City-County 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness

Sisters’ Position Statement on Portland and Multnomah County’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness

What does Sisters think of the 10 Year Plan?

Quick response:
Sisters believes that the 10 Year Plan will never succeed in ending homelessness.  The money needed to accomplish these plans locally has not been secured and there is no new dedicated federal funding to make these plans happen.

A little more info:
Homelessness will continue to exist even with 10 Year Plans until the federal government makes a serious and sizable commitment to funding the production, subsidization, and preservation of affordable housing.  It’s only fair that everyone has a safe, decent place to live.  Any efforts that Portland and Multnomah County make to end homelessness will not be enough without this commitment from federal government.

Over the last 25 years, the federal government has made drastic cutbacks to affordable housing, which led to the emergence of massive episodes of homeless in the 1980s which continues today.  The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) budget has dropped 65% since 1978 from over $83 billion to $29 billion in 2006.

The federal government provides funding to local communities with 10 Year Plans through HUD’s McKinney homeless assistance dollars.  However, over the last 25 years, the federal government has cut funding for affordable housing programs.

The federal government’s decision to fund supportive housing with HUD homeless assistance grants – rather than with HUD housing programs – is a timely illustration of ongoing and long-term policies that have resulted in the dismantling of HUD affordable housing and the rise of mass homelessness.  Homelessness will never be eradicated if the federal government continues to try to solve the problem without going to the root of it and funding affordable housing programs.

Also, Portland and Multnomah County’s 10 Year Plan focuses on people who are chronically homeless, which does not include everyone who is homeless.  Rather, it focuses on people who meet a specific definition.  HUD defines a chronically homeless person as an unaccompanied individual with a disabling condition who has been living in a place not meant for human habitation or in an emergency shelter for at least a year or has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the last three years.  This means that the 10 Year Plan does not include, for example, people who are sleeping in their cars or people who are doubled up in a friend or family member’s home.

Finally, only 28% of 10 Year Plans to End Homelessness have involved currently or formerly homeless individuals. At Sisters we believe that in order to solve homelessness, we need to listen to the people with the experience.

History of Sisters’ Involvement with the 10 Year Plan

by Keith Vann and Genny Nelson

On November 19, 2003, more than 60 community advocates, service providers, grantors, and local government officials convened to create a 10-year plan to end homelessness in Portland and Multnomah County.  As the recipient of more than $9.2M in federal funding for homeless services in 2003, Portland was one of the first cities federally mandated to produce such a plan.

Two primary bodies were designated to inform and guide the planning process.  The first, the Citizens Commission, would make final plan recommendations to the City and County.  The second, the Coordinating Committee, would compile ongoing workgroup input from both local homeless service providers and concerned citizens.

Sisters Of The Road/crossroads was instrumental in getting homeless representation on the 18-member Citizens Commission.  Without Sisters’ hard work and persistence, the homeless community would have had no voice at all on a commission tasked with solving the very problems they face.  I was proud to be recommended by them for this important position.

The announcement, on December 20, 2004, of Portland’s latest homeless plan was long overdue.  Homelessness here had surpassed crisis levels.  Currently over 2300 people sleep outside on any given night.  Hundreds of visibly homeless people fill benches, bus stops, doorways, and sidewalks throughout the Downtown and Old Town/Chinatown neighborhoods.  In large part, these folks are the primary constituents of Sisters Of The Road and our unique community for now since 1979.

Well before November 19, 2003, Sisters Of The Road/crossroads had identified several key concerns we believed imperative for a successful 10-year plan to end homelessness in Portland and Multnomah County.  In particular, we were convinced that the final plan would be remiss if it did not target the barriers that prevent so many of our constituents from escaping a vicious cycle of homelessness.  It is a core belief of Sisters that homelessness cannot truly be ended without identifying and addressing the underlying unique factors that force each person from their home.  The 10-year plan contains Sisters’ preliminary report of our research with people who have a direct experience of homelessness, including barriers they face.

Additionally, we created a draft vision statement for the Citizens Commission that advocated for a systemic approach; with the championing of crossroads member Dan Newth we crafted a consumer feedback mechanism that is included in the plan, and if funded will become a systemic change instrument; and further we outlined methodology with examples for testing innovative, out-of-the-box, ideas via 12 month pilot projects that address immediate and long term solutions to homelessness.

Mayor Potter has included $500,000 in his July ‘05-June ‘06 budget for the remaining six months of the initial three pilot projects begun in January 2005, and for the first six months of new pilots in both Downtown/Old Town/Chinatown and inner Southeast neighborhoods.  Representatives from Sisters Of The Road/crossroads sit on the Committee that is charged with oversight and evaluation of outcomes for these pilot projects.

We at Sisters remain optimistic that with mutual cooperation and persistence, Portland can ultimately craft solutions which ensure that having an affordable home is the inalienable right of every Portlander.

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Keith Vann is a local homeless advocate and software specialist who recently experienced being homeless.  Genny Nelson is a Co-founder of Sisters Of The Road.