Mental Health Association of Portland

By Peter Korn, Portland Tribune, March 28, 2013

Ten months ago Multnomah County opened the nation’s first court set in a homeless facility. Nobody showed up.

In what court authorities around the country labeled a potential breakthrough experiment, Multnomah County’s Community Court last year moved its Friday afternoon operation to Bud Clark Commons.

The court deals mostly with low-level citation crimes such as drinking in public and small thefts. Many of the accused are homeless. The hope was that defendants might be more willing to show up for their court dates if court were held in a facility where many of the defendants spend their daytime hours.

The second week the court was in session, one defendant showed up, out of 16 who had been issued citations and ordered to appear.

Last Friday, 65 people were ordered to appear at the Bud Clark Commons Community Court and 21 did so.

Doreen Binder, executive director of Bud Clark Commons and the driving force behind the new court, says that’s progress. And, Binder says, the progress is best measured not by how many accused offenders actually make their court date, but by what happens to those who do.

Of the 15 who appeared in court two weeks ago, five agreed to perform community service and one chose to take his case to a full trial. Three opted to work with social workers to get treatment for addictions or attend groups to help them deal with the problems that have played a role in their homelessness. Six had returned to the court after completing work with social service agencies.

Those last nine, according to Binder, are the reason it makes sense to hold court in a facility that serves the homeless.

“We’re trying to turn the court into an entryway into services rather than something people view as a punitive institution,” Binder says.

Still, the fact that only about one in three defendants makes their court appearance shows there is still work to be done. Failure-to-appear rates for Community Court have long been a problem, though nobody can say exactly how large a problem since Multnomah County court officials don’t keep records on appearance rates.

The penalty for failing to appear can be a fine which many never pay, knowing they won’t be sent to jail anyway. At Bud Clark Commons, many of those who fail to appear are simply placed on the next week’s docket. Some are scheduled week after week and never appear. But Larry Turner, engagement director for Transition Projects, which runs the day facility, thinks holding the court at Bud Clark Commons gives him an opportunity to increase the appearance rate. In fact, he knows it does.

At Bud Clark Commons homeless men and women can use computers, do their laundry, take showers and connect with social service agencies. On a typical afternoon, dozens will be seated in the main lobby, waiting their turn or just hanging out. Every Wednesday Turner gets the docket for the Friday Community Court, which gives him two days to spot the familiar faces of those he knows are supposed to appear, or who failed to appear the week before.

When Turner finds them, he tries to persuade them to show up on Friday. He’s armed with a couple of convincing arguments. One section of Bud Clark Commons has overnight beds for the homeless. Four of those beds are reserved for people who have made their court appearances. On a Friday afternoon, a homeless man can go straight from his court appearance to one of those beds.

Turner’s bigger pitch has to do with longer term housing. All of the social services offered at Bud Clark Commons are aimed at getting homeless people off the street and into permanent subsidized apartments throughout the city. For some, the first step is an addiction recovery program, for others it might be mental health treatment.

But people with outstanding warrants and fines cannot legally be placed in those apartments. Which is why Community Court judges are willing to waive fines if an offender agrees to perform substitute community service or begin drug treatment.

Still, getting those defendants to court is an uphill battle. Turner says he can predict fairly well who will appear and who won’t. The most chronic offenders with multiple prior arrests for nuisance crimes rarely show up, he says.

“They know it’s just going to be a fine,” he says. “They’ll get picked up again. They’re always drinking, always loitering, because they know the most that can happen is a fine.”

A fine that likely will never be paid, according to Turner.

But, Turner says, those among the homeless who have been issued their first citations for drinking in public or small thefts are more likely to show up for court dates. Which, he says, makes a strong case for doing everything possible to get them into court before they become chronic offenders who never show up.

What Turner would like to do is begin an outreach program that would allow him to send social workers, possibly Bud Clark mentors, to search the streets for the people on each week’s docket and persuade them to come to court on Friday.

“Everybody knows where they are,” Turner says.

Training those mentors would take a little money that Transitions Projects can’t spare. But Turner remains optimistic about the community court program’s future.

“The court is still in its infancy,” Turner says. “It’s only been nine months. For people to expect this court to make drastic changes in people’s lives in nine months is expecting a miracle. But I believe with continuity, and the more familiar people get, the longer it happens, the more success we’re going to have.”

