Multnomah County ARP investments: Crisis response and community recovery

Direct client assistance played an important role in supporting community members’ ability to address housing instability, food insecurity, and household and family needs. 

FY22 highlight: More than 4,300 individuals and families received critical direct cash assistance, with more than 70% of the funding dispersed to residents from communities that were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

Department of Community Justice (DCJ) Community Violence Prevention: HEAT, Elevate, Gun Violence Prevention

In order to prevent, intervene and address the impacts of gun violence, Multnomah County has invested in helping community members re-establish connections and interpersonal relationships to increase resilience in individuals, families and communities; addressing the impacts of both generational and recent trauma for survivors, offenders, families and community members affected by violence, and; expanding and enhancing access to high-quality culturally competent and coordinated mental and behavioral health supports to ensure the emotional and social well-being of all community members, including and especially those working and living on the front lines of the crisis.

The Habilitation, Empowerment, Accountability, and Therapy (HEAT) curriculum is a groundbreaking culturally responsive cognitive behavioral intervention program designed for African American individuals involved in the criminal legal system. Watch additional HEAT coverage here.

The Elevate program, part of the widely recognized Community Healing Initiative (CHI), is designed for men 18 to 25 years old in the Latinx and African immigrant communities who are affected by gang involvement and gun violence. CHI Elevate works to help high-risk young men gain employment, education, mentoring and more.

Community Health Specialists work in collaboration with the Health Department and the Department of County Human Services to provide families with safety plans and trauma support for those who have felt the direct impacts of gun violence.

Helped build capacity in community-based organizations by providing them with the necessary skills and experience to create gun violence intervention programming centered around high-intensity life-coaching for individuals at the greatest risk of gun violence. 

The pilot program provided intensive case management and life-coaching for justice-involved individuals ages 18 to 25 who were at a high risk of gun violence that was provided by trusted community members with relevant lived experience.

This investment supported the efforts by the Multnomah County Library's IT Services program to lend Chromebooks and hotspots to people in communities with gaps in digital access. WiFi hotspots are part of the library’s Tech Lending program that supports digital access for BIPOC and other marginalized communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, as well as others who need digital access, by lending Chromebooks and internet hotspot devices.

Library Outreach Hotspots

Renters in Multnomah County were connected to resources that provided accurate and timely information to help them access the legal protections and rental assistance they may have been entitled to for eviction protection.

This investment helped to connect renters in Multnomah County with timely and accurate legal support for navigating issues and impacts from COVID-19, including access to direct legal support when they were faced with eviction.  

FY22 highlight: More than 1,800 individuals and households gained access to legal and other supports that helped keep them in their homes thanks to this ARP investment.

DCHS Expanded Domestic Violence Services including Case Management, Victims Advocates

Culturally specific community-based advocacy services and system-based advocacy embedded with law enforcement are both vital components of the response to domestic violence. 

FY22 highlight: ARP funding helped more than 180 adults and children connect with specialized, population-specific domestic and sexual violence services, including trauma-informed care, ongoing risk assessment, safety planning, intensive support, advocacy, case management and help accessing other community resources.

Throughout the pandemic, families have experienced greater levels of basic needs. This investment provided additional staffing capacity at each SUN Community School site that helped support families’ access to resources like food, housing, employment, healthcare and more. This capacity was also critical to working collaboratively with school building administrators. 

FY22 highlight: The culturally responsive Family Resource Navigators prioritized support to families of color and worked alongside close to 2,000 families to help reduce barriers in the home ​​and foster students’ abilities to learn and thrive.

$5,529,000

DCHS Baby Bonds and Multnomah Mother’s Trust - Pilot

The Multnomah Mothers' Trust Project worked with approximately 100 Black female-headed households with children who were receiving services from one of two community-based programs, with a focus on households living east of 82nd Avenue. Families received an unconditional monthly basic income, and were invited to serve as participant researchers in an equity and human centered collaborative design process to explore and plan for future implementation of a Baby Bonds program, debt reduction, homeownership and other asset building initiatives.

$1,350,000

$534,580

Funding supported a Behavioral Health Trauma Healing and Recovery pilot program designed for African American women who may be emerging from abuse, abandonment, incarceration, or addiction to help improve mental and physical health outcomes.

This investment also supported the expansion of Behavioral Health Telehealth and In-person Access for Immigrant and Refugee Populations, which helped organizations that work with immigrant and refugee communities address COVID-19-related barriers to care by supporting technology improvements or the creation of safe spaces for in-person meetings.

Lastly, this allocation funded the expansion of two culturally specific peer behavioral health recovery support programs, one of which serves the Native American community and the other the Latinx community. 

HD Demonstration Project for Neighborhood Focused Violence Prevention Coalition

A healthy and intact social fabric is a critical protective factor against community violence, as well as numerous chronic diseases. However, that benefit is compromised by disparities that disproportionately impact local BIPOC communities — including neighborhood conditions, social determinants of health, trauma, racism, disinvestment, over-criminalization and displacement.

Taking a public health approach, coalitions can work together to create a vision for community safety, utilizing community voice and data to create and implement solutions that support the protective factors and the social fabric of the neighborhood. The coalition can consist of neighborhood residents, community-based organizations, neighborhood institutions, and relevant jurisdictional partners that help identify, advocate for, and implement specific, local solutions and responses to violence.

This ARP investment provided capacity to support neighborhood-focused gun violence coalitions to address both neighborhood violence and its root causes.

$1,233,461

$4,288,300

Non-departmental (NOND) Emergency Management - Logistics/Community & County PPE    

$215,000

This investment in COVID-19 Policy and Project Coordination was originally included in the FY22 “Non-departmental (NOND) Emergency Management - Logistics/Community & County PPE” program in the Public Health Emergency Response category, but was broken out and moved into the Crisis Response and Community Recovery category for FY23.

Youth Connect

ARP - Gun Violence Case Backlog

ARP - YFS Division Support Staff Expansion

$148,000

ARP - YFS Sex Trafficked Youth Services - New Day Collaborative Backfill

ARP - YFS Food Security / Pantry Enhancement

ARP - YFS Rent Assistance Team Staffing Capacity

COVID-19 ADVSD OAA ARP

ARP - COVID-19 Benefits and Entitlements Specialist Team (BEST) Expansion

ARP - Old Town Inreach

ARP – Civil Process – Reducing Community Violence Involving Firearms

ARP – Detectives Unit – Reducing Community Violence Involving Firearms

ARP - Add’l Close Street Supervision Positions