Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson and Mayor Ted Wheeler announced today that Kaiser Permanente executive Dan Field will serve as the next Director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services.
The announcement, made at a press conference in the Multnomah County Boardroom on Wednesday morning, follows a national search that drew 48 candidates.
“This search was conducted collaboratively with Joint Office staff and leadership at the County and City,” Vega Pederson said. “I am proud to say that our search has yielded in Dan Field, a leader to meet this moment, one who understands the complexities and has the commitment to coalition- and relationship-building that is needed to help bring added urgency and accountability to the Joint Office's work and investments.”
“We take this hire very, very seriously and we are very happy that Dan Field has been willing to step forward to help lead our collective efforts,” Wheeler said.
Field emerged from that wide-ranging roster of applicants in large part due to his extensive experience finding concrete solutions to some of Oregon’s most complex and seemingly intractable problems, through negotiation and a commitment to building new partnerships.
Beyond his nearly two decades with Kaiser Permanente, Field also served as a staffer for former Gov. John Kitzhaber when Kitzhaber was president of the Oregon Senate, and as chief of staff for former Portland Mayor Vera Katz when she was speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives.
At Kaiser, Field played a lead role in founding HealthShare of Oregon, the breakthrough collaboration between local health care systems and Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties to coordinate healthcare for 400,000 metro-area residents on the Oregon Health Plan.
He negotiated an $800 million funding package to insure more than 100,000 children through the Oregon Healthy Kids Program. In 2020, as social justice demonstrations galvanized the region and the nation, he sponsored projects aimed at reversing systemic racial injustices, including the creation of the Kaiser Center for Black Health and Wellness, scheduled to open later this year. And in 12 dizzying days in 2021, he was part of the team that united Portland-area health systems and state and county public health agencies to launch a mass vaccination clinic at the Oregon Convention Center that administered more than 550,000 COVID-19 vaccinations.
“Dan's years of work at the confluence of health care and housing have shown the promise in this approach, as has his ability to work across our region to connect the dots to address difficult challenges with unique sources of funding and partnership,” said Chair Jessica Vega Pederson. “I also found myself consistently impressed by Dan's commitment to service, both throughout his long career and also in seeking to lead the Joint Office at this time.”
The press conference convened speakers including Vega Pederson, Wheeler and Field, along with Joint Office Interim Director Joshua Bates; Angela Martin, Co-Director of HereTogether Oregon; Marcus Mundy, executive director of the Coalition of Communities of Color; Ed Blackburn, former executive director of Central City Concern; and Jessica Getman, board chair of the Portland Business Alliance.
Field said he steps into the role with “humility about the challenge ahead of us,” and said he will center people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity in his work.
“To anyone in the community who is homeless or housing insecure, whether you're sleeping on a couch, living out of your car or lying in a doorway, we see you and we will keep you at the center of everything we do,” Field said. “That is my pledge here today. Please hold me to it.”
Field also emphasized the importance of collaboration in the broader community in solutions to homelessness. “We want a community that is just and equitable and where everybody is safely housed. It's not just the work of one leader or our elected officials or public servants or nonprofit leaders. This is a shared journey. And today I invite you all to lean in and join us on that journey,” Field said.
“Whether you work in the public sector, the private sector, whether you're a nonprofit service provider, whether you're on the front lines or you're behind the scenes, we appreciate you and will continue to support you in every way possible with this work,” Field said. “We know that you're counting on all of us up here today to lead this work with commitment, integrity and perseverance. And my pledge to you is we will work hard to honor that trust and to strengthen our community in the process.”
The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners must approve Field’s appointment. Pending that approval, Field is expected to take over the Joint Office of Homeless Services, and its $255 million budget and 95 employees, on April 28.
Formed in 2016, the Joint Office is a partnership between Multnomah County and the City of Portland that unified what were once distinct and duplicative homelessness services systems. The City had been providing shelter, rent assistance, outreach and other supports to single adults and people experiencing chronic homelessness. The County, in turn, was providing those services to families, youths and domestic violence survivors.
The Joint Office, with those systems combined into a common department and under a shared budget, now works to create an equitable community in which all people have access to safe, affordable, and accessible housing. The Joint Office contracts with community-based organizations and works with other governmental entities to provide peer-led, equity-based services including housing assistance, shelter, healthcare and services navigation, employment assistance, and street outreach.
Joshua Bates, Deputy Director of the Joint Office, has served with distinction as interim director since November 2022. He will remain at the Joint Office as Deputy Director to work with Field.
