Testimony to Multnomah County Board - Renegotiating JOHS Contract

We are asking for several considerations as you renegotiate the Joint Office of Homeless Services contract.

First, it’s absolutely critical that the county make the City of Portland a true partner at the table. We want the county to work collaboratively with the city at all costs. x xxx the contract extension from April gave the city a larger role around selection of and progress reports on the new Joint Office of Homeless Services Director, but the city’s involvement needs to be expanded into all aspects of operations, including participation in and selection of the Oversight Board. We urge you not to dismiss the city’s ideas and to keep in mind that in some cases, the nonprofit executives on the Oversight Board have a financial incentive to dismiss the city’s new ideas.

We would also ask that you bring in the mayors or a representative from ALL of the cities within the county to a seat at the table to discuss shared concerns and potential solutions. We hear and see that Gresham is handling homelessness a lot better than the rest of us - they’ve set up a special hotline for folks living along the Springwater Trail and are partnering with nonprofits that are getting real results - why are we not sharing these ideas cross-county? We are all experiencing the same issues and we need the entire county to be clean and functioning, so it makes sense to have every municipality involved in the problem-solving.

We thank you for reopening the Joint Office of Homeless Services Director search and look forward to you including the City of Portland, service providers and volunteer experts to weigh in on the selection process. We cannot afford to get this decision wrong at such a crucial turning point in the direction of Multnomah County. We also ask that the new Director be supported and held accountable for truly implementing the Built for Zero program.

The county is also slated to take over the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) from the city by June 30th of this year. While we expect that this tool will be useful, we want to ensure it does not further delay the implementation of what we’ve been promised: the more robust Built for Zero database.

Lastly, we request that you have at least one period of public input, hopefully more, including evening sessions for working individuals, to weigh in on the updated Joint Office of Homeless Services contract. It’s essential to communicate with voters and hear their voices before finalizing the contract in June.

Thank you for considering these actions as you continue to have conversations regarding the renegotiation of the Joint Office of Homeless Services contract with the City of Portland.