Systemic Dysfunction Stands in the Way of Effective Homelessness Policies
How the heck did we get here? When I moved to Portland in the early 2000s, the city topped the list of most livable cities in the country — and the world. Fast forward 20 years. Almost every neighborhood has one or more homeless camps. Businesses report repeated break-ins or hold-ups. Fires from homeless camps threaten homes and businesses. Much of downtown remains boarded up, while tourists and workers stay away.
Homeless advocates and their media enablers play the role of Chico Marx in “Duck Soup,” with their claims that it’s not really that bad: “Well, who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” In the meantime, local officials throw up their hands and say that any attempt to rein in the crime, nuisances and public health hazards would be “inhumane.”
But, things may be slowly changing for the better. It seems local officials looked at the calendar and realized 2022 is an election year. That “oh, crap” moment has brought some clarity that they’d better look like they’re doing something — anything — to make life more livable for the people who cast the ballots and pay the taxes.
In a previous newsletter, I asked: What if everything we thought we knew about homelessness was wrong? I argued that our current thinking is backwards. Rather than homelessness being a housing affordability problem that leads to mental illness or substance abuse, it’s more likely we have a mental health and substance abuse crisis that’s leading to homelessness. If I’m right, Oregon’s current approach to addressing homelessness, based on a “housing first” model, is doomed to fail.
Last month, I described some ways to address homelessness, if my observations are correct. First, we should adopt a “shelter first, housing earned” approach. Second, we must provide resources to help people find shelter and to bridge people from shelter to housing. Third, we should address the criminal behavior that stems from substance abuse. Drug users who are arrested for crimes while under the influence to support their addictions should be given a choice of rehab or jail. We need to arrest the suppliers.
This month, I describe the government dysfunction that got us where we are today, and how it interacts with the constellation of nonprofits and advocates often described as the Homeless Industrial Complex, who seem to have little interest in reducing the number of people sleeping outdoors. Critics will say “That’s not how the system actually works.” But, I’m not talking about intergovernmental agreements, flow charts or council resolutions. I’m talking about how it works in practice. How it really works.
Dysfunction is built into Portland local government. The City of Portland, Multnomah County and the Metro regional government each have overlapping and often conflicting authority over housing and homelessness issues. Both the city and the county have responsibility for housing and homelessness programs. The traditional split was that the city would provide “stuff” and the county would provide services. That worked out about as well as you’d expect, so the city and county created a “Joint Office of Homeless Services,” which succeeded in streamlining the dysfunction without reducing homelessness.
Metro, the Portland area’s “unique” regional government, adds yet another layer of bureaucracy and taxes. In addition to Portland’s affordable housing bond program, Metro has one, too. The construction costs of these projects is staggering — approximately $360,000 per unit.
In addition to the city and county homeless services, last year Metro jumped into the mix with its “Supportive Housing Services Program.” The program imposes two new income taxes, one on personal income and one on business income. It created both an oversight committee and a “Tri-County Planning Body.” That’s so much bureaucracy that the Metro Auditor estimates as much as 36% of the money Metro hopes to collect will be wasted on overhead and administration. And, that doesn’t count the overhead of the nonprofits who will be providing the services. In the end, it’s possible that half the money collected won’t make it to the people Metro hopes to serve.
The dysfunction is more than institutional, it’s also interpersonal. It’s no secret that Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury don’t see eye-to-eye (to put it mildly) on homelessness policies. Broadly speaking, Wheeler understands the importance of a more rapid and effective effort to get the unsheltered off the streets and out of the parks. Kafoury opposes these efforts, dismissing shelters as “warehousing” the homeless and urging patience while the region waits — possibly decades — for more permanent supportive housing to be built. Kafoury seemed to go out of her way to stifle the conversion of the never-used Wapato Jail into the now-successful Bybee Lakes Hope Center. In the meantime, Metro President Lynn Peterson lords over the tax money Metro hopes will flow in from the new income taxes and furtively avoids any discussion of solutions.
Swirling around this sea of agencies and programs are the nonprofits who serve the homeless. It’s often unclear what services they actually provide or, more importantly, how effective they are. For example, in 2020, one of the largest nonprofit homeless service providers in the region reported it brought in $9.7 million in revenues, with 85% of the money coming from government grants. Yet, the organization was able to place only 190 households in stable housing. In pre-pandemic 2019, it was only 160 families. And this is one of the more respected and successful organizations.
What few people understand is that, for most of these organizations, finding shelter for the unsheltered is not their main mission. Instead, most of their programmatic spending goes toward rent support for people who are already in housing. While they may be helping to keep people out of homelessness, they are doing little to help shelter those who are actually homeless. Metro’s program is called the “Supportive Housing Services” program because the main focus of the program is rental assistance, not sheltering the unsheltered. That’s why Metro’s program is doomed to fail: What people thought they voted for is wildly different from what Metro says it will deliver.
Despite the expected gusher of cash from Metro’s new taxes, record tax collections, and funds flooding in from the federal government, residents and businesses are upset that none of that money seems to be making a dent in the number of tents and tarps in the region. They are outraged that crime and violence are escalating.
Like a sleepwalker who wakes up after tripping over the cat, Mayor Wheeler has finally decided that enough is enough. Prompted by a report that 70% of pedestrians killed last year were homeless, he declared an emergency and banned camping along high-crash corridors in the city and ordered the city to begin clearing the camps. Around the same time, his office circulated a memo to Multnomah County, Metro, and the governor’s office outlining ideas to end homeless camping across the city and to compel campers to move into emergency shelters.
On cue, the nonprofits and advocacy groups blasted the order and the proposed plans. A group led by Oregon Walks (whose executive director is running unopposed for a Metro council seat) published a press release saying the city should “close down high crash corridors and intersections to auto traffic and reduce speed limits to 20 mph on all city-owned facilities.” The executive director of JOIN, a nonprofit service provider, complained that some of these high-crash corridors are near services and, “to force them out, if it’s a place that works for them … is also not a solution.”
It makes you wonder who’s in charge. Rather than serving the voters, many of these advocates argue we should be catering to the demands of the homeless. A recent poll of Portland-area voters reports 83% support for requiring people currently living outside to sleep in shelters or in designated camping locations. In contrast, the JOIN chief tells us instead that we need “to meet them where they’re at, but in a way that allows them the dignity of being a human and maintaining some of their autonomy.”
The message is clear: The majority of Portlanders who go to work, pay their taxes, and stay out of trouble need to get out of the way to let people exercise their “autonomy” to self-medicate, commit crimes, and let their campfires get out of control. They seem to miss the point that the freedom of individual liberty comes with the burden of personal responsibility.
People are outraged and saddened that Portland’s livability has fallen so far so fast. They’re right. But worse than the outrage is the fear. The fear that Portland hasn’t hit bottom yet, that it could still get worse. That’s a legitimate fear — no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse. Despite the mayor’s rediscovered energy to do something meaningful, he’s just one person sailing into a sea of opposition from colleagues on city council, the county and Metro, as well as the myriad of nonprofits whose livelihoods depend on a steady stream of taxpayer money. Hope springs eternal, so I’m hopeful our elected will get serious about homelessness, but I’m not optimistic.