The Portland Housing Bureau is earmarking tens of thousands of dollars to buy homeless Portlanders bus tickets out of town in coming months, provided they can prove that greener pastures await elsewhere.
In an unusual request out of step the city’s normal budget process this morning, the bureau said that that money—along with another $2 million for other efforts—are necessary as Portland struggles to fight its homeless crisis amid rising rents and ongoing no-cause evictions.
The $30,000 request for bus tickets is the first we’ve heard of the proposal. It didn’t show up in documents posted last week, detailing the funding requests from the housing bureau. Instead, it was introduced as an amendment in council chambers.
Sally Erickson, who leads the housing bureau’s efforts against homelessness, told Portland City Council that the money is “for homeless people who are stranded here.”
“They need assistance getting back to a place where there is a support system,” Erickson said. “Where there’s a place where they might be able to stay permanently. Its something that we’re looking to start up.”
Details on the effort were scarce at the hearing (we’ve reached out to the housing bureau with questions), but Erickson specifically compared the effort to San Francisco’s Homeward Bound program, in which the city awards bus tickets to homeless people if they can prove they have a place to stay, they remain sober during travel, and are “medically stable enough to travel unassisted to the destination.” (The program’s not always followed those rules.)
“This isn’t just handing out a bus ticket at all,” Erickson said.
Though new, the $30,000 request was a tiny fraction of the $2.75 million the housing bureau and Office of Management and Finance (OMF) requested this morning to help bolster their efforts fighting homelessness. As we noted in this week’s paper, the OMF—which manages Portland’s business affairs—has had an outsized role managing new efforts since the city declared a housing emergency. In many cases, it’s taken on projects that would typically be handled by the housing bureau.
That was laid bare this morning, when an amendment to the OMF’s share of the $2.75 million request increased by nearly three fold. City council approved $686,522 to reimburse the bureau for management of two organized campsites, maintenance on two new temporary homeless shelters, and a broker who’s scouting for new shelter sites.
The OMF’s newfound role is causing concern among some officials—notably Commissioner Nick Fish, who used to oversee housing.
“I continue to believe that the housing bureau should be leading this effort,” he said this morning. “We should be consolidating and streamlining and aligning” services.
The housing bureau got the larger chunk of change today, though, and much of that was to bolster rent assistance agencies offer to people at risk of becoming homeless. As Marc Jolin, director of the A Home For Everyone Coalition, told City Council, that money’s drying up far quicker as rents rise.
Jolin spoke of thousands of people each month pushed to the brink of homelessness by the city’s rental crisis. “If we want to stem the in-flow of people onto our streets… we desperately need additional rent assistance dollars.”
In the end he got them. A unanimous city council vote—Housing Commissioner Dan Saltzman was absent—approved the $2.75 million. It also potentially set up expectations for next year’s budget, which council is just beginning to consider.
Requests like this morning’s—asks for general fund money that occur outside of the typical budget process— have been sort of controversial in the past. When City Council recently decided to put taxes collected from Airbnb and similar services toward housing, Commissioner Amanda Fritz bristled at the move, arguing it should be done within the city’s budget process. But Fritz presented no such concerns today.
Oh right, because that’s a fucking solution. Let’s not solve the problem or anything! Portland is always NIMBY about these problems whether it be homeless people in your precious neighborhoods or air quality in Middle Class enclaves. You don’t give a shit about poor people. No news there.
@TheOnlySanePersonInTheWorld:
‘[…] The city awards bus tickets to homeless people if they can prove they have a place to stay, they remain sober during travel, and are “medically stable enough to travel unassisted to the destination.”‘
The intent, apparently, is to get people back to folks who can provide shelter and aid for them — “prove they have a place to stay” and all that. That sounds like a reasonable solution to me. (On a triage level, at least. Solving the poverty that leads to homelessness is a national issue.)
I like Salt Lake City’s “Housing First” model better. This has such a possibility of slipping into Cheyenne, Wyoming’s old model of “send them to somewhere else” fund (imagining Cheyenne wasn’t alone). . . Nice idea that these folks have a support system who want them back and will actually “step up”. Not my experience.
I just want some numbers to back up the term “crisis”. how long has the estimated population been around 4,000? Has it gone up at all?
And I also would like to hear them justify why homeless needs to be “solved”. I don’t do drugs just go to school and work, and I plan on cleaning up after the tweakers this weekend. I like my campsite. It is just a different way of life which contrast to theirs, thus they feel a need to “solve” it which means big trouble for me!!
There are 1,300 homes and condos in Detroit, MI for sale at $50,000 or less. Portland could use the millions set aside for the homeless and provide houses for the homeless. Migration is a normal part of life. People go to where they can afford to live. This is an opportunity to benefit two communities. Portland where we have too many people with too few houses and Detroit where they have too few people and too many houses.
Every time the police bust me for sleeping on dogshit in the park, the first thing they ask is if Portland paid my airfare.
Honolulu mayor, the deceased, Robin Williams, impersonator, Kuirk Cluckwell, is sucking up to Utah’s homeless czar. After the election, it’s back to plan A, rounding up the homeless and confining them to Sand Island concentration camp. a toxic waste dump and sewage treatment facility.
This is disgusting, way to pass the problem on to others instead of doing your part to help the poorest and most vulnerable members of your community. This attitude makes me sick.
Hey, it’s a free bus ticket. Even poor folk like to travel. When they get to where they’re going and are ready to leave, where ever it is they’re at, that place will pay their fare back to Portland. No problemo.
Honolulu makes you sign promising not to return to Havvai’i, but that’s unconstitutional, so no sweat.
$30k isn’t really a lot of money so it’s possible that this really is a fund for use in a small set of conditions, or it’s possible that as a cis gay white male home owner I’m just a naïve pawn in an overly elaborate scheme to ______ (forgive me for not having a clear sense of what this scheme does, like I said, naïve). Does the bus go to Sand Island? That sounds like a long drive. I hope that road is better maintained than Portland city streets (at least we have that shiny new street car).
Sand Island, only one road in and the same road out. You could swim to shore if you don’t mind the sewage discharge. There is likely to be a guard post with gate, where you have to show a pass to come and go. If the court makes a plea deal or probation, for being busted too many times, for sleeping on dogshit in the park, then the guests will have to stay confined on Sand Island.
The US government has reprimanded Havvai’i for not utilizing Federal grants disbursed several years ago for the benefit of homeless. The good old boys have probably borrowed the funds, and speculated with them on oil futures. Now, they are shitting their pants over how to put the money back before they get audited.
A majority of deceased voters elected the mayor who is building light rail against the will of the people. He has squeezed every penny from transportation to pay for it, cutting bus service in half. Now, you wait a long time to ride in an over crowded sardine can.
The Havvai’i Supreme Court ruled a few years ago, that it’s unconstitutional to prohibit people from camping on State land. The Mayor and Governor ignore that, however, and continue to persecute the homeless.