Lichen is 34-weeks pregnant and worried about where he’s going to live. His partner left abruptly last month, leaving Lichen with a month-to-month rental agreement he can’t afford. He was a stay-at-home parent who homeschools his tween daughter. With the new baby coming any day now, he soon won’t be able to work.
“It’s overwhelming,” he said.
Lichen relocated to Portland from rural Texas with his family in 2020, after receiving the first COVID stimulus check. (Lichen requested Street Roots use a pseudonym to protect his safety.)
“It was partly because of the attitude about COVID in Texas and partly because it was becoming increasingly unsafe to be trans there,” he said. “We were getting followed home. We were getting harassed when we would go to the grocery store, in front of my daughter. I was being laughed out of job interviews.”
More trans and queer people than ever are fleeing red states for places that boast safer policies and robust community. Right now, the American Civil Liberties Union is monitoring 529 newly introduced anti-LGBTQIA2S+ bills across the United States. Laws range from gender curriculum censorship to sports and bathroom bans to laws that purport to define “man” and “woman.”
These targeted bills are contributing to what could be one of the largest trans and queer migrations in U.S. history. As many as 252,000 people — 9% of all trans adults — moved to a new state since the 2024 election for political reasons, according to a 2025 national survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. Over twice that many trans people traveled to another state to get medical care.
Portland is a safe-haven destination for many queer people. Nearly 8% of Oregon’s population identifies as LGBTQIA2S+, second only to Washington D.C., with 14.3% in 2023.
In March, Portland City Council passed an ordinance to strengthen that safe haven status. The ordinance bans housing and employment discrimination against LGBTQIA2S+ people, writing anti-discrimination policies into Portland city code.
But despite a generally welcoming culture and supportive intentions by leaders, queer people in Multnomah County still face care gaps in shelter, eviction support, case management and other vital resources.
Members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community disproportionately face homelessness. Trans people are more likely to have experienced homelessness in their lifetime than cisgender people, according to a report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. And for Black people who are sexual minorities, the disparity is even higher.
When it comes to keeping people housed, Portland’s new ordinance doesn’t do much more than speak to the problem.
Lichen is trying to keep his family off the streets. That means a daily process of making phone calls early, when offices have just opened, and before hold times get too long — only to hear that rental assistance funds have already been allocated for the year. It’s a process of calling and repeating, trying not to get lost in the labyrinth of bureaucracy that comes with crisis.
The ordinance that wasn’t enough
The ordinance is a good step, but it doesn’t solve the money problem, according to Kaylyn Berry, program manager at Rahab’s Sisters.
“We need the monetary support of being able to place and keep people in housing to go along with it,” Berry said.
Rahab’s Sisters is a queer-friendly nonprofit that offers daytime services for women and LGBTQIA2S+ people on Northeast 82nd Avenue, accessible via the 15, 20 and 72 bus lines.
“From doing this work for a long time, we’ve seen folks get placed into housing with very temporary rental assistance, and either immediately lose that housing for one reason or another, or immediately fall behind on rent because the stabilization and retention support isn’t there.”
The organization has funding to support people facing homelessness in certain circumstances, but cannot offer long-term rental assistance. The rental assistance they had to offer people facing eviction this fiscal year was used up by spring.
Portland saw a record number of evictions in January. Data from Multnomah County suggests that the number of people experiencing homelessness here has increased by over 7,000 people since December 2024.
Berry thinks these record-high evictions are the reason their rental assistance funds were exhausted so quickly.
“In January and February, it was a constant, constant stream,” she said. “It felt like people were just coming to us right and left: ‘Hey, I’m facing eviction, I need help.’”
Advocates at CLEAR Clinic, a legal aid nonprofit that helps people facing eviction, were similarly unimpressed by the potential for the new ordinance to help their trans clients.
“In terms of housing, I don’t think the ordinance is going to make much of a difference,” paralegal Sean Ferraro wrote in an email. “Oregon state law already prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation.”
Ferraro added that the ordinance won’t be much help for people fighting eviction in court.
“If your landlord is terminating your lease for non-payment, you cannot raise discrimination/retaliation as a defense unless you can pay the rent you owe into court. Since over 90% of evictions are for non-payment, many people are legally barred from raising a discrimination claim as a defense.”
Berry’s call for more funding is echoed by the broader LGBTQIA2S+ Housing Collaborative, a coalition of local nonprofits that joined forces during the pandemic to address housing needs for queer and trans people.
In February, the collaborative issued a public statement urging Portland City Council to back its support with actual dollars.
“Protections matter. But protections alone do not keep people housed, medically supported, or safe from crisis,” the statement said.
In early April, City Council allocated $9 million for rental assistance for tenants facing eviction or homelessness, and another $2 million for legal services for renters facing eviction.
A safe place to rest your head
Lichen’s partner left on a Friday afternoon. The following Monday, Lichen was up early, making calls for assistance from various organizations.
