Housing First

Mayor Keith Wilson of Portland, Oregon, ran for office on a platform of ending unsheltered homelessness. That sounds great, doesn’t it? A wonderful goal. Based on his actual policies and actions, though, what he really meant was end visible homelessness.

His shelter-focused approach would warehouse homeless people in overnight congregate shelters to tuck them temporarily out of sight, and remove their encampments in destructive sweeps, for the illusion of “cleaner” streets and to appease business interests, without offering any real long-term solutions to the problems that landed folks on the streets in the first place. Sure, maybe Wilson started out with good intentions. Maybe he really does mean to help people. But by sinking public money into increasing the number of beds in shelters that the unhoused don’t feel safe in and that don’t lead to permanent housing, he’s listening to the Portland Business Alliance and NIMBYs instead of the very real human beings who are directly affected by Portland’s housing policies. These people say that we have enough shelter beds already, and what we need is a way to transition more people into stable permanent housing.

Short-term shelters without wraparound services that provide clear pathways to permanent housing will never solve the homelessness crisis. Welcome Home Coalition and Sisters of the Road* conducted a survey of 429 people who currently are or have recently been unhoused. What they found was that 91% of those surveyed would choose to move into housing if they could afford it. Unhoused people are not choosing to be unhoused. They do not, however, see shelters as a solution to their situations. Shelters were rated the same as living outside, as the least desirable option.

Sit with that a second, okay? The people who are actually living this experience, the ones who have slept in those shelter beds, don’t think the shelters are any better than sleeping on the sidewalk. They cite safety concerns, as well as the fact that shelters make it difficult for couples, families, and those with pets to stay together.

I recently interviewed an unhoused man named Turtle for a Street Roots vendor profile (not yet published). He said, “Some of us have a hard time with the congregate shelters…Being in a dorm with a bunch of people, you can’t sleep. And then most of the places where they do have day centers, you can’t sleep there… So if you can’t sleep at night, and you can’t sleep in the day, things get rough.”

Did you know that? That sleeping isn’t allowed at day centers? So if you can’t get a good night’s sleep in a big dark room full of bunk beds, surrounded by strangers, tough luck.

Turtle opts for camping in a tent instead, but he’s already lost four tents to sweeps, along with much of his belongings. Each time, he’s had to start over from scratch.

Another Street Roots vendor named Richard told me that his only hope for the future is to get indoors, but he doesn’t know how to get there. He said that he’s stayed in shelters, and they haven’t helped him.

What Welcome Home Coalition is proposing is a Housing First solution rather than a shelter-focused approach, prioritizing investment of public money in housing and support services over shelters, and putting in place policies that protect those who are currently but precariously housed from the threat of eviction. The goal should be to get people moved from the streets and shelter beds into stable housing, with the services and support they need to get back on their feet, and to prevent more people from falling into homelessness.

There are currently 1900 units of affordable housing in Portland sitting vacant because even those “affordable” units are too expensive. Drug addiction and mental illness are not the cause of homelessness. There are people with drug addictions and mental illnesses living in the streets, as there are people with drug addictions and mental illnesses who are housed. The only thing that every unhoused person has in common is their lack of housing. The rent is just too damn high.

We need a solution that decouples housing from profit, treating it as a human right rather than a commodity. I’m very happy to say that several Portland city council members are strong proponents of social housing and housing-first solutions. If only Mayor Wilson would listen.

*Full disclosure: I am a Board member of Sisters of the Road, but was not yet a part of the organization when the survey was being conducted.