Multnomah County prosecutor Laurie Abraham says the still-high failure-to-appear rate doesn’t mean the community court isn’t working.

“Maybe it’s not getting a lot of people into housing and drug and alcohol treatment, but it is getting a few,” Abraham says. “Even when you get a few you save the criminal justice system a lot of money.”

Criminal justice officials around the country will be watching, says Julius Lang, director of technical assistance for the nonprofit Center for Court Innovation in New York City.

“It’s turning the paradigm on its head,” Lang says of the Bud Clark Commons approach of bringing the court to the defendants. “What we need is evidence of the impact that Bud Clark is having. Once we have a more complete story to tell I think it will be a very compelling example.”

At the Bud Clark Commons Community Court, about 1 in 3 defendants shows up. At Community Court in Hartford, Conn., better than 9 in 10 do.

The Bud Clark Commons Community Court experiment is intended to lower a historically high failure-to-appear rate. But in Hartford, Conn., tackling time, rather than place, is proving much more effective.

In Multnomah County, a police officer issues a citation for a court date that is usually two to four weeks away. In Hartford, no more than two days lapse between when police issue a citation and the court date.

“The quicker you get them here, the better it is,” says Hartford Community Court Judge Raymond Norko, who suggests Portland should at least attempt to have court dates the same week as citations are issued.

A shorter turnaround time makes sense, says Binder, the Bud Clark Commons executive director. “These are people who, some are sleeping on the streets. It’s almost impossible (for them) to remember dates,” she says.

The Hartford court, which is in session five days a week, does more than shorten the time between citation and court appearance. Every afternoon the court sends the next day’s docket to the homeless shelters in town. Shelter staff members check who in their facility is scheduled to appear in court, and then accompany clients to the courtroom.

Multnomah County prosecutor Abraham says “logistics” have made it impossible to shorten the time between citations and court dates here. Police officers have to get their reports to prosecutors who have to get them to the court, and in Multnomah County that paperwork process is often taking a month.

“We can’t seem to shorten that period up,” Abraham says. “We ought to be able to do that faster and I don’t really know why we can’t.”

The Hartford approach is vastly different from Portland’s, where nuisance offenders often tear up police citations as soon as they are issued, and know they likely will never be taken to jail if they fail to appear in court. Even if they are arrested after an abundance of failures to appear, they are released after a few hours, according to Abraham.

That wouldn’t fly in Hartford, according to Norko. Hartford defendants who don’t show up for their nuisance crime court dates face a $150 cash bond that can be worked off with community service, according to Norko. Social workers who offer addiction services and mental health treatment are part of the process as well.

But if offenders still don’t appear, Norko issues an arrest warrant, police bring them to jail, and their community service time increases. The failure-to-appear rate has dropped below 5 percent.

“You can make the argument you’re criminalizing the homeless, but the community in Hartford demands their quality of life be enforced by the police department and the court,” Norko says.

From Street Roots, January 10, 2013

By Mridula Koshy and Michael Creighton, Contributing Columnists

A year and a half ago, our family returned to Portland after six years living in India. We found many things had improved in our absence. For example, food carts had become an affordable alternative to fast food. More significantly, the roads and TriMet were so much more bike friendly than they were when we left that we decided we didn’t need a car.

Mridula Koshy is the author of Not Only The Things That Have Happened, Harper Collins (India, 2012) and If It Is Sweet, Westland- Tranquebar (India, 2009) and Hunter Publishing (Australia, 2011).

But some things were, if anything, worse. Much of this could be blamed on the economy: Unemployment and foreclosures were up. We also noticed many more people forced to camp under bridges and in doorways. We found this last fact most disturbing: How could such a well-run, compassionate — and still prosperous — city let this happen?

But although we complained about the state of homelessness, we rarely did anything concrete about it. Maybe that’s because we believed, without thinking too much, that it was one of those social ills that had no solution given the current political context in the United States. Maybe it was because we just didn’t understand how serious, or how deadly, a problem could be.

On Dec. 16, that changed for us.

