Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler struggles to reel in millions from Multnomah County for homeless camping ban
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler may return all-but empty-handed from his effort to reel in millions of dollars from Multnomah County to help the city launch a series of large homeless campsites and force unsheltered people living on the streets into them.
Last month, Wheeler asked outgoing Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury to spur the county commission to provide $21 million to assist the mayor’s ambitious — and still largely unfunded — project. The city would use nearly all of that money to help construct and operate the camps, according to the request sent by Wheeler.
The county has more than $33 million from a new regional homeless services tax left unspent from the past fiscal year, he noted.
Kafoury, however, intends to put that money to other uses, primarily to help people who already have housing keep it, according to a memo detailing a proposed spending plan her office shared with City Hall staff and obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Those include:
>> $15 million for rent assistance payments. Portland leaders had separately pledged to withhold $7 million in homeless services payments unless the county committed to spending more than double that amount to help vulnerable renters stay housed and avoid eviction.
>> $2 million to assist newly established nonprofit service providers.
>> $1.1 million to help 300-plus households afford security deposits and other one-time costs of getting into supportive housing.
>> $1 million to bolster winter and severe weather shelter services and supplies.
>> $700,000 to study and evaluate the effectiveness and success of different shelter models.
>> $125,000 to assist the city with placing homeless individuals swept from their camps into shelter.
Kafoury’s proposed $22.1 million spending package, which the county’s board of commissioners plans to decide on Dec. 15, does include nearly $2 million for additional homeless outreach workers that Wheeler wanted the county to help fund.
The Dec. 1 memo noted the county has another $6 million of the money to allocate and said commissioners and their staffers were still discussing options. Kafoury’s plan also sets aside $5 million into a homeless services tax reserve fund.
“This draft plan does not include capital or one-time contributions to [the mayor’s] mass encampment concept,” county spokesperson Julie Sullivan-Springhetti said in a statement, adding that the proposal did contain other city priorities such as rent assistance.
Bobby Lee, Wheeler’s chief of staff, told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Monday that wouldn’t cut it.
“The public wants to see all levels of government work together to meaningfully address Portland’s homelessness crisis immediately,” Lee said. “As of today, the county has not responded to the city’s request to fund the operation of three outdoor campsites, even when the county acknowledges a surplus of $33.6 million in its budget.”
“The city would like a more productive relationship with the county. And with the recent election of the new county chair, we are hopeful that we can,” Lee continued. “We urge the county to delay the upcoming budget vote until early next year. And instead, use this time to jointly conduct a financial review of the Joint Office of Homeless Services’ programs.”
Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson, who will succeed Kafoury as county chair in January and who has publicly voiced support for the city’s recent attempts to combat homelessness, did not return a phone call and text message seeking comment.
Multnomah County plans to spend just over $255 million this year through the city-county Joint Office of Homeless Services. More than $107 million of that money will come from the region’s homeless services tax measure, about $60 million from the county’s general fund, $45 million from the city of Portland’s general fund and another $40 million from federal, state and local dollars.
Despite operating a city-county joint office on homelessness, Portland and Multnomah County officials have often been at odds over how to prioritize spending on those living on the streets, in their cars or in shelters.
Wheeler and his colleagues on the Portland City Council have repeatedly demanded more money be used to help get people off the streets and into shelters. Kafoury, who as county chair has great influence over how that office spends its dollars, and other county officials have funded shelters but have prioritized long-term solutions such as providing subsidized permanent housing that is paired with support services.
That longstanding tension has come into sharp focus in recent weeks as Portland officials, led by Wheeler and Housing Commissioner Dan Ryan, have embarked on what they say will be an aggressive new approach to reduce and ultimately ban homeless street camping.
The strategy hinges on the creation of six costly, 250-person tent sites. According to a recent poll commissioned by the Portland Business Alliance, more than three-quarters of city voters support that concept.
Most homeless advocates and service providers, as well as many people living on the streets, oppose it, saying that mass encampments are an ineffective use of money and resources and would further harm or traumatize some of the city’s most vulnerable residents.
Last week, the Portland City Council earmarked $27 million to construct and operate three of the tent sites for a year, hire new homeless outreach workers and fund the city office that cleans and sweeps encampments.
Portland leaders have yet to disclose where they plan to build the trio of city-run campsites. They hope to get those sites up and running next year and build an additional three campsites within the next 24 months.
They’ve also conceded that Portland city coffers alone cannot finance the plan and have lobbied Multnomah County, the Metro regional government and state lawmakers for assistance.
To bolster the Wheeler-Ryan plan, the City Council decided to pull $8 million it had previously committed to the Joint Office of Homeless Services for this fiscal year, a move Kafoury says could threaten the operations of two Portland homeless shelters next year.
-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh