State and local leaders must create a plan to move all unhoused Oregonians into hotels and motels to help stop the spread of the coronavirus, and it should be a plan that sets the stage for long-term housing.
Street Roots is calling for bold yet achievable measures. The state, along with local governments, should move beyond triage and commit resources, now aligned to alleviate the immediate crisis, toward solving the greater crisis of our generation: homelessness.
This is a call-out to Gov. Kate Brown, the Oregon Housing and Community Services department and all city and county governments to set in place a statewide roadmap. Rather than reacting in piecemeal fashion, this must be a concerted effort spanning nonprofits, businesses and governments, with the end goal of keeping people indoors once they’ve been moved out of camps and shelters and off the streets, permanently.
First, is addressing the immediate need: Hotel rooms should be offered to all unhoused people, not just people diagnosed with COVID-19 or showing symptoms. There were nearly 15,900 people experiencing homelessness in Oregon at last count.
We must collectively demand that poor people not be sacrificed to the threat of a virus because they don’t have means to shelter in place with hygiene support.
“Just because people don’t have a home doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have the ability to minimize their chance of getting infected,” said Katrina Holland, executive director of the homeless services provider JOIN. “If we have the opportunity to get them into hotels and motels, then we should do it."
Unhoused people struggle in this pandemic. The systemic barriers of poverty and homelessness are compounded by the closure of vital resources, the lack of life-saving hygiene and the isolation from networks critical to restoring lives.
Across Oregon, people not showing coronavirus symptoms are living in congregate shelter settings or outdoors where proper hygiene and social distancing are difficult, if not impossible.
Indoor congregate settings, even when the visibly sick are removed, is not a safe approach — in Boston, 146 people staying at a homeless shelter tested positive for COVID-19 without showing any symptoms. Homeless shelters across the nation, even some where social distancing is practiced, have experienced outbreaks.
As Oregon works to flatten the curve on COVID-19 cases, both those with and without housing are poised to benefit, points out David Bangsberg, founding dean at OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. But he warned that our success to date in no way guarantees success going forward.
“We are very much at the risk for a second wave if we don’t manage this right. Those without housing would be most affected if we have a second wave of transmission,” he said.
“The best approach to protecting people without housing from a second wave is to provide safe individual living spaces with access to handwashing. This would be ideal with or without COVID," Bangsberg said. “Shelters won’t be the answer in a second COVID wave because of the inability to self-isolate.”
With tourism at a standstill, the vast majority of hotel rooms are sitting vacant – rooms that unhoused people could occupy.
Between April 12 and 18, approximately 87% of the15,800 hotel rooms in Portland alone were vacant, according to Travel Portland. That's more than three vacant rooms for every unhoused person in Multnomah County.
But, this effort must be statewide. Along the Columbia River Gorge, down the I-5 corridor, throughout Central Oregon and our state's southern counties, and all along the Oregon Coast, we have an abundance of both tourism lodging and unhoused people.
If there’s any question as to how this would work, we don’t have to look far.
Governments in Washington, Minnesota, California and other states are opening hotel rooms to hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of people experiencing homelessness. In varying degrees, they’re tapping into new funding through federal, state and city relief packages made available during the pandemic.
New York City intends to place 6,000 people in hotels, and in New Orleans, 190 houseless people who were living in encampments were relocated to hotel rooms, without any medical condition or COVID-19 prerequisites.
In San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors passed an emergency ordinance ordering Mayor London Breed to secure 7,000 hotel rooms for the houseless population no later than yesterday, April 26. Rooms would be available to anyone experiencing homelessness. Those rooms, along with 1,250 additional rooms for first responders and medical workers who need to self-isolate, will cost an estimated $58.6 million a month, including meals, room cleaning and security.
Statewide in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “Project Roomkey” aims to get 108,000 people off the streets and out of the shelters and into hotel rooms, with FEMA footing 75% of the bill.
Newsom made an agreement with Motel 6 for 5,000 rooms, spread across 47 motels — the deal includes language allowing for local governments to convert the motels into permanent housing once the coronavirus pandemic has ended.
Harnessing this moment to introduce thousands of deeply affordable or subsidized units into the housing landscape is exactly what Oregon should do on a statewide level.
Portland and other Oregon communities should look into the potential for purchasing or leasing foundered hotels. To be clear, we do not wish the demise of any business from this crisis, including hotels, but it is a reality that is sinking in across the economic landscape.
We can and must do more than react: We can anticipate opportunities to reform the system and create real solutions. Hotel rooms can be modified to create housing, the way Portland's Housing Bureau worked with Cascadia Behavioral Health in 2016 to create 50 supportive units for veterans at Sandy Studio, a former motel on Sandy Boulevard.
In addition to FEMA’s Public Assistance program, other funding is available during this global emergency. We need to be strategic and equitable rather than line the wrong pockets, as happened too frequently following the 2008 financial collapse.
With today’s record unemployment, homelessness will likely become even more widespread tomorrow. Oregon is on track to receive more than a billion dollars in federal aid to address COVID-19, including $114 million heading directly to Portland and $28 million to Multnomah County. In addition, local jurisdictions in Oregon are receiving $28 million in Community Block Development Grants from HUD. We can do this.
Yes, there are already some piecemeal efforts to house people with COVID-19 symptoms or pre-existing conditions in the Oregon. The Jupiter Hotel has partnered with Multnomah County’s Joint Office of Homeless Services with 81 rooms for people already in the shelter system who are sick but have yet to test positive for COVID-19, as has another hotel that has not been identified for resident privacy in east Portland.
In Clackamas County, Do Good Multnomah placed 72 individuals who are age 60 or older and have pre-existing conditions in six hotels in the tri-county area — before they get sick. The organization’s goal is to room roughly 120 people, paid for with a $500,000 grant from the county.
MOTELS IN CLACKAMAS: Do Good Multnomah runs a motel program for unhoused people at high risk for COVID-19
But we need to do more, and we need to do it statewide. Join us in calling for hotel rooms for all unhoused Oregonians.
We must provide hotel rooms and a chance at real protection from the virus to all people experiencing homelessness. And, we must act comprehensively, for if our statewide leadership fails to harness this moment, we will have yet another tragedy to answer for as thousands of people return to homelessness when the coronavirus subsides.
Housing should be right in a pandemic, and housing must be a right in its aftermath – and beyond.
Correction: An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly stated Do Good Multnomah created Sandy Studio. While Do Good Multnomah is the current operator, Portland's Housing Bureau and Cascadia Behavioral Health established the housing complex.