As Metro closes out the third year of the voter-approved supportive housing services fund (July 1, 2023 through June 31, 2024), annual reports from Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington Counties offer a portrait of progress in addressing the region’s homelessness crisis. Though the number of households entering homelessness continues to present a challenge, many are finding stability in housing or avoiding losing their homes due to SHS-funded programming.
Across greater Portland, the counties and their partners have placed nearly 6,000 households in housing, offered services that have prevented over 15,000 evictions, and created or sustained almost 1,450 shelter beds or units over the past three years since the fund launched. At the end of the year, 2,854 households were living in safe and stable housing with case management through the regional long-term rent assistance program. All three counties are using the Built for Zero methodology to improve data and track outcomes.
Read Clackamas County’s report
Read Multnomah County’s report
Read Washington County’s report
Clackamas County
This year, Clackamas County met or exceeded all program goals. The county and its service provider partners placed 412 households in permanent supportive housing – just over their goal of 405. This type of housing supports people who have experienced long-term homelessness and have at least one disability by combining rent assistance with services tailored to their individual needs. The county continues to increase the number of households placed in the regional long-term rent assistance program, with 358 this year and a total of 766 across all three years.
The county also expanded its rapid re-housing program to assist 196 households this year, compared to 19 last year when the program launched. The county’s goal was 120 households for the year. This program offers support for people who recently experienced or are on the verge of homelessness and is a shorter-term program than PSH, with lighter case management. Overall, the county’s housing programs had a retention rate of over 93% this year.
The county served more than 1,200 households with eviction prevention services like emergency rent assistance, landlord-tenant mediation and peer support for issues like hoarding behavior or neighbor conflict — doubling their goal to serve 625 households.
Bernadette (left) is the resident services coordinator at Clackamas Heights, an affordable apartment community where Denise (middle) and Dachea (right) live. Her position is paid for by Metro's supportive housing services fund.
Using SHS funds, the county’s Coordinated Housing Access team worked to improve its processes. This includes a new resource navigation program to assist people who are experiencing a housing crisis but may not be eligible for services, helping them identify other options and potentially connecting them with small amounts of financial assistance. The CHA team also expanded its staff and hotline hours, conducting more than 27,366 housing assessments in the past three years. The CHA Hotline was recognized with a 2024 Achievement Award from the National Association of Counties.
The county has also expanded connections between different departments. A partnership with Clackamas County Workforce and the workforce program of the county’s Children, Family and Community Connections Division familiarizes case managers and housing navigators with the resources to connect participants to employment services. This supports the initiative to transition some participants from case management to employment and self-sufficiency.
A partnership between the Housing and Community Development and the Public Health divisions has a healthcare provider offering services at encampments and other places where unhoused people gather. They also make referrals to CHA and community resources.
As Clackamas County looks ahead, they are thinking about how to meet community needs, as much of the housing resources are allocated. They expect to meet their 10-year regional long-term rent assistance goal of 1,065 households early next year, which means that the program will be at capacity. When that happens, they will have reduced ability to support people who are newly entering homelessness. To address this, they are investing in programs that help households attain self-sufficiency when possible and move on from the program.
Lastly, one-fourth of the county’s population lives in rural areas which are not included in Metro’s jurisdictional boundary. SHS has enabled the county to shift resources to these areas, where they are launching a local version of RLRA.
Liliana Weissman is the housing services manager at Clackamas Women's Services.
Read more about Clackamas County’s work in the third year of the SHS fund
Multnomah County
Unlike Clackamas and Washington Counties, Multnomah County has significant additional funding to address homelessness and housing instability through the Joint Office of Homeless Services. This means that SHS funds a portion of the work rather than the vast majority, as with the other two counties. For example, the Joint Office braids SHS together with other funding to provide thousands of shelter beds and units across the county.
In the third year of the Metro fund, Multnomah County and its 70 contracted service providers placed 2,322 people (1,352 households) in SHS-funded housing — almost half of the 5,477 people they placed in housing using all available funding streams. This includes 442 households in permanent supportive housing and 910 in rapid re-housing with the SHS fund.
The county is ahead of their 10-year goal to create 2,265 permanent supportive housing homes and anticipates reaching 85% of their goal by next June. By the end of the last program year, 4,760 people were receiving support from SHS-funded housing programs on an ongoing basis.
Denise is a bilingual housing retention specialist with JOIN.
While the county primarily used other funds for their emergency rent assistance program, SHS played a key role in distributing the assistance by funding staff capacity at service providers partners like the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization, Self-Enhancement, Inc., Latino Network and others. Metropolitan Public Defenders provided legal support to 605 clients this year, to prevent eviction or address housing barriers like a previous eviction.
Employment programs include the Clean Start employment program, the Community Volunteer Corps at Central City Concern, the employment program at Stone Soup PDX, film workforce development with Outside the Frame, and Expanding Pathways to Employment at Cultivate Initiatives.
Cultivate Initiatives employees Jay and Jen break down a discarded appliance at a vacant lot in East Portland.
Read about Cultivate Initiatives’ workforce program
A partnership between the Joint Office of Homeless Services and the United Way enabled $10 million of SHS funds to be distributed to service providers for workforce investment. This addresses long-standing challenges in the homeless services sector around low wages and employee turnover, which impact program success in this relationship-based work.
Like the other two counties, Multnomah County improved their coordinated access tool, which will launch this fall, using SHS funds. The improvements were based on feedback from people with lived experience and service provider staff. The Joint Office also developed a Shelter Availability Tool so service providers have current data on available beds and who they are most suitable for. Additionally, the Homeless Mobile Intake Team won the USAging Aging Innovations Award for its work supporting older adults and people with disabilities.
The Joint Office continues to expand its partnerships with other county agencies. They work with the Department of County Human Services’ Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Services Division to streamline access to housing and the Department of Community Justice to help house people who have experienced incarceration or are about to be released.
Washington County
In the last program year, Washington County and its 24 partner organizations served over 10,400 people with SHS funding. This includes more than 1,200 people (704 households) who were moved into housing. Overall, in the past three years of this fund, 4,400 people who were connected with housing or received eviction prevention services remained housed at the end of June, including 1,262 households in the regional long-term rent assistance program.
Shelter capacity also increased, with the addition of 90 new pods at three sites. This “village model,” where residents have their own living space, has many positive elements, including a resident experience that is often preferable to “congregate” shelters where many people share one room. This brings the county’s total number of shelter beds to 433, 420 of which are funded by SHS. As a result of this work expanding shelter options and connecting people with housing, the county has reduced unsheltered homelessness by 35%.
This new pod shelter in Cornelius can accomodate up to 40 people in 30 structures. It includes wrap-around services such as on-site case management, housing navigation and employment support, as well as amenities like shared restrooms and showers.
Read about one of the county’s new pod villages
Washington County partners with 10 community-based organizations to provide outreach services to unsheltered community members. These providers know people by name, build relationships over time and help connect folks with services. Critically, they know where to find someone who is living outside when their name comes up on a list for housing. The county also funded the development of two access centers where unhoused people can find food, storage, showers and community.
Like the other counties, Washington County continues to build connections between housing and homelessness services and other areas of work. In the Housing Liaisons program, housing systems navigators are embedded in other divisions and departments, such as behavioral health, child and maternal health and community corrections. The county’s healthcare case-conferencing program in partnership with healthcare providers continues to connect participants experiencing homelessness with healthcare services.
Lastly, the county is in their second year of the Housing Careers Workforce Development Project, which provides training and internships for people with lived experience of homelessness or housing instability to work in housing services.
Read about the Housing Careers Pilot Program