Portland plans to “exit” 80 to 90 residents from its 24/7 alternative shelters in February for not engaging with offered services, according to a memo Mayor Keith Wilson sent to city councilors this morning.
Any resident who is considered “unwilling to engage” and has been at the shelter for 120 days or more, will be asked to leave.
“Exiting due to stay limits only occurs after many months, or in some cases, years, of persistent attempts to connect and collaborate with no level of engagement,” Wilson wrote in the memo. “The city of Portland cannot indefinitely utilize emergency units with individuals unwilling to engage with those who are here to help them.”
Any resident who is asked to leave will go through a formal warning process that communicates the policy and consequences for non-engagement, according to the memo.
The move comes after the city set a new 120-day stay limit policy at its alternative shelters, which offer private rooms, meals and 24/7 access to residents. The policy, which contains exemptions for people with severe mental health challenges, went into effect on Sept. 1, according to city officials.
In his memo, Wilson says that stay limits and engagement requirements are “nationwide best practices,” but does not elaborate on how he reached that conclusion.
City Councilor Candace Avalos said she agreed that shelters should be a “pathway” to housing not “a dead end.” But she said any policy that removed people from shelter must take into account Portland’s shortage of long-term affordable housing.
“If we enforce stay limits without having enough housing exits available, we risk cycling people back onto the street — not moving them forward,” Avalos said. “Our focus should be making sure our policies actually reduce homelessness, not just manage shelter capacity.”
She said expectations placed on homeless people to “engage” must be paired with investments in housing placement and rent stabilization. Avalos, who heads the City Council’s Homelessness and Housing committee, said it was councilors’ responsibility to take the entire system into account.
Stay limits are not unheard of in homeless shelters, but providers have argued in several public meetings observed by The Oregonian/OregonLive this year that they prefer flexibility when enforcing those limits. Providers have said that people with significant trauma can take months to get on their feet and have also pointed to a lack of housing to move people into, which can slow down the rate at which people are able to exit shelter for housing.
Perhaps in a nod to this argument, the memo says that providers will retain some discretion to waive or extend residents’ stays and that people experiencing severe mental health issues are exempted from stay limits.
Lance Orton, executive director of CityTeam, a shelter and addiction recovery provider, said that sleeping pod shelters were always designed to be a temporary solution for people coming out of homelessness.
“In some cases, extended stays will be warranted,” he said. “In others, when there is no effort to engage or move forward, it is appropriate to reinforce expectations. Compassion and accountability are not opposites, they are partners.”
People who lose their shelter bed at an alternative shelter spot will be offered a place to stay at one of the city’s new, overnight-only shelters, according to the memo. After 90 days, they would be eligible to stay at another alternative shelter, according to city spokesperson Rob Layne.
