No Space Anywhere: other cities managed to add permanent housing to emergency shelter since 2004, but Portland lost hundreds of emergency beds

article
Written By Marcia Volk

Despite ample effort by local leaders, Portland has lagged other parts of the country in the quest to get the poorest of the poor indoors — and the evidence is everywhere. The last count showed that almost 4,000 homeless men, women and children live in Multnomah County. Pictured here: The Portland Rescue Mission provides emergency services of food and shelter at their downtown location on West Burnside.

Story by ANNA GRIFFIN | agriffin@oregonian.com
Photography by THOMAS BOYD | tboyd@oregonian.com

January 24, 2015

To outsiders, the Portland Rescue Mission might seem a grim, worn and unwelcoming place.

Thousands of footsteps have scuffed and stained the wood floors of the entryway and faded the pale green paint on the steps down to the men’s shelter.

Check-in for the 58-bed basement space is 7:30 p.m. this time of year, meaning anyone hoping to sleep indoors must be ready to shut down for the day just as downtown nightlife is heating up. The metal-framed, barracks-style bunk beds are wedged so close that a man sleeping on one mattress can touch his neighbor without straining. If your nearest bunkmate hasn’t used one of the communal showers, you know it.

The rules are simple and firm: No drugs, no alcohol. Anyone who steps outside after lights out loses his bed. And there’s no sleeping in. The first wake-up call, a tug on the bottom of a blanket, comes around 6 a.m., and every man must be up and moving by 6:30 a.m. Breakfast is served at 7.

“I spent one night at the Rescue Mission. That was enough,” said Sean Sheffield, 39, who sells the alternative newspaper Street Roots in downtown Portland but camps most nights in Gresham. “Too many people, too many rules, too much God.”

Yet every day, no matter how temperate the weather, more men than the shelter can hold enter the lottery to decide who gets in. It’s the same story at the other shelters in town: Every spot is taken, every night, and there’s always a waiting list. The last time anti-poverty advocates counted, almost 3,000 people were without shelter in Multnomah, Clackamas, Clark and Washington counties — and experts say the actual number of people with nowhere to sleep in the Portland region is likely three to four times that.

“If you opened another shelter, it would be full. If you opened one after that, it would be full, too,” said Alexa Mason, spokeswoman for the Rescue Mission. “There’s just no space anywhere.”

Each evening, more men than will fit enter the lottery for about 40 emergency shelter beds at downtown’s Portland Rescue Mission. The lucky winners line up after dinner.

One example: A statistical analysis by The Oregonian/OregonLive shows that Portland’s inventory of housing for the poorest of the poor was less than 10 percent, the smallest of almost any major U.S. city.

At the start of Portland’s 10-year plan — and before the start of the Great Recession — Multnomah County had 720 year-round emergency shelter beds. In 2014, there were just 478 in Multnomah County, and another 140 in Washington and Clackamas combined. (Some churches run shelters outside the view and regulations of government, so the actual number of emergency beds may be slightly higher.)

The number of emergency beds nationwide rose nationally over the past decade, since the federal government pushed communities to adopt 10-year plans to end chronic homelessness. Other West Coast cities, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle and San Francisco, added emergency shelter beds while also adding permanent housing, the federal government’s mandate. So did Chicago, New York City, Miami, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis and a majority of other U.S. urban centers.

But not Portland.

That lack of space — a place to go tonight — is a big reason Portland’s homelessness problem feels so pressing. Thousands of people sleep outside because there are not nearly enough beds to meet the need.

That gap was by choice.

Beds for homeless: Portland and Multnomah County grew the number of permanent beds available to homeless people after 2008. But at the same time, the region reduced emergency shelter beds: from 985 to 478.

More permanent housing, fewer emergency beds

In 1986, Mayor Bud Clark responded to a spike in downtown vagrancy — and pressure from the business community to clean up what city leaders still referred to as “skid row” — with a 12-point plan to combat homelessness. Clark’s blueprint blamed the collapse of the timber industry and downtown redevelopment for creating more homeless people and wiping out the supply of cheap rooms for them to rent. So it focused on expanding the supply of emergency and transitional housing.