We were riding to church on the Going Street bike boulevard, just west of MLK, when we saw a gentleman sleeping on the sidewalk next to his shopping carts. We see this every day in Portland. And we had seen him, in particular, a number of times over the previous couple weeks. We had been worried enough about his well being to voice the worry to one another. Seeing him this time, we knew immediately something was clearly not right. We stopped a nearby police officer, who said he would call for help. The ambulance and firefighters were there in minutes, but they said our neighbor had died sometime in the night, probably from exposure to the elements.

The medical examiner said our neighbor had died of natural causes. We could not fathom these words applied to a man who had died sleeping outside on a cold, rainy night. But we have since learned our homeless neighbors die of the same things that kill us all; they just do it much more often and earlier than those of us with homes. In fact, at every age group, homeless Americans are three times more likely to die prematurely than the rest of us, and the lifespan for a homeless person is just 50 years, as compared with 78 years for the general population in the United States. Common sense tells us that exposure to the elements may not always kill you outright, but it is hard on human beings.

Sadly, what we witnessed was not out of the ordinary in Portland. We know now that 47 of our homeless neighbor died on the streets in 2011 — that’s nearly one death each week, on average.

So what are we called to do? That same morning, we heard these words in church:

“Whoever has two coats must share with the one who doesn’t have any, and the person who has food must do the same.”

We know we fail to live up to this teaching every day. But we don’t have to keep failing. As a family, we decided that we do bear some responsibility as residents of a city where so many people are forced to sleep — and sometimes even to die — out in the cold.

We did a few things. We gave some money to Street Roots and other groups that support those who are homeless. We made a small online memorial for our neighbor (giveacoat.wordpress.com). And we wrote letters to some of our city officials asking them to make it a priority to find decent shelter for all.

In the process, we’ve learned some things, and we have many more questions. Like why do the shelters in our city turn people out before the sun rises? How can the city justify its attempts to close a homeless camp that is working — Right 2 Dream Too — when public shelters are full most nights?

We know this is a difficult problem. But it isn’t one we can afford to ignore. When our neighbors are sleeping on our streets in the cold, how can any of us rest easy? When our neighbors are dying on our streets, how can any of us feel safe?

By Saundra Sorenson, Portland Tribune, Jan. 3, 2013

James Bastin (L), with Gerry Pruyn, director of Jubilee House

Asking to be identified only as Allen, the 53-year-old occasional Tualatin resident works hard to keep up appearances.

Well-coiffed, smartly dressed in a blazer over a sweater, Allen doesn’t have the look of a man who lives in his car and depends on the facilities at the Sherwood YMCA to maintain his hygiene regimen.

Once securely employed in construction, Allen was laid off more than two years ago. He has family in the area. When his unemployment benefits ran out, he moved to Arizona for six months to live with his parents and save money.

“Relatives and friends are there for you, but unfortunately they can’t give you what you need the most, because they don’t have that themselves,” he said.

Back in Oregon, Allen could find only sporadic work. He was soon living in a van donated by a local church, and now lives out of a sedan.

It is a lifestyle he describes as “playing Zorro.”

“I feel like I’m putting on a show for everybody else,” Allen said. “There’s a hidden world that you don’t want nobody to know.”

It’s a life of hyper-vigilance: Allen estimates he averages about three hours of sleep a night, and he has lost so much weight his pant size has gone from 36 to 31 inches.

Living in a car, “you’re constantly worried about that (knock) on the window,” he said, adding that Tigard, Tualatin and Sherwood police have for the most part been compassionate to his plight.

For a man who grew up solidly middle-class, Allen quickly became savvy about the logistics of living out of a vehicle.

“If you have a car, if you want to feel safe and secure, you want to be in well-lit areas,” Allen explained. “You never, ever want to spend the night at a rest area off a freeway. There’s too much (illicit activity) that goes on there.”

Walmart parking lots have proven a safe bet, he said, and the lots of businesses that are open 24 hours are safest of all because there are always people present. Even with the social stigma around homelessness, you never want to be physically isolated, Allen explained.

But even living out of his car has at times proven a logistical paradox: He nearly lost his car insurance when his provider learned he didn’t have a residential address.

Allen identifies as a new kind of homeless demographic.

“People like myself, there’s a lot of them out there. You’re not going to find them because they don’t want to show themselves,” he said.

Single male majority

Single men represent 56 percent of the total homeless population in Washington County, and 39 percent of those living on the street. Without children, they are also the demographic for whom there are the fewest shelter resources available.

