In 1978, downtown Portland had 5,183 apartments affordable to the city’s poorest citizens. Susan Emmons says it was enough. There were no homeless shelters and no need for public funds dedicated to subsidized housing.
Today, Portland has 3,290 units available. But the need has grown exponentially and the city of Portland is short by 20,000 rental units.
These numbers — compiled regularly by the housing organization Northwest Pilot Project — illustrate why it is so difficult for low-income people seeking a home to move through the appropriate channels — there is simply nowhere for them to go. Emmons is NWPP’s executive director, and she and her staff are gearing up for a fresh bout of advocacy as Multnomah County and the Portland City Council roll-out a new “reset” plan to tackle homelessness in 2015.
For the past 38 years, Susan Emmons has been a keystone in Portland’s social justice community. Emmons took the helm at NWPP in 1987, taking over for founder Peter Paulson. The small nonprofit has become an indispensable resource under her leadership. In addition to housing placement, NWPP connects clients with other social services; they provide transportation for grocery shopping and medical appointments; they make participation in the arts possible and advocate loudly in state and local government. They fund and publish the Downtown Portland Affordable Housing Inventory, which documents the number of affordable homes lost each year to redevelopment or demolition.
And when an entire low-income apartment buiding gets sold, gentrified or rehabilited, it is NWPP that steps up and finds tenants a new home.
Equally important, under Emmons’ leadership, the organization serves as a powerful advocate for the poor and senior citizens, working to preserve their vitality in the city’s core even as higher prices are pushing them out.
Today the agency struggles with a severe bottleneck of permanent housing stock. Most people’s path out of homelessness starts on the streets, segues into a shelter, then into transitional housing and finally affordable permanent housing. But the city of Portland doesn’t have nearly enough subsidized apartments to house a population that has grown 17 percent in the past two years.
Emmons delivered a powerful speech at the Oliver Lecture Series on Nov. 17 at the First Congregational Church in downtown Portland. NWPP hopes the pressure on housing officials will result in a more prominent place for housing in the reset plan, complete with specific financial goals and plans for implementation.
Emmons has received numerous awards for her dedication, including the Oregon State Housing Council’s “Excellence in Housing Award,” the Gretchen Miller Kafoury Award for Outstanding Community Development and the Ross Dey Lifetime Achievement award from Metro Multifamily Housing Council. NWPP has helped over 7,000 people over the age of 55 find housing since 1997.
Jasmine Rockow: What was the political and social landscape like when you first started back in the late 1970s and early 1980s?
Susan Emmons: We didn’t have as big a population of homeless people, but there was more a feeling of people getting around the table and trying to think through solutions and adopting a central city plan. Out of that came the Downtown Housing Partnership. There were representatives from the Portland Development Commission, the Housing Authority and the Chamber of Commerce, all sitting around the table. So the business sector was really buying in and saying, yes we would like to see this housing developed and we would like to make sure there’s the money for supportive services. For example, if you are doing a specialized program where people might need alcohol and drug services to get rehabilitated. There was more a sense of cooperation. It feels a little more divided to me now.
J.R.: How was your advocacy received in the beginning?
S.E.: Our advocacy at that time centered more around getting the housing developed and the housing built. It seems to me now that the group of advocates are more focused on service dollars that they need to run their own agencies. Not that that isn’t important, it is important. But I don’t feel like there’s a strong collective voice of advocates about solving the housing problem. And I think there may be a number of reasons for that.
Funds are more scarce. We’re all seeing more need in our agencies, and people are scrambling pretty hard to keep their nonprofits afloat. I think people don’t necessarily have the energy to put in those collective advocacy efforts. But when we started to really lose housing we were worried about some of the federally subsidized building. We did a great collective effort to get a preservation ordinance passed in 1998, and we had the community development network. They were led by a woman named Tasha Harmon, a strong advocacy group. We had Dana Brown at the Community Alliance of Tenants. We had some really strong players as well as social service agencies like NWPP where we really banded together and had a collective voice. I don’t feel that sense of collective effort right now.
J.R.: What changed?
S.E.: It’s hard to say. I think the community development network turned into a statewide organization. They became Oregon Opportunity Network and they are covering a much wider area. That might have been the right move but I don’t think there’s as strong a voice now, as a local advocate. All the organizations are having to struggle so much for the same pots of money. Federal funding has been reduced, and in some cases, so has city funding. I think the community development organizations that are trying to develop housing are having to look farther afield for funding. The money isn’t flowing like it used to. Our urban renewal funds are diminishing. It’s a lot harder to put projects together. People are scrambling after dollars to have their ongoing operating support and may not have the energy for these bigger advocacy efforts.
J.R.: Do you think that the answer to ending homelessness has changed in the past 30 years?
S.E.: NWPP has very consistently — at least in the 28 years that I have been here — always said the answer is housing. It can’t just be about services. It can’t just be about saying, “well we have these people and it’s their fault that they are homeless. If somehow we get good enough services delivered to them, that’s going to change the equation of what’s going on.” With the amount of housing we’ve lost, it seems clear to me that housing is the answer. For us that’s always been the answer. I would hope that all the groups working on this issue would have one voice on that and say that we’re never going to solve our homeless problem without housing — housing built for the poorest of the poor.
