“Turned Out onto the Streets.”

STATEWIDE EMPLOYMENT numbers released Monday, March 16, show
Oregon’s unemployment rate at 10.8 percent, its worst since 1984. But
forget the state at large: You won’t even have to leave Portland city
limits to experience the recession in all its terrifying reality over
the coming months.

The City of Portland is facing an $8.8 million cut to its general
fund this year, or roughly 2.6 percent in cuts across the board. The
police bureau plans to close North and Southeast Precincts to
accommodate the cuts, while the fire bureau may have to close a
station. The biggest cuts, however, will affect the city’s one-time
funding allocations, which are usually taken from the city’s budget
surplus. Citywide one-time funding will be reduced by almost 90
percent, from $24.9 million last year to a total of $2.5 million this
year.

The one-time funding cuts hit some programs that have been
controversial since their inception: The Office of Neighborhood
Involvement stands to lose its mediation programs and half of its
graffiti abatement program. The Bureau of Planning and Sustainability
may lose $2.6 million in funding for projects like the Portland Plan
and Vision into Action, while the Office of Human Relations may lose
half the funding for its new Human Rights Commission.

Meanwhile, other one-time funding cuts could affect Portland’s most
vulnerable when they need help most. Last year, for example, the Bureau
of Housing relied on just over $6 million in one-time funding for
services like homeless outreach, shelters for men and women,
severe-weather shelters, and employment programs. This year, funding
for those programs geared toward ending homelessness will be axed to
just $2.5 million, unless council can find cash elsewhere.

“This is not the year to be cutting these programs,” says the city’s
homeless program manager, Sally Erickson. “I know we have a lot of
support from city council—we’re just hanging in there.”

Over the past week, representatives from each city bureau have
lobbied council to preserve their programs at budget work sessions.
Now, Mayor Sam Adams has to finalize his budget in consultation with
the Office of Management and Finance and present the final cuts to
council for approval in May.

“We have to make cuts, but I want to prioritize protecting services
and programs that address the needs of those being hit hardest by this
recession,” says Adams.

On the Multnomah County level, the budget is severely squeezed in
two directions. County Chair Ted Wheeler has asked all departments to
slash their budgets 12 percent to make up for plummeting tax revenues
that have helped create a $36.5 million hole in the county’s general
fund. But the state, which is facing a $3 billion budget hole of its
own, is also planning to cut funding to many county programs
significantly or entirely.

“We have cut our budget eight years in a row and we have cut to the
bone. The cuts we’re making now are crazy if you’re looking out for the
long-term health of the community,” says County Commissioner Jeff
Cogen.

Just like the cuts at the city level, slashing budgets at the county
level will hit Portland’s most vulnerable populations the hardest. The
governor’s projected budget would axe funding for the Hooper Detox
Center, which picks 11,000 intoxicated people up off the county’s
streets every year, from $804,000 to $0.

Oregon already ranks 45th in the nation for access to addiction
treatment, according to Department of Human Services spokesman Dave
Austin, but the governor’s budget cuts reduce local rehab services
even further. The county currently funds 160 beds in live-in addiction
programs that treat 500 people per year—including 165 women
accompanied by children. Under the current budget projections, the
county will have to slice that to just 16 beds.

The cuts in the mental health services budget are equally extreme.
The county’s mobile crisis response team is dispatched on 11,500
different calls each year to deal with mentally ill people who are
causing some sort of danger in the community. The governor cut the
projected budgets of that program, and the county’s walk-in clinic,
which treats 5,000 urgent mental health cases a year, by 90
percent.

Austin hopes the legislature will come up with funding, maybe from
the federal stimulus package, to patch up some of the cuts. “The
alternative is pretty scary,” he says. “That will be people who are the
most vulnerable being turned out onto the streets. And that’s not
figurative language.”

“We can’t just cut our way out of this problem. We do need to raise
some taxes,” says Cogen, who expects to announce new options for county
revenue within the next few weeks.