There is the Bridges to Change Mentor House in Hillsboro, which works with the county’s Department of Housing Services to offer a 90-day rehabilitation program geared toward both men and women recently paroled from prison. Fairhaven Recovery Home is a Christian nonprofit that offers transitional facilities for those attempting to overcome addiction.

But beds are limited for those like Allen, homeless, but with no legal or substance abuse obstacles — resources can seem scant.

Churches and faith-based organizations attempt to bridge the gap by offering seasonal shelters and warming centers. Rolling Hills Community Church in Tualatin offers shelter every Wednesday during winter, according to community global outreach director Faith Carter. Homeless guests are invited from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. the following morning, during which time they can access the food pantry, take hot showers and wash their clothes.

“When Washington County declares severe weather, we open every night,” Carter added.

This requires a flexible volunteer base to run the shelter: Rolling Hills aims to provide one volunteer for every five guests, and the facility can comfortably accommodate more than 20 people, Carter said.

More of its guests now own vehicles, Carter has noticed. They are in situations similar to Allen’s: Accustomed to the stable home base that comes with gainful employment, but unable to find consistent work.

“The profile of homelessness is changing — we have the working poor, they have a job, they have a car, they don’t have a place to live,” Carter said.

Allen himself came to Rolling Hills to take advantage of the Tualatin Food Pantry housed there. He said he was at first reluctant to take advantage of charity.

“I have a sense of pride. I’m Irish,” Allen said. “It was difficult to think of going to a food bank. I humbled myself.”

With the food pantry as his entry point, Allen found immense comfort in the church, he said. Having lost his apartment, savings and a relationship as a result of his homelessness, he admits he was at one point suicidal.

As county and church organizations work together to address a growing need, Allen’s has proven a success story. He began taking advantage of Rolling Hills’ weekly shelter night, and one evening found himself opening up to a shelter volunteer who he later found out was the church’s senior pastor, Bill Town.

Meanwhile, volunteers provided resume help and a strengthened network during Allen’s job search.

Homelessness and the law

Within the Tualatin Police Department, Sgt. Larry Clow is known for keeping a casual count of homeless camps throughout Tualatin. But even in the face of “the new homelessness,” Clow said, these are not organized colonies made to address a harsh economic reality.

According to Clow, most camps — like the one that exists in a ravine near Warm Springs Road, or the odd gathering under bridges — are abandoned during the day. They are primarily populated by men, he said, with a few “transient women.” Although there are no official statistics available from Tualatin police, Clow said that in his experience, the homeless individuals he finds camping within Tualatin city limits are “longtime homeless transients.”

“It’s not the person that is just down on their luck,” he said.

He describes the contributing factors to this particular homeless population as “a mixed bag” — some grapple with unaddressed mental health issues, some abuse illegal drugs and some are homeless as a lifestyle choice.

According to the 2011 One Night Homeless Count that tallied a total of 1,354 homeless countywide, individual adult men accounted for 30 percent of the county’s homeless population, versus individual adult women, who comprised 9.8 percent. Single men also made up the majority of the street-dwelling homeless population not getting access to social services, at 35 percent.

In Washington County, 189 individuals were classified as “chronically homeless,” which is defined federally as anyone who has been homeless for a year or more, or who has been homeless at least four times in the last three years. A chronically homeless individual is seen as struggling with substance abuse or addiction issues, a developmental or physical disability, mental illness or a chronic illness.

Eighty-two percent of those identified as chronically homeless in the county were adult men.

Transitional opportunities

In Tigard, the 1,600-square-foot home is indistinguishable from other single-story, ranch-style homes. For nearly four years it has housed single men who have struggled with addiction issues in the past, or who have a felony conviction in their background.

At the Jubilee Transition House, residents must have 30 days of sobriety, director Gerry Pruyn explained. “They have to do two things: They have to be appreciative of a place to stay, and want to change their lives.”

Although about 75 percent of Jubilee House’s residents have had substance abuse issues, some, like James Bastin, 22, are struggling with simply getting back on their feet after personal and financial setbacks. Bastin turned to LifeWorks NW, a mental health resource center, after returning to his native Oregon earlier this year. He was unable to find steady work, and living with his grandmother proved to be a fraught situation. No one else in his family could afford to take him in, so he left his grandmother’s home with no place to go.

