Jeremiah Kelton, an emergency outreach specialist, and Stephanie Billmyre, a social worker for Do Good Multnomah, are running the motel program for the organization, case managing residents to get medical and housing resources.
“The aim is to get as many of the at risk and elderly homeless off the streets as fast as possible” said Kelton.
SR EDITORIAL: Open hotel rooms to people on the streets
One of those people is Enzel Chillingsworth. She had been living on the edge of houselessness in a derelict 1987 Winnebago RV that was parked in the driveway of a friend’s house. Chillingworth said she had ended up in this living situation abruptly in order to get out of a violently abusive relationship a couple years prior. Her rent was $300.
She relied on services at the Clackamas Service Center in addition to working seasonal and odd jobs. She kept working after being dealt a tragic blow. At the end of Fall 2019 Chillingworth was diagnosed with brain cancer and has been receiving treatment.
“I enjoy working the carnivals during the summer because of all the smiling kids’ faces and was going to work this year despite my chemo and vulnerable state of health. ”
Even while receiving those treatments, Chillingworth was still going to the center to get food boxes and services while also doing what she could to help the other houseless individuals that frequent the center.
And then the pandemic took hold. Chillingworth’s prospects of summer work vanished quickly as the situation evolved rapidly to address the concerns of communal spread of the illness. She’s now safe in a hotel room, four walls and a roof with life-altering potential.
When the coronavirus hit Portland, Clackamas County put an urgent request out to get as many at risk houseless individuals in motel rooms as possible. Do Good Multnomah was one of the organizations that answered that request. Do Good had a partnership with the Clackamas Service Center to staff and run its warming shelter over the winter. Through their partnership with the center they were able to get a head start on the hotel program due to preexisting relationships with the service centers clients, Chillingsworth among them.
Chillingsworth is one of the hidden homeless, one of the 38,000 people who experienced homelessness in the tri-county area in 2018 alone.
Lacking a clear projection of when the crisis might subside, Billmyre foresees the Do Good Multnomah program changing in the future. With proper funding the organization might be using the motels as transitional housing while getting individuals into houses and apartments of their own, she said.
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