Moriah Hull studied Sustainable Development and Arabic at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, but was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. She has lived at the same address in the Kerns neighborhood of Northeast Portland since birth and has watched the area change over the years, becoming more gentrified. She has also lived in Southeast Portland and in the suburb of Lake Oswego, and went to school in Southwest Portland, so she is intimately familiar with the city of Portland and the changes it has experienced over her lifetime.
Author bio
Portland, Oregon has been struggling to care for its growing homeless population for decades, especially since the Great Recession. The homeless population consists of many people from disenfranchised and marginalized communities, such as people of color, the elderly, women, the disabled, those with mental illnesses and addiction, and children. Additionally, those experiencing housing insecurity face increased health problems, lower life expectancy, stigma from general public, increased stress, and tend to seek less medical care, which exacerbates these issues.
Portland’s policy response to homelessness is slow, inefficient, and under effective. The city spends large amounts of money on the homeless population, but these actions do not reduce, prevent, or solve homelessness. Portland has two approaches to homelessness reduction: shelters and emergency services, mostly used by the chronically homeless, and requiring some low-income housing units in new buildings, which is a slow and insufficient process.
Instead of waiting for the city to take effective action, the housing insecure community can work together for themselves to create spaces for the homeless that are equitable, sustainable, and accessible. Using the model of Dignity Village, a village of 60 homeless people living in micro-houses in a parking lot near the airport who have organized into a nonprofit to support each other out of homelessness. By becoming a nonprofit, an organization can collect donations, hire volunteers, and be tax exempt. Suggestions include establishing community gardens, upcycling centers, craft spaces, daycares, community centers, and DIY home building using half-built houses, with each suggestion tailored to a specific subset of Portland’s housing insecure population.
1. Introduction.
As a Portland resident from birth to university, I have watched the city change and adapt over the years. I watched as the Great Recession befell the country and I saw the impact it had on people across the city. I watched the tent cities spring up everywhere. I saw more permanent communities establish themselves downtown. I mourned the homeless man who did magic tricks in a white suit by the on-ramp to the Hawthorne Bridge when he died; I would smile and wave at him every day on my way home from school and he would play his plastic horn for me. In more recent years, I have seen my own neighborhood rapidly gentrified, and in tandem with it I saw the number of vans and cars housing people parked permanently on those streets soar. I am fortunate and privileged to not have any personal experience with homelessness, but I have interacted with it my whole life, and increasingly feel shame that my city of Portland allows so many people to live without a home. In this briefing, I will outline the issue and the community to the best of my ability, summarize Portland’s past and present approaches to homelessness, and put forth some suggestions for the homeless communities of Portland on how they might be able to alleviate and address the issues and stresses surrounding and due to homelessness, without relying solely on policy change and government-led solutions.
2. The challenge.
The City of Portland has faced tremendous growth in recent years, with building projects and businesses popping up everywhere. Mirroring this growth is the increase in Portland’s homeless population, especially since the financial crisis of 2008. Portland has struggled with homelessness for over twenty years, as in the early 2000s there was another homelessness crisis in the city, which was met with a housing-first policy response. However, these measures were only temporarily effective because of the financial crisis a few years later. Since then, the rapid gentrification, increased immigration, stagnating wages, increased cost of living, and rising housing costs have all compounded and forced many people into homelessness, including families. It is important to note that around 12% of homeless people are employed (Citizens Commission on Homelessness, 2004), and that many others receive at least one form of social welfare funding, but these funds are not enough to keep people out of homelessness (van Wormer and van Wormer, 2009).
Homelessness—or houselessness or housing insecurity—can be defined in several ways. It is not restricted to people living on pavements, in shelters, or tent cities. Homelessness extends to people living in cars, living doubled up with friends or family, living in motels, and experiencing spells of homelessness over periods of time; chronic homelessness is defined by the Department of Housing and Urban Development as someone who experiences homelessness at least four times during a three-year period or as has been homeless for a year and is living with a disability (Department for Housing and Urban Development, 2021). However, other working definitions of chronic homelessness are less strict and tend to include those who have been homeless for an extended period or for multiple episodes of homelessness over a couple of years (Citizens Commission on Homelessness, 2004). Those who are chronically homeless, especially those who meet the official definition of homelessness, are particularly vulnerable and underserved, while also using a disproportionate amount of the services offered to the general homeless population (ibid).
On any given night in Portland, there are 4,000 people needing shelter, while over the course of the year there are between 16,000 and 18,000 people considered homeless (Citizens Commission on Homelessness, 2004). While most of these people are not defined as chronically homeless, the chronically homeless use 50% of homeless services, with the city paying approximately $40,000 per homeless person per year for the whole homeless population (Citizens Commission on Homelessness, 2004), meaning that the services are provided ineffectively and inefficiently for both the city and the homeless community, as many people remain homeless despite the money spent by the city. Because of chronic illness, lack of health insurance, the heightened prevalence of substance abuse, mental health issues, and domestic abuse, the homeless community faces more trips to the emergency room, an increased risk of illness, and lowered life expectancy (down to 42-52 years from the national average of 78) (King et al, 2020). This all compounds to lower health outcomes and poorer quality of life for those dealing with housing insecurity, while costing the services and the city significant amounts of money without lessening the severity of the problems facing this community.
