Media contact:
Denis Theriault or Julia Comnes, Multnomah County Communications Office, pressoffice@multco.us
Reporters, editors and producers: For planning purposes, we wanted you to know about a public meeting this week where officials from the City of Portland and Multnomah County will discuss the Homelessness Response System and Homelessness Response Action Plan.
Public joint briefing, Tuesday, Oct. 8
- When: 1-3 p.m.
- Where: Multnomah County Boardroom, 501 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd.
- Virtual link: youtube.com/multcoboard
- Agenda and documents: Linked here
- What: On Oct. 8, the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners will host the Portland City Council for their fourth joint meeting on homeless services in the last 13 months — an unprecedented cadence of joint meetings that speaks to the improved and collaborative relationship between the two governments around a shared priority.
- Related materials:
- Detailed progress report: Update from the interim director of the Homelessness Response System
- Presentation materials: Slide deck
- Tents and tarps policy: Interim policy for Joint Office of Homeless Services
- City/County shared plan for creating shelter: Community Sheltering Strategy
Background and Progress Highlights:
Tuesday’s discussion will include a brief presentation on work to achieve early milestones in the Homelessness Response Action Plan, which was approved as part of a new intergovernmental agreement between the City and County in the summer.
Much of the information to be discussed in this joint session has been shared with the Board of Commissioners and Portland City Council in advance. Significant time will also be set aside for questions and discussion among elected officials.
The Homelessness Response System and the frequent briefings are evidence Multnomah County is committed to moving forward from past challenges and will work steadfastly and collaboratively — with partners across all levels of government, bridging disagreements in the name of the greater good — to reduce homelessness and better serve all of our neighbors.
Highlights of the work so far include:
- In less than three months since its adoption, officials have completed two-thirds of the goals in the Homelessness Response Action Plan due to be completed by the end of 2024.
- In addition to the plan’s specific goals, the Homelessness Response System has completed or substantially addressed a series of milestones laid out by the Council and Board in legislative action separate from the intergovernmental agreement.
- With feedback from the Homelessness Response System’s Steering and Oversight Committee, County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson has directed the Joint Office of Homeless Services to adopt an interim policy that creates guidelines for the distribution of tents and tarps. A final policy will incorporate additional feedback, including from the full Board of County Commissioners, after a public work session in the coming weeks.
- Officials have launched a new public dashboard to track progress toward the Plan’s goals. Preliminary outcomes suggest:
- Strong early progress has the system on track to meet a goal to shelter or house an additional 2,699 people by the end of 2025. That connects with plans to open 429 additional shelter units by December 2024, with plans for more units in 2025.
- On track to house and shelter priority populations (including Black, Indigenous and other people of color and people 55+) at a rate higher than the baseline.
- Exceeding goal for permanent supportive housing retention.
- The Homelessness Response System, the Joint Office of Homeless Services and Portland Solutions are working together to plan both short- and long-term strategies to increase exits from shelter into permanent housing.
- Other progress includes the launch of a new Shelter Availability Tool, the funding and launch of new day centers and day services, success in exceeding the goals of Housing Multnomah Now, the identification of central city commercial buildings to convert into housing, expanded incentives and reduced zoning hurdles to promote housing production, and streamlined contracting for shelter services.
About the Homelessness Response Action Plan:
The Homelessness Response Action Plan was approved by both the Portland City Council and Multnomah County Board of Commissioners in July 2024 as part of an intergovernmental agreement between the City and County focused on homeless services. The finalized plan incorporated community feedback collected over a two-month engagement period.
A roadmap for the next two years, the plan pursues detailed goals and metrics; more transparent budgeting, data sharing and financial reporting; and a new governance structure that broadens and unifies the work of addressing homelessness and root causes beyond just one downstream department, the Joint Office of Homeless Services. The plan also formalizes collaboration between healthcare partners, the justice system, housing providers, service providers, treatment providers and government partners at all levels.
About the Steering and Oversight Committee:
Last month, the Homelessness Response System held the first three meetings of its Steering and Oversight Committee, a cross-jurisdictional panel approved by the Portland City Council and Multnomah County Board of Commissioners. The Steering and Oversight Committee brings together elected officials, leaders, experts and community members to guide and fund the actions in the Homelessness Response Action Plan.
The committee is responsible for the following: setting strategy and key performance indicators; monitoring progress and performance toward goals; ensuring alignment of jurisdictional investments toward strategies and performance; adjusting annual goals at the completion of each year; assessing strategies based on performance; and reviewing audits of the various components of the Homelessness Response System.
The committee is the centerpiece of a new governance structure that shifts our shared work into a more productive direction for policymaking that better serves the thousands of people on our streets. Plan participants have agreed to transparently and jointly develop a co-governance model to address homelessness — determining shared goals, expected outcomes, pathways to accomplish those goals and flexibility to adjust strategies if goals are not being met.
About the Implementation Committee:
The Implementation Committee — a subgroup of the Steering and Oversight Committee — has already met seven times since April, including its most recent monthly meeting Monday, Oct. 7. It is tasked with implementing goals, strategies and outcomes approved by the Steering and Oversight Committee.
The Implementation Committee includes multiple County department directors and City bureau directors, along with key leaders from Metro jurisdictions in East Multnomah County, Home Forward, and Health Share of Oregon. Meetings are coordinated in partnership between the County’s Chief Operating Officer and the City’s Chief Administrative Officer
About the Community Advisory Committee:
The Community Advisory Committee, which is still being assembled after a public recruitment, will identify emerging issues and trends that will lead to more people in housing across our community by meeting the goals and objectives of the Homelessness Response Action Plan.
The membership of the committee may include up to 16 members, including but is not limited to people with lived experience of homelessness within the last seven years, representation from business, labor, Homeless Response System service providers, philanthropy, crisis response, first responders, affordable housing, street outreach/navigation, health, recovery, and/or the Continuum of Care board.
