OPINION | We need to look throughout our region and make use of what’s available to house 3,000 people this year
“They’re not homeless when they are housed.” That’s what a Creston-Kenilworth neighbor told Kevin Cavenaugh when he was surprised they weren’t objecting to his plan to create homes for eleven people who were currently living on the streets.
Guerilla Development, which Cavenaugh founded, had built a mixed-use property on Southeast Gladstone Street named Jolene’s First Cousin, creating a shared kitchen and laundry room for 11 people to have their own rooms. He also included other apartments and shops in the conjoined two-story buildings set in the leafy neighborhood that slopes toward the river.
I walked through that building in late 2019 with a Street Roots vendor who was moving in from the streets. This was before the units were full and the Unicorn bakery began baking vegan cakes and Best Friend juice bar began blending green smoothies and the Kitsune hair salon began styling hair. That day, we celebrated with milkshakes down the street at Burgerville. It was a big moment. Two years later, and throughout the pandemic for someone who had long suffered the streets, the vendor still has stable housing.
What makes this work is the nonprofit JOIN takes a master lease, subsidizes rent and supports people with additional services who need it.
JOIN also rents individual apartments for people and then, as needed, provides services. So does Urban League PDX. So does the Northwest Pilot Project.
As JOIN executive director Katrina Holland points out, there are nearly 7,000 apartments listed in Portland on apartments.com.
But while there are vacant apartments around our city, they are mostly inaccessible to people experiencing homelessness. That changes, though, with support services — which span rent assistance, services for health needs such as mental health and addiction, and peer support to help people stitch together life after homelessness.
In other words, support services equal housing because support services can make housing possible, tailor-made to what a person needs.
Ironically, then, those who call for that money to be diverted into shelters are channeling efforts further away from housing people, rather than closer.
Whether by renting existing apartments from landlords, buying down rents on new affordable housing so people on the streets can afford it, or buying properties so they can be run without a profit motive, there are ways to quickly house people.
The Joint Office of Homeless Services’ Regional Long Term Rental Assistance Program functions locally like a much more nimble version of the federal housing vouchers.
But this program necessitates cooperative landlords who recognize that they can more successfully open apartments to people on the streets when local governments and nonprofits provide these support services. That’s why the “3000 Challenge” launched a landlord challenge — so landlords could pledge to open more apartments to people who are unhoused.
It’s not the mass shelter or the mass camp that might be easier to manage. It’s bigger than that and harder to see. We need to look throughout our region and make use of what’s available to quickly house 3,000 people this year.
People shouldn’t be sentenced to homelessness, but it feels that way too often. George McCarthy, Street Roots vendor, described it this way: “You feel like your country has given up on you.”
Our focus needs to be welcoming people into housing because, as another Creston-Kenilworth neighbor told Kevin Cavenaugh, “these are going to be our neighbors and we’ll likely know their names.”
Street Roots is an award-winning weekly publication focusing on economic, environmental and social justice issues. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.
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