J.R.: How do you perceive the dialogue that encompasses homelessness today? Has it changed? Is it helping or making things worse?
S.E.: Over the past year there was a process that they call the reset process, which was looking at our original homeless plan. We were not invited into the group, the inner group. You could go to public meetings and you could observe, and we were very disappointed by that process. There were smart people around the table. We felt there was no major emphasis front and center on — that housing is the answer and housing is the key. There was a lot of discussion about prioritizing populations. We don’t really agree with that. We think that all people who are homeless are vulnerable and what we should be concentrating on as a community is increasing the pot of resources to deal with it. There was a lot of talk about services and greater collaboration among provider agencies. We think that there’s better collaboration now than we’ve ever seen in the decades we’ve been doing this. There was talk about, “well we have to involve the faith community more.” We’ve always involved the faith community.
You have to work collaboratively to be successful with social work and have a lot of partners. We felt like that was a pretty shallow process. But what they came up with was a framework to do the next step, which is an action plan. We would be terribly disappointed if there isn’t housing front and center in the action plan. That’s what we believe at NWPP. That’s what I believe.
J.R.: What do you think your chances are of getting that into the plan?
S.E.: Well, I don’t know. We’re going to try to be very vocal. To say let’s shift gears here and let’s think about this. Let’s look at the chart and let’s look at the deficit and let’s tie this back to why we have so many people who are homeless on the street. Give people a sense that there is a possibility to solve this. We need a local resource. I believe we need a housing trust fund. How do we get people excited about working on that?
J.R.: Regarding the discourse on homelessness, there’s a lot of talk about addiction, NIMBYism (not in my backyard) and deserving and undeserving poor. What are your thoughts on that part of the dialogue?
S.E.: We need to do a better job of telling the story of where we have built buildings and how successful they have been. They have been good neighbors. If the building is well operated and well managed, you could stand on a street corner and watch people come in and out of that building and never know that they were formerly homeless. I’ve had this conversation with people in the business community and they agree. As a community of providers, we haven’t done a good enough job with telling that story.
An example of that is The Morrison. It got built and it’s a mixed-income building and it’s across from the stadium where we play soccer. When that was developed by Home Forward, our housing authority, a new condo was on the same piece of property. There was great concern from the people developing the condo that we were going to be putting chronically homeless people into The Morrison. There was going to be a shared garage underneath them and how would that work? We said we were going to carefully screen people and put good supportive services in place -- the problem is not going to be with the chronically homeless people. And that turned out to be right.
You have a successful project like that, it might be nice to go back and say, “OK, we did this.” People said you can’t put chronically homeless people here. We did it and it was successful. Now let’s do another one.
You do hear people saying people are homeless because they have an alcohol problem; they’re mentally ill. When I was first doing this, we had people with alcohol problems and mental illness in the community who were housed, because we had a lot of inexpensive housing. We had these SRO hotels and some of them were not very nice, but people could flop in and out of them without a lot of credit background. We’re probably not going to build those, but when we lost them we spilled people onto the streets. The question has to be asked, do you know people with alcohol problems that are middle and upper income people that are housed? Is it an economic issue more than a behavior issue? I would say it is. Without being pejorative and blaming people, we need to really take a look at that.
I think that we do have to have a better community dialogue. There have been some very hurtful things that have been said recently in the community. Demonizing of people because they are poor or without housing, that needs to be combated. I think that’s something that Street Roots is doing very well and is prepared to really show leadership. That’s going to be very important as we move this conversation along. We need the business community to support our efforts and to be a part of this: get people inside.
J.R.: What responsibility do you think the private sector has with homelessness? Are they living up to it?
S.E.: Boy, that’s a big question. I think there’s a role for the business community. As government folks, there’s some very smart business people in our community who would like to be invited to the table and be part of the solution, who know how to do development, who have some great ideas that we haven’t involved. That’s been a shortcoming on our part and maybe on the part of government, not to bring these people in. We couldn’t operate our organization without the support of business and all the property management firms and the building owners that take our referrals and take our people. Beyond that, there is a role to play for the business community in terms of supporting the effort: finding out how they can be involved, thinking about some private philanthropy: If they’re concerned about panhandling and people being on the streets then saying, “OK how do we solve this? What are the solutions?” Being part of that, both in terms of their involvement and possibly donations and leadership.
J.R.: What are some of the milestones, the things we’re doing right?
S.E.: The urban renewal funds are lessening and sort of drying up, but we passed public policy that said 30 percent of urban renewal funds would be set aside to build housing for very poor people. That did create housing to be built and that was good public policy. We’ve done a good job between the city and the county in trying to protect the safety net for poor people and for agencies desperately trying to serve people and get them into housing. The short-term rent assistance program has been important. Home Forward operates it, but my understanding is the city and county and Home Forward all put money in collectively. And there’s quite a variety of community groups serving singles and families and the mentally ill that have access to short-term rent assistance. To help people with housing, hopefully there’s a long-term strategy with each person that’s housed, that it does lead to housing stability. Some of our community development groups have done a brilliant job of developing housing and making beautiful, quality housing for people to live in long term.