Bastin stayed in Portland-area shelters for a couple days before he was referred to Jubilee House. In his first week there, he has found comfort in the house’s stability. At the shelters, he said, addiction issues were rampant and many of the adults around him were constantly under the influence. At Jubilee, he feels more able to focus on his goals of finding full-time work and an apartment of his own.

Potential residents undergo what Pruyn described as a “tight interview process,” then have a probationary first month at the house where they work closely with a manager. If both Jubilee and the individual decide the house is a good fit, Jubilee charges a monthly fee of $440 for room and board, and the resident is invited to stay for up to 18 months while he tries to secure work and permanent housing.

There is a religious aspect to this regimen too, with regular Bible study. But Pruyn said Jubilee welcomes those of all faiths, or no faith.

Jubilee’s approach is case by case. Currently, one of its residents is serving time in jail for a probation violation. Because the violation was not alcohol- or drug-related, and because Jubilee views him as committed to his goals at the house, the resident will be welcomed back to the facility upon his release, Pruyn said.

Pruyn admits Jubilee has had to revise its screening process, which has meant acknowledging the organization’s own limitations in aiding a homeless population with mental illnesses.

He hopes that within the year, Jubilee House in Tigard will have proven itself as a duplicable model — one that can serve a broader population.

“When we first started, it was basically single homeless men in the community, because there’s things for women with children, and families, but nothing for single homeless men,” Pruyn said. “In the meantime, I’ve met a lot of single homeless women who have the same type of path that the men have had, that end up on the streets here in Washington County.”

By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian, Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Thomas Boyd / The Oregonian
Four homeless people sit below the Morrison Bridge Wednesday afternoon, on the south sidewalk of Southeast Belmont Street, between Third Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. They said they were disturbed by the early morning drive-by shooting that targeted two homeless men sleeping two blocks away. They said they usually look out for one another, but one man added, "When someone's driving by, there's not much you can do about it.''

An employee of the 24-hour Senvoy courier company heard two shots followed by screams early Wednesday and called 9-1-1, bringing Portland police to Southeast Belmont Street below the Morrison Bridge, where two homeless men were shot while they lay sleeping.

One man was struck in the chest and the other grazed by a bullet in a pre-dawn drive-by shooting that police suspect was random. It sent fear through other homeless people living on the city’s streets and stunned homeless advocates, city officials and even police.

“It’s straight-up ridiculous,” said William Creed, 36. “It’s way too close to home.”

Home for Creed is a slab of sidewalk below the Hawthorne Bridge, three blocks away, where he spent the night and often finds shelter from the rain.

“It’s got me scared. I really don’t need this now,” said Karen Creed, 49, who has been living on the streets on and off since 2007 and camps with William below the Hawthorne Bridge to stay dry. “I hope it’s not a gang initiation thing or some psycho out there trying to kill homeless people.”

Central Precinct officers responded to the 5:12 a.m. call. One of the victims was in his late 50s; the other in his early 40s. Police found the two men bedded down on the south sidewalk of Southeast Belmont Street, between First and Second Avenues, east of the railroad tracks. The two were taken to a local hospital. The man shot in the chest was in critical condition but expected to survive.

Flat sheets of cardboard remained on the sidewalk later, marking the dry spot where the homeless men slept. Forensic criminalists searched for evidence and took photos.

Karen Creed said investigators talked to them this morning and warned them to be aware.

“An individual fired two rounds striking two men who were asleep,” said Lt. Robert King, Portland police spokesman. “They’re in their bedrolls and they’re literally sleeping. It really is awful and shocking.”

Police described a suspect vehicle as a four-door, black, newer model pickup without a canopy.

Police, city officials and homeless advocates expressed outrage.

“That is beyond anything I have heard happening in Portland before,” said Marc Jolin, executive director of JOIN, a nonprofit that works with the homeless. “It’s unbelievable that someone would do something like this.

City Commissioner Nick Fish, who oversees housing in the city, said homeless people are particularly vulnerable to violence. A city count on Jan. 26, 2011, found 1,718 people sleeping outside, in a vehicle or an abandoned building in Portland.

“I condemn the perpetrator of this ugly act of violence,” Fish said. “This shameful act reminds us that everyone in our community deserves a safe and decent place to call home.”