City leaders quickly claimed victory: “The emergency shelter system has capacity to handle those who need it,” according to the 1988 report. “Anyone who wants emergency housing can now get it. No one is forced to sleep in the streets.”

The success didn’t last.

Portland and Multnomah County’s 10-year plan to end homelessness was a response to the earlier effort. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a philosophical shift occurred within the community of anti-poverty advocates. The new approach — “housing first” — focused on creating new permanent housing for long-term homeless men and women. The thinking, based on scientific study, was that addressing homeless people’s lack of long-term shelter first would make it easier for them to overcome other barriers to self-sufficiency; men and women who know where they’re going to sleep are more likely to kick a drug habit or get control of a mental illness.

As part of that shift, advocates in and outside of government de-emphasized emergency spaces — shelters, single-room occupancy apartments and dirt-cheap motel rooms.

“The 10-year plan sort of took it for granted that we had shelter beds, that we didn’t need to work on that side of the system,” said Marc Jolin, who left his post as executive director of the nonprofit JOIN recently to run the regional effort to “reset” Portland’s 10-year plan.

That decision is understandable. Overnight shelters and motels can be unpleasant places. They’re crowded, noisy and run on shoestring budgets that leave little extra cash for amenities or sprucing up. Housing officials and elected officials — among the politicians who led the 10-year plan effort were Portland Commissioner Erik Sten and Multnomah County Commissioner Serena Cruz — had a finite pot of money. They had to make hard choices about how to spend it.

Then the recession created a new class of homeless people, overwhelming an already strained system.

“In the 10-year plan, there was an assumption that, with a healthy dose of housing assistance, people would go through shelters quicker so we wouldn’t need more shelters. But we didn’t build enough housing to house everyone, and the shelters are full, with enormous waiting lists,’” said Tony Bernal, director of funding and public policy, for Transition Projects Inc., a downtown nonprofit that helps men and women recover from homelessness.

Transition Projects runs three programs, the Clark Center, Jean’s Place and Doreen’s Place, that the federal government counts as “emergency” space, though guests can stay at each for several months. All have waiting lists.

“The unfortunate result is that we don’t have an emergency shelter system in Portland, not really,” Bernal said. “That’s different than many other cities.”

Indeed: Nationwide, emergency beds made up 33 percent of the housing inventory for homeless men and women in 2014 — and more than half in major cities, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In Multnomah County, emergency spots represented less than 10 percent. The numbers are similar in Clackamas and Washington counties.

The result: More homeless people sleeping outside, in illegal campsites, abandoned buildings or cars. A more visible and urgent problem.

“When you do not have enough homeless shelters, even on the coldest nights, you are accepting that people are going to die,” said Steve Kimes, a minister whose Anawim Christian Community runs a day shelter near the Gresham-Portland line and offers overnight stays on the coldest evenings. “We have accepted that as a community.”

Homelessness in Portland versus other cities

This shows emergency beds %. For the full interactive graph, go here.

Note: The Oregonian/OregonLive compiled these data for 50 geographic areas tracked by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The boundaries defined by HUD typically follow the lines of a central city or county. Our analysis matches HUD geography to U.S. Census Bureau geography and accounts for changes in HUD geography over time. Homeless population counts are based on a single point in time as reported by HUD.

Source: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

With few options, ‘it’s just easier to camp’

The lack of shelter beds is just one part of the problem.

Many homeless men and women say they prefer camping to being indoors under the current shelter system. It’s not necessarily a wise choice. Nor, in many cases, is it one made by people with enough mental clarity to make the soundest long-term decisions about their lives. But it’s based on the limitations of shelter life:

Most shelters are single gender, meaning couples must split up. Few allow dogs or other pets. Guests usually can’t carry more than a backpack inside, and they certainly can’t drink alcohol or use drugs. Anyone who has a problem with authority, crowds or noise will be uncomfortable.