J.R.: What in the work that you do gives you hope?
S.E.: On a day-to-day basis, I see people who come in here look absolutely forlorn and without hope. Usually after they spend an hour or two with a worker in this agency, they go out looking more hopeful. That is our idea, that people who have been without housing or without resources for a long time, we want to make them feel hopeful about their future. I see people here getting people into housing, getting them into a shelter, moving them from the shelter to transitional housing, from that to permanent housing, seeing them the day they come in to get their keys for their apartment, their new bedding that the church groups provide — that’s a pretty astonishing transformation. I know it works and I know it can be done for a variety of people.
And then to see those same people who have been so desolate and without hope, coming back here wanting to contribute when finally they have income. It’s remarkable. Usually when we do a letter asking for contributions, the very first people to respond are the people who are the poorest. Almost without exception, the first donations in are from people we’ve placed in subsidized housing, who might be living on $700 a month. Even if they are sending a $25 or $50 check, the percentage of their annual or monthly income is so much greater. It’s remarkable.
We have a man that I know lives on $650 a month and every month he gives us $100, because he was sleeping outside and he feels like we saved his life. He doesn’t have cable TV. He’s a bright man and he would probably love the History Channel. But when I say to him, “you don’t need to do this,” he says, “Yes, I do.” So, I do feel very hopeful.
There have been setbacks, but Portland is a progressive community. It’s just having the political will to do this. Getting ready for the talk that I gave, I went out and met with a lot of businesspeople. I shared with them the ideas that I was going to be sharing and said, “What do you think about a local trust fund? What do you think about $1 billion over 20 years?” They said, almost universally, “the money is here Susan. The money is here in this community.” That surprised me, because I thought they would say, “oh, no way.” We’ve had people with deep pockets who have been generous towards the arts. We have to have a compelling leadership — people who step up and say, “I’m going to be the champion for this.” Give people something to donate to, to respond to. I think the community would, because I think people understand. Housing is so fundamental.
J.R.: What breaks your heart?
S.E.: My husband and I are lifelong renters, married for 45 years. I walk in from Northwest Portland on any given day to come to work and I see people sleeping in doorways, of churches, anywhere people can find an overhang. That to me is heartbreaking, to see the number of people who are outside and have no place to go — people around my neighborhood. I can complain about being cold when I’m inside, in a heated place with a warm bed. To imagine people sleeping out in this weather, it’s just unimaginable to me. I’ve never been, unless I was camping out in the woods voluntarily, but knowing I could leave at any time and come home to a warm place. That is heartbreaking to me, to see how as a community we’ve failed very vulnerable people.
J.R.: How do you battle fatigue, when you’ve been an advcoate on the frontlines for so long?
S.E.: I’m very inspired by the people I work with. We have younger people on the staff and they are doing the hard work. I do public speaking and fundraising. I monitor contracts. For me it’s inspiring daily because I think they are the ones doing the tough work. When I overhear them say day after day to somebody who’s calling in, “No, we still don’t have a shelter bed for you.” — knowing that they are highly educated people, working at a lesser wage because they are passionate about this. It’s the hardest thing in the world to take on a job where you want to help people and then you don’t have the resources to do it. To see them come back day after day ready to do that is inspiring.
To talk to the people that we have housed, and to see them year after year. People who were pretty fragile when they came to us, and how they’ve gotten involved in the community and now what they’re doing to be active citizens and living a full life. That’s inspiring.
All of us have days where we feel down and feel discouraged. I’m not an angry person by nature, but sometimes I do feel angry that there isn’t more of a sense of urgency, when I go into some of these public meetings and I think people are concentrating on the wrong things. Collectively we should be talking about what we are going to do right now to solve this. But mostly I don’t feel discouraged because I see what works. I know that we have done it and I know we can do more of it. It’s just a matter of convincing others, of getting the broader community to understand.
J.R.: What would you say to someone who has given up on the battle to end homelessness?
S.E.: I have been in City Council meetings where I have heard public officials say we’re never going to end homelessness in this community. And I just totally disagree with that. It might be fair to say we’ll always have poor people among us. It’s the kind of system we have -- inadequate minimum wage, we have companies that don’t give full hours. There probably always will be poor people. I don’t like to say that. But I don’t think that it’s true to say that we always have to have people without housing. That hasn’t always been true in Portland.
I was struck yesterday (after the speech) by the number of older people in the audience that came up to me afterwards and said, “I was here in the 1960s and I know exactly what you’re talking about. There weren’t visibly homeless people all over our streets. That’s right and I remember that.” That was validating.
For our workers that get burned out, I can understand that. In that case we have to give them more to work with. They need to have more funds and they need to have better tools. One of the tools and the most important tool we can give them is more housing.