Celia Soltero, an employee of the Senvoy courier company, said she usually saw the two homeless men around 7:30 each morning on her way into the company’s warehouse, which backs up to Southeast Belmont Street. One was usually still asleep, while the other often was packing his blankets, sleeping bag, tarp and belongings into a shopping cart, Soltero said. She noticed they had slept in the same spot for about two months.

“They minded their own business,” Soltero said. She said she would usually nod hello or wave and say “Hi.”

“It’s horrible. It’s definitely eye-opening,” Soltero said of the shooting. “It never seemed very dangerous here. I guess I should be more careful.”

Later Wednesday, officers questioned homeless people who were sleeping beneath the Hawthorne Bridge. The Creeds said two officers came by their camp Wednesday morning asking whether they had heard anything and they also took names of everyone sleeping outside. Police cautioned them to be alert and watch out for each other, Karen Creed said.

The shooting marked the second in three days in inner Southeast Portland. Sunday a bouncer was fatally shot in front of a nightclub on Southeast Morrison Street. No arrests have been made.

Later Wednesday, four homeless men remained camped below the Morrison Bridge, closer to Southeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Workers in the industrial neighborhood said they commonly see homeless people seeking shelter beneath the bridge and under loading docks’ awnings.

“You got to be crazy to start shooting someone sleeping,” said Ed Wilson, who works for Airefco Inc., which backs up to Belmont Street.

Thurston Holmes, who works for City Liquidators, watched as police photographed the crime scene and took measurements below the Morrison Bridge.

“It’s the only shelter in the area from the rain,” he said. “That’s sad.”

Oregonian Staff Writer Noelle Crombie contributed to this story.

Read: Portland Mercury: Drive-By Shooting Injures Two Homeless Men Sleeping Under Morrison Bridge
Read: Portland Mercury: Homeless Men Shot Under Morrison Bridge Had Been Turned Away from Packed Old Town Tent Refuge
Read and Watch: KATU TV: Two homeless men shot in ‘drive-by’ under Morrison Bridge
Read and Watch: KPTV TV: Homeless men shot while sleeping under Morrison Bridge
Read: Rev. Chuck Currie: Statement On Ash Wednesday Shootings Of Homeless Portlanders

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By Sarah Mirk, The Portland Mercury, Wed, Feb 1, 2012

Homeless advocates got started early on their Wednesday morning protest to urge city council to waive the fines on the Right 2 Dream, Too tent city—really early. Last night at 10pm, about 70 protesters met outside city hall, setting up a free coffee stand and settling in for an “EPIC SLUMBER PARTY.”

The “rest area” on NW 4th and Burnside provides tents and a safe place to sleep for up about 70 people every night, but is facing $640 a month in city fines for various code violations.

Spirits were high at the slumber party, despite the fact that no one seemed to be doing much slumbering and protesters were facing a cold night in sleeping bags laid over cardboard on the edge of the sidewalk outside city hall (under the camping ban, no structures are allowed to be build without a permit). “The camping ban is unjust,” said 22-year-old protester Axcelle Bell, who was recently “entrenched in Occupy” and planned to sleep on the sidewalk over night.

“Overturning the ban is the best idea, people sleeping in cars is unacceptable and just stopping enforcement of the ban is nice, but it might not stop cop harassment.”

Some protesters were still asleep on the sidewalk this morning when a larger crowd started showing up for a bright-and-early 8:30 am rally. Bell, though awake, said he’d only snatched a few hours of sleep on the cold and noisy street. Numerous people addressed the crowd, calling on the city to essentially leave Right 2 Dream Too alone, including current tent city resident Trisha Diertch, who said she became homeless three years ago after fleeing domestic violence. The wait list to get into a long-term shelter was two-and-a-half months, so Diertch wound up sleeping on the streets. While she’s still looking for permanent housing, Right 2 Dream Too has been a haven for her. “I like it there, it’s safe, I can leave my stuff there, I can stay dry,” said Diertch.

Inside council, the homeless activists took up almost every chair in the lower chamber. “Instead of expensive police contact, sidewalk cleanup, and impact on local businesses, we have become good neighbors,” protester Kevin Nolan told council during the three-minute public communications that kick off every meeting.