As rents rise and wages stagnate, many people have found themselves homeless. Conversely, many people have come to Portland in that period as either tourists or residents, leading to a growing, flourishing tourism industry and rapid gentrification. This has compounded the issues of homelessness and has a negative impact on tourism and housed Portland residents. Seeing the homeless population surge ubiquitously in Portland makes the general population uncomfortable (Biswas-Diener and Diener, 2006). Additionally, the presence of the homeless detracts tourists from the city, therefore potentially reducing the benefits that tourism brings to the city. Above all else, the reason homelessness in Portland must be addressed is because everyone has a right to shelter, both morally and legally, as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Article 25 (United Nations, 1948). As policy and governmental responses are often slow, bureaucratic, and insufficient, the best way to alleviate the stresses of homelessness is, arguably, for the homeless community to act.
3. The community.
The housing insecure community is diverse by every measure. However, the least privileged populations are overrepresented in Portland’s homeless population. For example, black, brown, and indigenous populations are overrepresented in Portland’s homeless community (Citizens Commission on Homelessness, 2004). People from all walks of life are found on Portland’s streets, with a sizeable portion of the community lives with some combination of mental illness, disability, chronic illness, and addiction, with half reporting post-traumatic stress disorder (King et al, 2020), 30% living with substance abuse disorders, 18% with mental illness, and 10% with disabilities (Citizens Commission on Homelessness, 2004).
According to more recent data from King et al, nearly half of Portland’s homeless people are mentally ill, asserting that homelessness is “an independent risk factor for worse health outcomes” and “housing as health” are important steps towards better serving homeless people (King et al, 2020). The authors note that stigma against the homeless and addiction from medical professionals prevent those in need from seeking and receiving proper medical care (ibid). Homeless people tend to delay seeking medical services, be undertreated for pain, and do not often receive the ‘longitudinal’ care—meaning a receiving medical treatment from a team of medical providers—from which they benefit (ibid). The stigmatized and disenfranchised nature of the homeless population has led to a variety of consequences for this population, so that they have worse health outcomes and are less able to receive treatment because they are met with distrust, judgement, misunderstanding, and prejudice by the wider community, including those who are supposed to be providing them services (ibid).
Some subsets of the homeless population are difficult to house under the current system. This is especially true for those with addiction and co-occurring mental health problems. The typical current model of housing requires that residents abstain from substances and uphold zero tolerance policies for those that break these rules (van Wormer and van Wormer, 2009). This leads to a high dropout rate for individuals with addiction and mental illness (ibid). This abstinence-based housing policy does not work for many people, especially people with addictions, causing them to be homeless once again (ibid). There is a need for non-abstinence-based housing, though this idea is unpopular politically and to the general public who impose a type of moral failing onto people living with these co-occurrences (ibid). Moreover, those with disabilities and chronic illnesses need housing that supports their expanded needs and more limited abilities (Carder et al, 2016). This extends to the elderly population as well, given that the elderly are overrepresented in Portland’s homeless population and they require more care and tend to prefer age-restricted housing (ibid). These populations would benefit from housing with in-built care.
Families face unique challenges when dealing with housing insecurity. Approximately 14% of homeless families are survivors of domestic violence, often women and their children who have fled from their unsafe homes (Citizens Commission on Homelessness, 2004). This process of escape can be complicated when there are teenagers seeking refuge in domestic violence shelters, as many shelters do not allow teenagers, especially male teens (ibid). Additionally, homelessness and abuse often lead to the involvement of social services, and sometimes to the removal of a child from the home to enter the foster care system (Pergamit, Cunningham and Hanson, 2017). An estimated 20% of homeless families have at least one child in the foster care system (Citizens Commission on Homelessness, 2004). Due to homeless families and low-income families relying on services provided by the government or nonprofits, these families may experience higher rates of child removal because of the fishbowl effect, which is the idea discussed by Pergamit et al that abuse is more likely to be seen and reported in underprivileged families because of their proximity to mandatory reporters (Pergamit, Cunningham and Hanson, 2017). They assert that these families unduly bear the trauma and stress of child removal, especially if the basis for removal is on homelessness and not on abuse or neglect (ibid). Conversely, there are very few housing options for families and couples without children. This means that families are either forced to separate to be accepted into shelters or they must remain in need (Citizens Commission on Homelessness, 2004). The image of homelessness is often portrayed as a single person dwelling on the streets, but this is not an accurate depiction of the crisis or people’s needs.
