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Statement from Executive Director Patty Mulvihill on Homelessness Funding in Governor Kotek's Proposed Budget

February 3, 2023

The Oregon Mayors Association (OMA) and League of Oregon Cities (LOC) are disappointed the governor’s proposed budget does not include funding for the OMA’s plan to address and prevent homelessness.

Oregon is facing a humanitarian crisis. Oregonians from Gresham to Cave Junction and Warrenton to Ontario lack shelter, food, medical care, stability, and access to life’s most basic dignities. For years, the state, local government, nonprofits, and community action agencies have done their best to support our most vulnerable residents, but our combined efforts have proven unsuccessful. There are many reasons why tackling this crisis has been unsuccessful, chief of which is the lack of a collaborative partnership between the state and local government.

The OMA proposal to address and prevent homelessness is humane, equitable and efficient. This proposal provides each city in Oregon with an annual, direct allocation of funds from the state, to be flexibly used, to address and prevent homelessness. Each city will be allocated funds equivalent to $40 per resident, based off the latest PSU population count, with no city receiving less than $50,000.

The OMA proposal acknowledges the current framework for addressing homelessness in Oregon is broken; it does three things Oregon has historically failed to do regarding homelessness:

1. It ensures basic, humane services are accessible to all. Having shelter from the elements, food in your stomach, and access to basic hygiene systems is the bare minimum a resident of this state should expect. Yes, Portland needs $26 million to help its homeless residents obtain these baseline human needs, and Union needs its $86,000 to do the same.
2. It provides equitable funding to every corner of the state to ensure that each unhoused or unstably housed resident has the help they need. Photographs in The Oregonian of Hillsboro’s homeless residents are heartbreaking, and the city needs funding to assist those residents. But so too do the homeless residents of Powers – just because their photos are not on the front page of the state’s largest newspaper shouldn’t mean their lives any less important, or their needs any less emergent.
3. It is the most efficient way to provide immediate and needed funding to address this problem. Homeless Oregonians need help now – not a year from now. The current system of funding is time-consuming and wrapped in red tape. Competitive grants pit those in need against one another, heavily benefit communities and organizations who employ technical staff, and delay needed funds from being used immediately. During the 2022 legislative session, metro cities were allocated state funding to address homelessness, but the legislation required these state funds to be distributed via counties – many cities, a year later, still have not received their allocations. Help was promised, yet to date, none has been given.

By directly allocating funding to each city in Oregon, the OMA proposal ensures that every resident, regardless of where they live, can secure shelter, food and needed services. It does not pick winners and losers. And perhaps most important, by directly allocating funding to cities, help is provided immediately.

Governor Kotek’s proposed budget provides historic funding to address Oregon’s homelessness crisis. The Legislature has also signaled a willingness to allocate unprecedented funding to tackle this crisis. Historic funding is needed. But current state proposals continue funding for broken programs, within a fragmented and unequal network. Plans to funnel money into the same leaky and broken buckets already being used, regardless of how significant the funding, will result in the same devastating results we see on the ground today.

Oregon needs a new plan, and a new way of fighting this issue. The OMA proposal is that new plan. A strong and collaborative partnership between the state and its 241 cities is the only way this crisis is resolved.

The OMA, LOC and its partners will continue to work with the Legislature and governor’s office on its proposed homelessness plan, seeking meaningful funding that ensures every Oregonian, regardless of where they live, has shelter, food and needed resources.