Council is not currently considering any move to waive the fines, but members of Right 2 Dream Too hope to put pressure on Commissioner Dan Saltzman, the head of the Bureau of Development Services, to nix the fees.

From KGW.com, January 10, 2012

An emergency shelter for women who live on the streets of Portland is helping about a third of them get into stable housing.

The program is run by the Salvation Army. It’s called the Female Emergency Shelter.

One of the recent success stories is from a woman named Billie Robinson. If you met her on the streets of Portland you might not guess her story. But talk to her and you can hear the resolve of someone committed to change.

“There’s nothing I can’t do, I know that,” she said. “Because I am a survivor.”

Billie Robinson looks like anybody else on the outside, but on the inside she’s never felt that way. She grew up in Billings, Montana and described her childhood as rotten and full of disappointments. She ran away from home and started shooting up heroin at the age of 14.

Thirty years later she had one divorce, two grown children and a raging drug and alcohol addiction. She hopped a Greyhound bus to Portland for a sort of vacation. Soon she was hanging out on the waterfront and sleeping under the Morrison bridge. She would get high with other homeless men and women.

“Yep, just to make it through the day,” she said. “And then you get up and do it all over again.” Robinson said.

When it got cold and wet, she made her way to the Salvation Army’s Female Emergency Shelter on NW 5th Avenue in Portland’s Old Town. In a world of addiction and danger, the shelter offered sanctuary.

“I’ve been coming here for many years and every time I’ve come here you know I’ve never been turned away and never been judged on my life style,” she said. “It’s a safe place to come.”

The shelter offers women a warm place out of the elements, and at night 50 beds are open for sleeping. The waiting list has 160 names on it; it’s first-come first serve. Everyone gets assigned a case worker to see if they’re ready to leave the streets.

One day, Robinson decided she’d had enough.

“I got tired of running. You know I didn’t like who I was. I used my drugs to numb myself. I was running out of places to run to,” she said.

The shelter workers knew Robinson well. She’d been in and out for years.

“When she came to us in 2011 she decided that she was really ready to make a change in her life,” said Megan Kidd, Executive Director of the shelter.

For the first time in a long time, Robinson really wanted help and vowed to follow through.

“I don’t know what God has in store for me but I know my future’s going to be good. I have confidence, I have self-esteem,” Robinson said.

The addict says she stopped using heroin 14 months ago. She put down alcohol and pills last August. As she walks the streets of Portland now, Robinson can still point out the best doorway for sleeping. It’s important to know where you will be left alone, she said. But she’s no longer interested when old friends want to get high.

It’s a struggle. But she really is changing her life. It feels incredible, she said.

“It’s awesome. I can look in the mirror and like who I am. I have confidence. Like I said, I know things will be different,” Robinson said.

In fact things already are different. After eight years of being in the cold, Robinson no longer sleeps under a bridge or in a shelter. She now goes home to a small apartment in a downtown building.

For Billie Robinson, the streets of Portland are now simply a place to walk. Not a place to live.

From The Oregonian Editorial Board, November 21, 2011

NOTE: This editorial, like Portland’s Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness, misses an essential point: the cause of most chronic homelessness is untreated or mistreated addiction or mental illness. Until engaging and worthwhile mental and addiction health services are available on demand, ‘ending’ homelessness is unlikely.

The Occupy Portland encampment may be fading in the rearview mirror, but the five-week “occupation” did showcase one thing: homelessness.

Alcoholics, mentally ill people, drug addicts, street kids and others — some well known to police and social service agencies — were drawn to the camp in three downtown parks.

If you weren’t paying close attention, you might have imagined that the camp was a fairly benign place. Well, think again. It sure wasn’t safe for the runaways who congregated there. Tents obscured what was going on, and some tents that were clearly labeled (“safe injection” and “sexual assault response”) testified to the dangers.

“There are young people with significant developmental delays, mental illness and drug/alcohol abuse issues mingling with potentially predatory adults (and young children) in a largely unchecked environment,” Dennis Morrow, executive director of Janus Youth Programs, warned Mayor Sam Adams at one point. No rules combined with no transparency? Morrow called that “a recipe for disaster.”

In the aftermath of police dismantling Occupy, one sentiment we haven’t heard is: Wow, that was great. Let’s try this again soon. Even the core protesters complained of being swamped by myriad problems. Still, the camp raised an important question: What should this community do to help people with no place to go?

