Portland Shelter Could Not Keep Its Promise of a Bed for Every Homeless Child, Report Says

Katie spent four months sleeping in a bunk bed in Portland’s largest shelter for homeless families. She lay on the bottom cot while one of her young sons slept above her. The family dog, a pug-lab-pit bull mix named Princess, spent her nights in a car in the shelter parking lot. “I couldn’t imagine having to get rid of her. That would destroy my boys,” Katie said.

Katie, who asked OPB to use a pseudonym because she has been a victim of domestic violence in the past, grew up in Northeast Portland. Before her sons were born, she worked as a dog groomer. Life inside the shelter was difficult. Her family shared a room with 130 other people, some of whom struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, and the sound of arguments often kept her from sleeping. She worked to keep her sons, who were ages 11, 13 and 14, busy during the day with school, wrestling and friends, so they spent time in the shelter only at night. Katie was still grateful for her bunk bed, saying her family had never slept on the street.

Last year, after the house Katie was living in sold and rental debt made it hard to find a new place, she was able to get into the emergency shelter run by the nonprofit Human Solutions right away. The shelter was funded by the city of Portland and Multnomah County through the Joint Office of Homeless Services. It operated under a policy that was unique on the West Coast. It promised a bed for every child who needed one, turned no family away and had no wait list. It did not screen out families for issues such as drug addiction or criminal history, and it let families stay together, welcoming children, parents, grandparents and even dogs.

On nights when all 130 beds were in use and the roughly 50 other beds dedicated to homeless families in Portland were also full, the county paid for hotel rooms for the extra families. The no-turn-away policy became a point of pride for Multnomah County, which was working to expand shelter access in response to Portland’s housing crisis. The Human Solutions Family Center is the largest shelter for parents and children who are homeless in Multnomah County.

When the county’s 2017 count of homeless people showed fewer homeless families sleeping on the street, the county credited the no-turn-away shelter with making the difference. Only a handful of other cities, including New York and Washington, D.C., have similar policies, and Massachusetts is the only state that has recognized a right to shelter for families.

The county, however, was not fully prepared for the financial and practical challenges of managing that commitment. The article’s central question was whether a bed could be guaranteed for every homeless family with children as the number of families kept rising, and the county had set out to do exactly that, as its own effort to guarantee shelter for families showed.

Source: Read the original report