A New Direction on Homelessness

Every city should offer compassionate services that help people rebuild their lives and regain self-sufficiency.

 

Portland and Multnomah County have invested more than $2 billion addressing homelessness over the past seven years—more than $400 million last year alone. Yet despite this enormous investment, homelessness remains at crisis levels and has increased dramatically.

 

We have to start being honest with ourselves: continuing the same policies isn’t solving homelessness.

 

We should measure success by how many people actually move from the street into shelter, treatment, housing, and long-term stability.

 

Continuing to manage street homelessness isn’t good enough. We need a new approach focused on ending it.

 

1. Progress in Exchange for Services

For many people experiencing chronic street homelessness, active addiction, serious mental illness, and behavioral-health challenges can become major barriers to returning to stable housing.

We need a system that pairs compassionate assistance with an expectation of progress toward stability—whether that means engaging in treatment and recovery, pursuing employment when appropriate, or taking other meaningful steps toward self-reliance.

 

Setbacks and relapse happen, and basic emergency services should never be withheld as punishment. But our system should remain focused on helping people move forward rather than simply maintaining life on the street.

 

2. Strengthen Coordination & Demand Accountability

Portland relies on more than 40 nonprofit contractors to provide homelessness services. Many do important work, but a fragmented system can make accountability, coordination, and consistent performance difficult.

 

Portland has taken steps toward better coordination through Portland Solutions, which brings several of the City’s homelessness and livability programs under one umbrella. We should build on that progress by creating greater coordination and accountability across the broader homelessness response system.

 

Changes Needed:

1. Strengthen coordination, shared goals, and consistent performance standards across homelessness service providers.

2. Tie continued public funding to measurable outcomes such as shelter-to-housing conversion, housing retention, treatment engagement, and responsible use of taxpayer dollars.

3. Expand programs that demonstrate results and rethink those that consistently don’t.

 

Do more of what works. Fix or stop funding what doesn’t.

 

3. Expand Government-Owned “Social Housing”

High rent costs remain a major factor pushing working families and vulnerable Portlanders toward homelessness.

 

I support expanding government-owned affordable housing, often called social housing, and preserving the affordable housing we already have. By dedicating a greater share of our city budget toward building and preserving truly affordable housing, we can increase total supply, relieve market pressure, and lower overall rents in Portland.

 

We should also strengthen short-term rent assistance for people facing temporary financial hardship, helping them stay housed before a missed paycheck, medical bill, or unexpected expense turns into an eviction and homelessness.

 

Preventing homelessness is less expensive—and far more humane—than trying to solve it after someone has spent months or years on the street.

 

4. Consistent Citywide Camping Enforcement

Compassion and public order are not opposing ideas.

Portland must establish and consistently enforce clear boundaries for the use of public spaces.

When appropriate shelter is available, camping should not be allowed indefinitely in public rights-of-way, city parks, or on private property without permission. Encampments near schools and youth centers should receive especially urgent attention.

 

Compassion requires offering people somewhere safer to go. Responsible government also requires protecting public spaces for everyone.

 

5. Decentralized Micro-Shelters & Priority Placement

Enforcing camping restrictions requires providing realistic indoor alternatives.

Portland should expand smaller, decentralized shelters and micro-shelters throughout the city rather than concentrating services in the downtown core or placing the burden on only a few neighborhoods.

 

Shelter placement should consider vulnerability while prioritizing rapid intervention for:

1. Families with children

2. Pregnant women

3. The newly unhoused

Why prioritize people who have recently become homeless? Because early intervention can prevent temporary homelessness from becoming chronic homelessness.

 

Shelter should be a bridge to stability—not a permanent destination.

 

6. Rethink “Cash for Cans” Redemptions — and Measure the Results

 

More than 50 years ago, Governor Tom McCall helped champion Oregon’s groundbreaking Bottle Bill. It worked—boosting recycling and reducing litter.

 

But Portland has changed, and even successful policies can have unintended consequences as circumstances change.  In 2017, Oregon doubled the cash redemption value from 5 cents to 10 cents per container. In the years since, Portland has seen a significant increase in unsheltered homelessness.

 

Today, we should be willing to ask a difficult question:

 

Is immediate cash redemption making it easier for some people struggling with addiction to remain on our streets rather than engaging in shelter, treatment, and recovery?

 

Rather than argue about it, let’s find out.

 

Because the Bottle Bill is state law, Portland cannot make this change on its own. I will ask the State of Oregon to authorize a temporary, one-year pilot pausing cash container redemptions within Portland city limits.

 

Under this pilot:

1. BottleDrop Blue Bag fundraising would continue, so schools, neighborhood associations, youth programs, and other nonprofits could keep collecting containers and receiving the proceeds.

2. 10-cent cash redemption would remain available outside Portland, including in neighboring communities such as Milwaukie, Beaverton, and Gresham.

3. Portland residents could still conveniently recycle bottles and cans within the city. Instead of individual cash payouts, the redemption value collected during the pilot could be directed toward local nonprofits, Portland parks, or other community programs—preserving the value of recycling while putting those dollars toward broader community benefit.

During that year, we’ll measure the effects on street camping, neighborhood scavenging and litter, public safety, participation in shelter and treatment services, and recycling rates.

 

If it works, build on it. If it doesn’t, move on.

 

This isn’t about punishing people experiencing homelessness, ending recycling, or taking away legitimate community fundraising. It’s about being willing to challenge assumptions, test new ideas, measure the results, and follow the evidence.

 

Portland has spent years managing street homelessness. It’s time to focus on ending it.