The emotional and psychological stressors associated with homelessness should not be overlooked or undervalued. Homelessness is an extremely stressful existence, but it is not entirely without joy or freedom. Biswas-Diener and Diener conducted a study of the subjective well-being of the homeless across three cities, one of which was Portland. They noted that despite what they, academic researchers, had presumed, the homeless people they interviewed rated their quality of life relatively highly, especially in areas of morality, friendship, and intelligence (Biswas-Diener and Diener, 2006). However, they rated their quality of life poorly in the areas of privacy and personal possessions, perhaps unsurprisingly (ibid). This community also faces exclusion and stigmatization from the general community, as well as being grossly underserved and undervalued as citizens of Portland, both by their city and their communities. In combination with the increased physical and mental health issues, family separation policies and behaviors, addiction and disability, the homeless community faces many challenges, often overlapping, and all of which would be mitigated by proper and affordable housing.
4. Past policy responses and their shortcomings.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was a surge of homelessness in Portland, resulting in the city creating new policy to address the crisis. The policy, published in 2004, shifted policy towards a housing-first initiative (ending homelessness) and away from traditional models of shelter and transitional housing (managing homelessness) (Citizens Commission on Homelessness, 2004). In essence, this policy meant that the main goal is to house people as soon as possible, especially for the chronically homeless who use a disproportionate amount of services, as to allow a more efficient distribution of services to the rest of the homeless and housing insecure community (ibid). Nationally, there has been a shift towards housing-first policies, which are often seen as the most compassionate and effective course of action (van Wormer and van Wormer, 2009). The city and county strategy had two other aspects included in it: streamlining access to services for alleviating homelessness, and funding programs that yield quantifiable results (Citizens Commission on Homelessness, 2004). This meant reducing redundancies in programs and making them more accessible to those that needed them and reducing the amount of people entering homelessness from government or institutional care (ibid). Before 2004, teens in the foster care system who were ageing out would often end up homeless, without the agency helping them to find suitable housing (ibid). This was also the case for prisoners ending their sentences and hospital patients being discharged (ibid). The new policy discouraged this practice and proposed that institutions could not discharge people into homelessness, but instead help them find housing (ibid).
In the first few years of this policy shift, it was considered a success. The average cost per person per year fell from $40,000 to $16,000 if they were housed, as they no longer needed sheltering services and were less likely to be in the hospital or in prison (Citizens Commission on Homelessness, 2004). Within nine months of the policy shift, five hundred chronically homeless individuals were housed, as were three hundred families (ibid). Unfortunately, the homeless population grew significantly after the financial crisis of 2008 and the program was likely overwhelmed, and the need for housing increased once again.
Portland’s new housing policy focuses on creating more affordable housing in new builds. The policy requires new builds with over twenty units to make a certain percentage of the units affordable—based on median income percentages—and on par quality-wise with the market-rate units (Inclusionary Housing, 2021). This requirement of ‘reasonable equivalent’ protects low-income tenants from poor quality housing and it does not identify them as low-income tenants to their neighbors. It also facilitates class integration and accessibility to school districts, the city center, and safer neighborhoods. The policy outlines that 15% of units in a new build must be affordable to people making 60% of the median income for the area, or that 10% of units must be affordable to people making 30% of the median income for the area (ibid). While the policy upholds class integration and provides affordable housing, the need for housing is great. The city has identified the need for at least 23,000 affordable housing units (ibid), so the small percentages of affordable units required per building project will take a long time to meet the needs of the community, who will be homeless or in substandard housing until that point.
5. Recommendations.
The need for affordable housing cannot be met without government intervention, but that does not mean that there is nothing the community can do. As have been laid out in the preceding sections, there are a multitude of complex issues that face the homeless community besides lack of housing, although that is often the root cause, or it exacerbates other problems. From my research and background in Sustainable Development, my recommendations for homeless people of Portland center on building community, forging connections with the greater Portland community, self-sufficiency and cooperation, and urban beautification. An example of a strong homeless community acting together to provide housing and support for themselves is the residents of Dignity Village, a community of sixty individuals living in an urban village in a parking lot near the airport. Starting in its most basic form in 2000, it grew and became more established, eventually solidifying its status as a registered nonprofit organization—a 501(c)3—in 2001, with outside help (Dignity Village, 2021). The village can house up to sixty people in micro-houses built and rebuilt by residents, as well as up to ten people in the greenhouse in the winter for temporary shelter (ibid). Dignity Village is intended as transitional housing; thus, the organization has a strict policy that residents can live there for up to two years (ibid). The expectation, as set out in their bylaws, is that members contribute their time and labor for tasks like security, fundraising, sanitation, and outreach (Biswas-Diener and Diener, 2006). They also have communal areas for cooking, gardening, bathrooms, and recreation (ibid). However, the main social goal of the urban commune is to facilitate peer support and community among the homeless, and through these interactions help people gain life and job skills to move on to long-term housing (ibid). Dignity Village uses an abstinence-based model and has been sanctioned by the city (ibid), though its status was nearly terminated in the beginning due to the amount of police calls to the area (Gragg, 2002). The subsequent recommendations for the homeless community are based on the Dignity Village model of nonprofit organization, community, and radical urban spaces.