Sean Sheffield, an unemployed cook who also has done call-center work, camps with his girlfriend in the woods of Gresham’s Rockwood neighborhood. The MAX ride downtown to buy and sell their papers can take two hours, depending on how often they have to jump off to avoid fare inspectors.

Still, they prefer that hassle to fighting for a shelter spot.

“It’s just easier to camp,” Sheffield said. “You don’t get messed with, you don’t have any of the drama, you don’t have to worry about your stuff. You just do your thing.”

Elias French, a 60-year-old who camped with his girlfriend near the Springwater Corridor in outer east Portland, needed two hands to tick off all the reasons he didn’t use the shelter system. Among them: He doesn’t like crowds. His girlfriend likes to drink. He didn’t want to risk going downtown and not winning a bed for the night.

Elias French preferred to camp near the Springwater Corridor, away from the crowds and risks of downtown. He died near the Clackamas Town Center in a bus accident.

“I used to go downtown to get a meal or clothes, but it’s like a nuthouse,” said French, who still had the beard and long hair of his motorcycle days and homemade tattoos from a stint in prison. “You go up to Burnside at night, and people are sleeping all up and down the sidewalk. You blink, and they’ve stolen your backpack, made off with all your stuff.”

Plus, he wanted to stay with his girlfriend: “I protect her,” he said. “A woman out here alone? That’s a nightmare. And if I’m not getting a space, I sure as hell know she’s not.”

French’s instinct was correct. Although a few shelters keep spots reserved for domestic violence victims, slots for women are even scarcer than beds for men.

There are other nightmares on the streets, even outside downtown: French approached a TriMet bus late last year near Clackamas Town Center as it was pulling away from a stop. He slipped beneath its back wheels, was run over and died.

Shelter comes with dose of religion

Portland is considered one of the most “un-churched” cities in the country, but its emergency shelter system is almost completely a product of faith-based institutions. City and county leaders help pay for extra beds — or, to be more accurate, extra space for sleeping, often on the floor — during cold weather. Most of the bigger year-round shelters are run by religious groups.

The Rescue Mission, which has been helping down-on-their-luck Portlanders since 1949, holds a lottery for its beds every night after a cafeteria-style dinner. On average, about 200 men seek shelter. Most nights, about 40 beds are up for grabs, with the rest reserved for men starting the mission’s addiction-recovery program or just released from area hospitals.

Mike Caperton explains the rules to new guests at the Portland Rescue Mission shelter. Men check in at 7:30 p.m.

The shelter door opens for the winners after evening chapel, usually a quick church service performed by volunteers from a metro-area congregation. Chapel isn’t mandatory for overnight guests.

“We are a faith-based organization, and we don’t pressure people,” said Mason, the mission spokeswoman and co-chair of a volunteer committee leading the regional effort to “reset” the 10-year plan.

Volunteers from other Rescue Mission programs, which include residential addiction recovery, serve as greeters for the men’s shelter. On one recent night, Mike Caperton, sober for 10 months, staffed the computer used to run the bed lottery and sign guys in for the evening. He looked like a biker, burly and bearded with a few missing teeth, but he slipped easily into the role of host as he checked each guest’s lottery ticket and tuberculosis card. Almost every indoor shelter requires guests to prove they don’t have TB; several nonprofits offer free testing.

Caperton smiled at every guest and peppered them with jokes: “Nope, no bottoms left. Just top bunks. But you’re closer to heaven that way, right?”

The three dozen men who lined up along the back chapel wall represented a far more diverse crowd than most Portland scenes. Another crowd lingered outside the mission’s front door, beneath its big neon sign, just in case some lucky lottery winner decided not to take his bed.

For those who haven’t won a night indoors, mission staff and volunteers pass out blankets. They give out 50 to 150 each evening.

There’s that much demand, and that little space.

“It ain’t the Hilton,” Caperton said, ushering another guest downstairs for the night. “But it’s a lot better than the alternative.”

Marcia Volk
Previous

Alliance Pressure Points Resource Series Housing First Fact Sheet
Next

Oregon homeless deaths disproportionately occur in Multnomah County