After a month when it seemed unlikely, Metro Council is now indicating that it will refer a homeless services ballot measure to the voters in May.
The aim is to bring in at least $250 million annually for Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties, most likely funded by taxing incomes on the wealthiest metro residents. More on that in just a moment.
This is moving fast — and yet in the bigger picture, very slowly, since this was all needed yesterday, last year, last decade. And I want to make sure you know how to get involved. Metro will launch community dialogues next week in all three counties, followed by a public hearing at the Metro Regional Center. Then, on Feb. 20, Metro Council is set to vote to refer the measure to the voters in May. Ballots drop late April for a May 19 election.
This measure emerges from the work of Here Together, a coalition of service providers, businesses, faith communities, culturally specific organizations and elected officials. Street Roots is part of the coalition.
Wealth disparity combined with federal disinvestment has been brutal on our streets. Without proper funding, other services — often the wrong ones — are stretched thin. Jails and emergency rooms fill with unhoused people. Desperate to not go back to the streets, unhoused people sometimes act out in emergency departments, where they are arrested and taken to jail. Disability Rights Oregon reported last June that from 2017 to 2018, 72% of people arrested in Portland-area emergency departments were unhoused people.
It’s all absurd and rather cruel. And expensive: A night in supportive housing — housing bolstered with services such as mental health or addiction treatment — costs about $45 a night, compared to the $500 cost of an emergency room visit, the $168 cost of a night in jail, or the $1,364 cost of a night at the state hospital, according to a 2019 Regional Supportive Housing Impact Fund Strategic Framework for the Metro Region.
The Portland (2016) and Metro (2018) housing bonds mean that more housing is getting built. But beyond bricks and mortar, people who are sick and traumatized need extra support to restore their health indoors. Maybe it’s someone checking in, connecting them to their health care. Maybe it’s support with mental health or substance use disorders, or coping with past violence. Some have begun to use substances to medicate living on the streets, alternatively sleeping to deal with despair and staying awake out of fear.
And people need rental assistance to actually afford to live indoors. An elder living on Social Security can’t possibly afford an apartment, even ones that are deemed affordable. I know a woman who recently lived under the Morrison Bridge and worked at Starbucks. She commuted by bus and MAX every day while her partner stayed behind to bag everything into a storage facility. I know someone who sleeps in Old Town right now who commutes to a fast food restaurant. Another delivers meals on an app using a Biketown bike. None of them can afford even affordable housing. They need assistance with their rent, as do people who are on the brink of eviction. This measure can support that kind of rent assistance.
Portland is one of the wealthiest cities in the nation, but wealth is coagulating at the top, while more than a third of people in Multnomah County don’t earn enough to get their basic needs met. Income inequality hurts us all. We don’t need to be that kind of region.
COMMENTARY: Invest our abundance in those who truly need it (Director's Desk)
Metro needs the state Legislature to lift the percentage of income that Metro can tax. Right now, Metro can tax 1% of high income earners but will need to tax closer to 2% in order to reach the goal of raising $250 million. House Speaker Tina Kotek has indicated that she will pursue this during the current short session.
Anyone who wonders why we can’t solve homelessness with past revenue sources — well, homelessness is 38,000 people deep in the Metro region. We have a housing market so expensive that an increase in rents correlates with an increase in homelessness. If we are really going to dream of a more equal society — not just disappearing homelessness in massive shelters — it will take a robust public sector. People deserve housing they can afford, supported with all the services that a humane society should provide.
Director's Desk is written by Kaia Sand, the executive director of Street Roots. You can reach her at kaia@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @mkaiasand.