Structure Begets Results
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
As Multnomah County’s budget process winds down over the next couple of weeks, it’s important to remember that County officials have essentially promised that homelessness would not improve over the coming year no matter what they did.
With this absurd position as backdrop, it’s also worth remembering that many cities and counties across the country have, in fact, substantially reduced homelessness. They share some common features:
Centralized planning and oversight
Independent leadership with clear chains of command
Effective transitions from outreach to shelter to treatment to housing
Reliance on accurate and complete shared data
Money tied to outcomes with accountability
Multnomah County, as a rule, lacks all.
Furthermore, the picture is obscured by a roiling sea of acronyms and leadership turnover, raising some predictable questions that never seem to get answered:
Is the Portland Housing Authority the same as the Portland Housing Bureau?
Are either of those related to the Homeless Services Department?
Is there a new director at one - or all - of these agencies? What experience do they have?
Is the Joint Office of Homeless Services still a thing?
Wait, there’s a Homelessness Response System?
What the heck is Home Forward?
The following is an attempt to clarify the current structures and players.
Let’s start with the acronyms.
PHB. The Portland Housing Bureau is the CITY BUREAU responsible for affordable housing development. PHB is theoretically responsible for investing public dollars into affordable housing, setting the rules for how that housing is used, and stewarding those assets over time.
PHA. The Portland Housing Authority, aka Home Forward, is a separate QUASI-GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY responsible for affordable housing development and rent assistance. It’s a “Portland public corporation,” covers all of Multnomah County, administers Section 8 housing, is funded mainly by HUD, but also by the County and state. It is governed by a board of commissioners appointed by the Portland Mayor and approved by Portland City Council. No one knows who is actually responsible for anything it does.
HSD. The Homeless Services Department, formerly known as the Joint Office of Homeless Services (JOHS), is the COUNTY DEPARTMENT responsible for funding and coordinating a continuum of services from homelessness prevention to stable housing. In reality, homeless services funding is hidden via dispersal across the County’s Department of County Human Services (DCHS), Health Department (HD), Department of County Assets (DCA), and Department of Community Justice (DCJ). And there is no continuum.
AHFE.A Home For Everyone was established as an ADVISORY BODY for the JOHS and consisted of a Coordinating Board and an Executive Committee. It was summarily disbanded by the former Multnomah County Chair when its failed efforts and lack of accountability began to surface.
HRS. The Homelessness Response System replaced AHFE, and is not a system. It consists of a gaggle of committees with no clear unifying purpose, with the County Chair appointing the director.
HRAP. HRS is organized according to a Homelessness Response Action Plan (HRAP) that is not a plan, created by a cabal of influencers mostly without expertise in homeless services, operating out of public view. First calling themselves the “Kitchen Cabinet” and now operating as Homeless Strategic Initiatives, Inc. (HSI), this group gifted the HRAP to the County Chair because she did not have a plan of her own. The HRAP contains a number of vague deliverables that have no cohesion, accountability, or consistency, and do not tie to meaningful housing outcomes.
SHS. The Supportive Housing Services measure is a Metro tax on high income earners in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties, with revenue intended to fund supportive housing for people who are chronically homeless and need extensive wraparound services to get and stay housed.
LIP. Each of the metro counties created a Local Implementation Plan for use of their SHS funds. Multnomah County has distributed more than a billion dollars to hundreds of nonprofits (and PHA), providing services for a variety of disconnected programs, overseen by multiple county departments. It is impossible to follow this money, and it has resulted in no measurable improvements in people's stability or ongoing housing support. In fact, unsheltered homelessness has more than tripled since the influx of SHS funds five years ago.
The people.
PHB: Three directors have served over the past two years, with a recent scandal related to unspent housing funds. The current interim director has no prior background in homeless or housing services.
PHA (Home Forward): Three directors have served over the past four years (one is the same person), with a recent PHA scandal involving a director’s misuse of funds for personal benefit, and a prior scandal relating to PHA’s failure to deploy hundreds of housing vouchers. Major questions persist around safety and security of Home Forward buildings, and a lawsuit is pending around potential discrimination against a service applicant on the basis of disability.
HSD (JOHS): Six directors have served over the past four years, with major questions raised about accountability. A Corrective Action Plan was put in place by Metro for the County’s failure to use tens of millions in SHS funds. Budget irregularities persist, with ongoing programs inappropriately funded with one-time-only money. Three out of six directors had no prior background in homeless or housing services before being appointed to leadership within the HSD. A lawsuit is pending around potential discrimination against a service applicant on the basis of disability.
HRS: Three directors have served over the past three years. Two, including the current director, had no prior background in homeless or housing services.
In summary:
PHB and PHA are not the same (though PHA and Home Forward are the same). PHB and PHA do some of the same things, have shared some of the same leaders, and have both faced scandals.
One director led PHA, left PHA after hundreds of emergency housing vouchers were discovered unused, then was hired to direct PHB after the former PHB director was forced to resign due to a scandal she had tried to expose. The new PHB director then left PHB to go back to PHA after the more recent PHA director was forced to resign due to a scandal.
HSD and JOHS are the same (not to be confused with HRS, which is different). HSD deploys homeless services funding, including SHS funding, along with many other county departments that are not coordinated. It is impossible to follow the money. There have been six leaders in the past four years.
HRS is the new version of AHFE established on top of the existing structures. It is unclear what HRS is supposed to be doing, even less clear what it actually does.
There has been dramatic worsening of homelessness and death on Portland’s streets despite the influx of more than a billion dollars from the SHS measure over four years.
And the current convoluted structure of our region’s homelessness-related institutions tells us why.
To put it another way:
A picture speaks a thousand words. The following graphic depicts Multnomah County’s Current Homelessness And Outreach System (aka, “CHAOS”).
Current Multnomah County Homeless Response System
Until we address the foundation of what’s causing our region’s homelessness crisis, we will continue to lurch from one failed solution to another, wasting hundreds of millions, while our residents, families, and communities continue to suffer.
The County Chair’s proposed County budget made no attempt to fix any of this, nor do any of the budget amendments proposed by commissioners. But they could.
Here is just one possible rational reorganization based on outcomes, accountability, budgeting for results, and what’s best for the actual people using the system:
Proposed Results Driven Coordinated New Structure
It’s not about the money, or performative collaboration during an election year, or crafting more convincing talking points, or administering dysfunctional programs better.
Only a new homeless services structure will beget different results. And this is what we should be demanding during the current budget process - particularly of commissioners seeking to lead the County as Chair.
As we head into the long weekend, I wish you a meaningful and safe Memorial Day as we pause to reflect on and honor those who gave their lives in service to our country.
In good health,
Sharon Meieran, M.D., J.D.
