November 10, 2010

In May of this year, Mayor Adams and Commissioner Fish announced a $1 million boost in funding to the Portland Housing Bureau to help people sleeping on the streets of downtown Portland.

Commissioner Fish and PHB staff brought together a group of community leaders - including business, non-profit, neighborhood, and law enforcement - to determine the most cost-effective and creative way to prioritize funding.

The result: funding will focus on easing the bottleneck created by the large number of people in shelters and transitional housing by helping them move into permanent housing. Freeing up those shelter and transitional beds will help provide a safe and warm place to sleep for downtown's homeless.

The goal is to help 200 people move into permanent housing, increase the incomes of 47 people, and open up more than 100 shelter beds for people currently sleeping outside, writes Amanda Waldroupe in Street Roots.

Through a competitive process, PHB selected two local non-profits for funding:

• JOIN will lead a coalition of seven agencies to serve adults
• New Avenues for Youth will lead a group of five agencies to serve youth

"It's a crisis time in our system," PHB Director Margaret Van Vliet told Waldroupe. "If we can help people who are ready to transition to the next level of housing...then we free up more space along the continuum."

PHB will report back to Council on the outcomes from this additional funding.

The City's 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness helps thousands of people move from homelessness to stable housing each year. For more information visit PHB's website at www.portlandoregon.gov/phb.