“From my very first conversation with Dan, It was clear that he brought person-centered care to this work, and also that he brought partnership- and coalition-building to this work,” Bates said. “I'm certain that through his position, he will build bridges in ways that have not been built before to serve folks experiencing homelessness. I am excited to be a part of that bridge-building and to support the next phase of the Joint Office alongside Dan Field.
Recruiting a new director
The County began recruiting for a permanent director in fall 2022 with an extensive process that prioritized community feedback, leveraging the reach of community and advocacy organizations whose memberships or audiences included hundreds of people.
A broad stakeholder group — including Joint Office staff, community advocates, regional partners, business leaders, elected officials and coalition groups — shared the qualities, skills and experience they valued in a director, through surveys as well as one-on-one and small group meetings. The search was timed to wrap up under the leadership of Chair Vega Pederson, who took office in January.
Recruitment was centered in the County’s focus on equity and leading with race, using the County’s Gladys McCoy hiring standards, pursuing broad engagement with community partners during initial recruitment, and focusing on diversity and inclusion best practices in designing hiring panels, interview questions and selection criteria.
“It was important not only to end this search with a successful candidate able to help the Joint Office build strategically for the long-term, but to engage in an inclusive process that increased our connection to and involvement with key community partners,” said Chair Vega Pederson. “I feel confident in where we landed and the process we took to get here.”
The search drew 48 local and national candidates, 51% of whom identified as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color). Seven candidates advanced to interviews with County leaders. Three finalists were then interviewed in February by a nine-person panel made up of County leaders, Joint Office staff, representatives from the City, local providers, and community members with lived expertise.
The top two candidates submitted short videos that were reviewed by more than 30 stakeholders from across Multnomah County, including members of the business community, elected leaders, and the representatives from the housing and homelessness continuum of care. Chair Vega Pederson and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, who was involved throughout the process and in final decision-making, then interviewed each of the top two candidates together in a small group setting.
“I look forward to working with Dan in his new position as the director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services. Throughout the interview process, I was incredibly impressed by Dan's commitment,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler added that during the interview process, he pushed Field to explain why he wanted to step into the role of director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services at a time of increased scrutiny and demand.
“He has the experience, he has the drive, he has the connections, he has the ability to work with us and collaborate with us,” Wheeler said. “But what it really came down to personal passion and personal commitment to seeing this humanitarian crisis resolved. And that's what impressed me the most. And I think it speaks to his sense of vision.”
A background bridging health and housing
Field has been the executive director of Community Benefit, Government Relations and External Affairs at Kaiser Permanente, where he oversaw Kaiser’s robust philanthropy work and directed a community benefit budget of more than $160 million last year alone.
But it was Field’s strong leadership and innovation at the intersection of health and housing over the past seven years that especially inspired Mayor Wheeler and Chair Vega Pederson.
In 2016, Field helped lead Portland hospital systems in their groundbreaking $21.5 million investment in the Blackburn Center, which opened in 2019. The center, developed by Central City Concern near the East 112nd Avenue MAX station, includes a healthcare clinic, 51 recuperative health care beds and 124 supportive housing apartments for people who had been experiencing homelessness and behavioral health concerns. The project was an unprecedented collaboration of investment and best practice between the region’s major healthcare providers, the Joint Office of Homeless Services, and the Portland Housing Bureau.
In 2019, Field launched the Regional Supportive Housing Investment Fund to engage health systems and foundations in a “health+housing” strategy. And in early 2020 he partnered with HealthShare and the counties to deploy the Metro 300 initiative, with a $5.1 million investment that housed more than 300 homeless seniors 55 and older through a flexible funding approach.
That successful initiative helped pave the way for Multnomah County’s current effort to implement Oregon’s innovative Medicaid waiver, allowing the state to spend federal Medicaid dollars on housing supports and other social needs. The Joint Office has also been able to expand the Metro 300 program with funding from the Metro Supportive Housing Services Measure.
Field says of his approach, “Across these varied projects, I’ve stayed committed to building trust and encouraging collaboration in ways that communicate frequently, defend good work, learn from mistakes, honor diverse perspectives and keep community as our focus.”
A return to public service
Field has lived in Oregon since arriving at age 17 to attend Willamette University. He earned a bachelor's degree in political science and then a law degree at the University of Oregon School of Law. He lives in Portland with his wife, Susan Kramer, and their rescue dog, Xena.
“I am looking forward to returning to public service. I love our community — Multnomah County, the City of Portland, and the beautiful cities that make up our region — and see so much potential in the Joint Office and in our community to reach local solutions. This is my opportunity to focus on good policy that features connections across the broad spectrum of stakeholders whose ideas and investments are needed to build the strongest and most responsive housing safety net we can,” Field said.