The first recommendation is based on the idea that fostering good relations between homeless individuals is critical for building social capital, and that fostering good relations between the homeless community and neighborhood communities is vital for allyship and social cohesion. The best way to do this is for the homeless community to provide something for the neighborhood in which they live or plan to establish themselves. Groups of homeless individuals can congregate—and register as a nonprofit organization if they so choose—and form a cooperative for community gardening or for recycling in a makerspace, to provide a space for sustainable community development. By registering as a nonprofit, the cooperative would be able to receive donations and grant funding, so that a plot of land or a space can be bought by the cooperative. If this is not feasible, using the space as a community garden regardless is a valid form of guerrilla infrastructure, as in building green and sustainable spaces within the city to provide food, regardless of consent from the city. Bremer and Bhuiyan assert this principle in relation to informal settlements in Egypt, borrowing Neuwirth’s idea that “American and European cities shows [sic] a progression from squatter communities with ad hoc, illegally-accessed services to formal service provision” and that squatting has had positive outcomes in the realm of urban development (Bremer and Bhuiyan, 2014). As such, the homeless community has a right to pursue its own needs in informal ways, especially when formal channels have failed them. This ethos spans each recommendation.
For the makerspace, which is a place where people can come to craft art, furniture, and the like, the homeless cooperative could use the model of Scrap, an upcycling business in Portland that sells used wood, tiles, and other sorts of building and crafting materials. A facility like this could invest profits into job training and employment for its workers, the cooperative members. The emphasis on recycling is good for the planet and it makes supplies more affordable to the wider community, thus providing more sustainable materials to the local community. In both this venture and the community garden are ways of building trusting and cooperative social dynamics between different peoples of Portland, and therefore decreasing the stigma, fear, and disenfranchisement that homeless people face.
Another approach that uses this cooperative model is one focused more on women, children, and families. For this, registering as a non-profit organization would be beneficial, so that it can get donations and have volunteers. One of the main inhibitors to mothers, especially those with small children, to accessing employment opportunities is a lack of childcare. Therefore, a cooperative day-care and preschool would allow mothers to find employment and know that their children are being cared for. This day-care could use a rotation of mother volunteers to watch the children, as well as having volunteers. The facility could double as a shelter at night, too, for children, teens, and families, or it could function as a community space in which parenting classes, baby classes, and after-school activities could be held. The cooperative could also receive and hand out baby and school supplies to those in need. The multi-faceted nature of this space could address some of the issues plaguing housing insecure families like lack of childcare, neglect, and abuse by way of parenting classes, strong community ties, and access to necessary material goods.
To address the issue of abstinence-based housing, non-abstinence-based housing must be introduced. Again, this suggestion follows a cooperative and non-profit model where homeless individuals dealing with substance abuse problems come together to help each other build housing and get clean. This idea is based off a Chilean approach to public housing, in which the government provided low-income workers with half a house (Day, 2018). This half-house had the shell structure, kitchen, and bathroom essentials, but left the rest for the residents to design and craft (ibid). This cost the government less than building completed structures and allowed for residents to make it their own and have it fit their individual needs (ibid). Because non-abstinence-based housing is unpopular amongst the general public, any action to provide it will have to be cheaper. Therefore, providing micro-house ‘shells’ following the Chilean example by way of donor funding and Habitat for Humanity-style volunteering would lessen the cost of housing to those struggling with addiction. In this community model the members would be able to support each other as they build their homes, and perhaps find this process therapeutic. By building their own homes, individuals would learn useful skills, gain a sense of accomplishment, and show the wider Portland community of what homeless—and addicted—people are capable.
6. Conclusion.
Throughout this community briefing I have outlined some of the most pressing issues facing Portland’s homeless community. By outlining these issues, I hope they can be addressed by the government, the Portland community, and the homeless community. However, the housing insecure community in Portland should act for themselves towards establishing a place for themselves in the Portland community through social and sustainable means for a sustainable, community-focused future. Before the pandemic hit Portland, an affordable housing complex was built for Siletz Tribe by the tribe, using government funding designated for tribal use—this was the first use of these funds off reservation land—and supplemented with HUD funding (Morrison, 2020). This model could be extended to other tribes, too. Radical and community-guided action empowers communities, and the homeless community is one of the most disenfranchised communities in the country. Power, voice, and action come from getting together, making change, and demanding a place in society.
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