For six years, after all, Portland and Multnomah County have been working on an aggressive 10-year plan to end homelessness. The plan hasn’t solved the problem, but it has forced housing advocates to put their heads together and work smarter.

READ – Home Again – A 10-year plan to end homelessness in Portland and Multnomah County, Citizens Commission on Homelessness – December 2004
READ – 2010 Annual Report for the 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness

One Night Shelter Count, 2004 – 2508 (total sheltered individuals – not including people out-of-doors)
One Night Shelter Count, 2011 – 2995 (total sheltered individuals), 7382 (total individuals, sheltered and unsheltered)
READ – An Analysis of the Data on Homelessness – May 2004 (data points have shifted slightly over the past six years – homelessness is a VERY hard statistic to pin down.)

Clearly, camping isn’t the answer. Yet even on cold nights, many in Portland are camping. Something close to 2,727 people here are homeless. That’s a snapshot of the problem as of one night last January, when advocates counted 1,718 people sleeping outside, in a car or an abandoned building.

That same night, another 1,009 people were in emergency shelters or in a motel using a voucher. Another 1,928 people would have been homeless, except that they were in transitional housing.

Emergency shelters are nothing less than lifesaving. Yet essential as shelters are, housing advocates in some ways begrudge every dollar spent on the shelter system because it’s a dollar that isn’t available for permanent housing.

In contrast, consider a dollar spent on rental assistance. Or a dollar spent helping someone find a job, so he can pay the rent. Or money spent guiding a disabled widow through red tape so she qualifies for disability or other benefits to which she’s entitled. These dollars can propel the homeless toward a home — and self-sufficiency.

So even though camping is no solution, housing advocates are looking for low-cost ways to put people up, briefly, while housing is secured for them. City Commissioner Nick Fish is looking at allowing homeless people to temporarily camp in their cars on church parking lots, for instance, if a church gives permission.

Some churches are already trying things like this, and others might be willing. Such a proposal does — and should — spark many safety questions. Churches with experience can take the lead in explaining what does and doesn’t work. But new ideas should be welcome. After Occupy Portland, this community should be brainstorming, experimenting and accelerating all of its efforts to move people into housing.

This winter, with the help of the city, the county, nonprofits and churches, Portland has the smarts and creativity to put its arms around this problem in a new way. And, in the process, put its arms around the homeless.

NOTE: We’re suckers for organizations which lead with compassion.

Guest Column, published in The Oregonian, by William Russell, executive director of the Union Gospel Mission in Northwest Portland.

A group of new neighbors sprang up overnight. No, they weren’t at Lownsdale or Chapman squares. They weren’t part of the Occupy Portland movement that has been dominating the headlines, though they were also pitching tents and had a message they wanted all to hear.

Our new neighbors one October morning were homeless folks pitching tents in neat rows, creating a little community under the gates of Chinatown in our Old Town neighborhood. They are part of the Right2Dream Too (R2D2) nonprofit organization advocating for the needs of the homeless. Our new neighbors might be moving on soon, since they are not compliant with city of Portland code.

We are Union Gospel Mission. You will notice “Gospel” is our middle name. We do the Jesus thing in Portland. We follow this command, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me. …” (Matthew 25:35-36 New International Version)

If someone comes to our door needing food, clothes, something to drink, a kind word or a prayer, we just help them. We don’t have a screening for their beliefs, their politics, their ethnic background, none of that. It’s all pretty simple. We’ve been doing this in Portland since 1927 — nearly 85 years — through the Great Depression, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, during the fat years and through the lean years.

While our eyes are on the eternal, we are not blind to what’s happening now. We’re not blind to what’s coming. Meal demand at our mission has skyrocketed in the past three years — especially food boxes for people who thought they would never have to come to the mission for help. We know there will be more homeless. There is a three-year waiting list for Section 8 housing. Government assistance will be cut deeply. We’ve kicked the can down the road and the road has ended.

How will we “Occupy” the future? There will be more need than ever in our community. We are so blessed in Portland with a great city with many wonderful faith-based and secular organizations. We’re sounding the alarm and doing the Jesus thing and praying and helping. We invite the rest of Portland to do the same.

NOTE: Right2Dream Too is not a nonprofit organization.