OREGON CITY – U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer left a discussion with local elected officials, law enforcement, service providers and a Realtor on Thursday with a pledge to “work her tail off” to find more federal funding for homelessness.
“My marching orders are to address the barriers, have more access, fix what can be fixed,” said Chavez-DeRemer, R-Oregon.
The group met in a tent in the parking lot of the Father’s Heart Street Ministry in Oregon City, a day center that provides meals, laundry and showers and helps connect homeless people to other services. Chavez-DeRemer toured the center after her conversation.
More than 20,000 Oregonians lacked housing during last year’s annual Point in Time Count, and Oregonians routinely rank homelessness as the top issue facing the state. It’s a top focus for the Legislature and Gov. Tina Kotek, who is urging at least $600 million in new spending to increase the supply of housing, maintain existing shelter resources and provide rent assistance to keep more Oregonians from falling into homelessness.
Chavez-DeRemer told reporters after the conversation that she wasn’t familiar with what the Legislature was doing on housing and homelessness, pivoting to talk about addiction and Measure 110, the 2020 voter-approved drug decriminalization law.
“I’m not super familiar with what they’re going to deal with in the short session,” Chavez-DeRemer said. “I kind of tried to get that question out of Representative (Jeff) Helfrich (the House Republican leader, who participated in the roundtable). He answered it, I think, when somebody else asked the question, because Measure 110 is what’s on the forefront, what’s the fix for that? We know there wasn’t a lot of success.”
Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell, a Republican, said she was homeless as a child because her mother had an untreated chronic mental illness. She said the county’s efforts to help homeless youth have run into barriers with state and federal agencies, and she told Chavez-DeRemer that Congress should send money directly to counties.
“We can do the job,” she said. “We just need to be trusted with it.”
Clackamas County Commissioner Martha Schrader, a Democratic member of the officially nonpartisan commission, urged Chavez-DeRemer to support continued funding of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and especially the department’s community development block grants. Those grants and other federal and state funding helped Clackamas County get more than 650 formerly homeless people into permanent housing in the last fiscal year, Schrader said.
She added that it’s important for the federal government to invest in other services, including job training, financial coaching and child care, that help people avoid homelessness or rebuild their lives after losing their homes.
“Getting people back to work after they’ve been placed in housing and stabilized is a key pathway to success,” Schrader said.
Not enough construction
Helfrich, who was a Portland police officer before running for office, said first responders understand how to triage a situation. With homelessness, that includes getting people into shelters and helping them address issues like addiction or behavioral health problems that can contribute to homelessness.
But beyond triaging, Helfrich said the state needs to be focused on housing availability. Oregon for decades has built tens of thousands of fewer homes than needed to keep pace with demand, making existing homes more expensive and harder to find. Experts estimate that Oregon needs about 440,000 more homes over the next 20 years to reduce the backlog and keep pace with growing demand.
George Perkins, a Gresham-based Realtor who participated in the roundtable, disagreed with that assessment, saying addiction, rather than home costs, was to blame for Oregon’s homelessness crisis. Perkins said homeless camps and people squatting in vacant properties have a huge economic impact, driving down the value of nearby homes.
“It seems like addiction is the main driver,” he said.
Glen Suchanek, a formerly homeless man who now serves as the behavioral health specialist for the Milwaukie Police Department, said drugs can contribute to people living on the streets but that addiction isn’t the only issue.
“I don’t think anybody wakes up and says ‘I want to be a drug addict,’” he said.
Suchanek’s role with the small city is fairly new – he’s held the post for just over a year. He works with officers to connect people to services, clearing time for officers to spend investigating crimes and doing other work.
Milwaukie Police Capt. Ryan Burdick said the department previously had officers responding to the same people in crisis over and over again. It was a burden on police, as well as paramedics and other first responders. But Suchanek is able to help those individuals find the support they need.
“We need more Glens,” Burdick said.
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Julia Shumway is deputy editor of Oregon Capital Chronicle and has reported on government and politics in Iowa and Nebraska, spent time at the Bend Bulletin and most recently was a legislative reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times in Phoenix. An award-winning journalist, Julia most recently reported on the tangled efforts to audit the presidential results in Arizona.
