metro, the regional government for all three counties. That means that currently, the city of Portland can only access SHS funding through the county. It’s unclear what impact a lapse in the IGA would have on the city’s access to that funding.

“Metro’s contract is with Multnomah County, not the city of Portland,” Emily Green, a public affairs specialist with Metro’s housing department, explained. There are no restrictions or minimums on how much money the county has to kick down to the city. While Portland has largely taken on the responsibility of developing multiple shelter sites, the county is responsible for providing services to the residents in each shelter, which is primarily what the tax was intended for.

“The way the SHS is set up, it’s limited to being spent on supportive housing services, it’s not meant for capital or construction costs for affordable housing,” Green added. However, the funds can be used for constructing shelter sites.

Multnomah County has faced widespread criticism for not spending a huge chunk of the SHS money it takes in. Last spring, in an attempt to address the underspending, Metro put the county on a corrective action plan. The agency says Multnomah County appears to be meeting the guidelines of that plan.

Green said Metro not only dishes out funds to each county, but the agency also has an oversight committee that reviews reports from each county on a quarterly basis. That’s in addition to a work plan with identified goals. 

While Metro may be in tune with how the SHS funds are being spent, Portland city commissioners say they’re not seeing the return on taxpayer investments.

Without taking a formal vote (that would be illegal, since it wasn’t advertised on the agenda), Council President Rene Gonzalez asked for a “temperature check” among the council before asking the city attorney, bluntly, how long it would take to draft an ordinance for the Council’s consideration. 

The Council could take a formal vote on the IGA as soon as Oct. 24.