My goal is not simply to become Multnomah County Chair. My goal is to fix Multnomah County.

That means my campaign emails won't be filled with political marketing. Instead, I'll focus on real events in the news: what they reveal about what's broken in County government, and what I would do to turn things around.

The Sunstone Way shelter funding scandal is a perfect example.

Public Housing, Public Money, Public Silence

Sophie Peel’s reporting begins to raise serious questions about Home Forward, our region’s housing authority. But there is far more beneath the surface.

At a time of declared housing emergency, Home Forward has reportedly left up to 15% of its affordable housing units vacant. That alone should demand accountability.

As the nights get colder, your thoughts, like mine, might turn to people sleeping outside and what they can do for shelter.

As a Multnomah County Commissioner, I asked four successive County homeless services directors for the most basic information about our shelter system: Cost, number of beds, populations served, and – the ultimate goal – success at getting people stably housed. This data is foundational to any shelter system plan.

This story is deeply disturbing. A shelter provider is being accused of profligate spending and mismanagement, and the issue only came to light because someone on the inside had the courage to speak up.

While this specific situation must be investigated, once again it is not an isolated incident that happened to be discovered at Multnomah County.

As with the rampant turnover of core County department leadership, this reflects a broader pattern: lack of oversight and accountability, with spending utterly disconnected from verified outcomes.

This is a confusing article, because the City reaches the right conclusion but for the wrong reasons. 

The right conclusion: Multnomah County is utterly to blame for the fact that Portland moved fewer people from shelter to stable housing from 2024-2025. 

The wrong reason: That it’s about spending. 

The reality: The County alone has sufficient money to substantially reduce chronic homelessness. They’ve spent billions, yet homelessness has grown five-fold in the last five years.