“I was told they were already out of funds for the month,” he said.
He said that their landlord has been helpful and understanding so far, but “they are not a charity.” Lichen tried to get on a waitlist for a low-income housing voucher from the housing authority Home Forward, but said the waitlist is closed.
If they are eventually evicted, Lichen said, his family would probably be relying on the shelter system.
“That’s where we would probably end up because there’s no other option at that point,” he said.
Guillermo Tibbs-Toto, resource navigator at the Marie Equi Center, said only a couple of shelter services prioritize LGBTQIA2S+ people. He said most of the housing is short-term.
“Whenever I see there’s a room open, I’m like, let’s go, go, go, go,” Tibbs-Toto said. “We have to apply. You have to interview. You have to do all of the steps to make sure that you qualify for the housing.”
Sometimes he can get people into a shelter that same day, but it can also take weeks depending on the circumstances. People may have pets, they might be married and looking for a place to stay with their spouse or their family.
As a resource navigator, Tibbs-Toto helps people with documents and applications and connects them with services and support they may need in and around Portland. He works with many Black and brown queer people, connecting them with unique resources for their communities. But even when people can access shelter, staying there doesn’t always feel safe. Trans and queer people still face discrimination, even in a trans-friendly city like Portland.
“One thing I’ve noticed is, even when it’s queer-centered, a lot of people in shelters are still being harmed by the people running the centers, whether that be not using the correct pronouns, saying slurs, just mistreating, and the biggest thing I think is, people not being trauma-informed.”
Many people complain about “deadnaming” in shelters, he said: being called by the name they used prior to transition.
Proposed budget cuts by Multnomah County may put Marie Equi Center at greater risk, potentially losing over $220,000 in funding.
Bo from Black & Beyond the Binary works primarily with Black trans youth. They offer rental assistance, community and programming for youth and adults alike. Many people Bo works with “struggle with job security because of their identity.”
Sometimes employers or staff are openly transphobic, Bo said. In other cases, customers might be transphobic, but no one does anything.
“Portland is legislatively supportive of trans people,” Bo said, “but boots on the ground, the support becomes lesser.”
Many of the youth Bo works with have experienced transphobic and racist comments in employment and housing settings.
“Houselessness looks very different for the Black community than it does for other communities,” Bo said. “Living in a shelter or living on the street, poses a different risk for Black people than it does for white people.”
Not feeling safe in a shelter is one reason why people may choose not to use them, Berry said.
“If our shelter system is not set up in a way that is safe and comfortable for queer and trans people, then a lot of them are going to stay in cars or stay outside,” Berry said. “We do shelter referrals, and we do see that folks opt not to take those referrals, and also be like ‘I’d rather be out here in my van.’”
And that comes with risks of its own.
“Living outside can be really detrimental to people’s health,” Berry said. “It can be deadly.”
Last year, Rahab’s Sisters lost two trans community members who were living outside.
“It was a really tough year,” Berry said.
In a 2024 policy paper, the LGBTQIA2S+ Housing Collective called for the creation of queer and nonbinary shelter spaces in Portland. Some emergency shelters remain gender binary, forcing trans and nonbinary people into one group or the other to access emergency services.
“There are currently no LGBTQIA2S+ culturally specific emergency shelters in the Portland region,” the collective wrote at the time.
Not much has changed in the two years since.
A case-by-case basis
Lichen says their biggest challenge right now is finding a case manager.
“Having someone that actually knows the system and can navigate it is so important,” he said.
The LGBTQIA2S+ Housing Collective wrote that only one queer-centered nonprofit is funded for housing case management in Portland: Cascade AIDS Project. Even then, the organization only offers case management for people living with HIV/AIDS.
Other nonprofits that offer case management are at capacity, Lichen said.
“It seems like no one has any space on their caseload, and it fills up before I can get a hold of them. Even calling back every day, they’re like, ‘We can’t help you.’”
“Some of them say that they need a referral from 211, but then, when I immediately call 211 to ask for the referral, the person at 211 tells me that they don’t need a referral and they don’t hand out referrals.”
211 is the number for Portland’s non-emergency help line that can connect people to housing and other resources.
“It’s like a circle,” he said, “and they’re both pointing at each other, trying to pass that on to someone else.”
Bo said they would like to see lower barriers to entry for housing assistance.
“The more backend work we have, the more administrative bloat, the longer it takes for people to get access to housing,” Bo said.
Black & Beyond the Binary can often secure housing funds for people quickly when its applications are open, but that’s not the case with every organization. It can sometimes take weeks to get assistance.
By then, the person could already be evicted. And getting back into housing after losing it can take a long time.
Berry said it was hard to estimate the length of time it takes for someone to find housing again once they’ve fallen out of it.
“But I can say there’s no way that takes less time than just preventing eviction in the first place,” Berry said.
This article appears in June 3, 2026.