Former international aid director now managing Portland’s alternative shelter sites

The city of Portland hired Brandy Westerman to oversee its Safe Rest Villages and Temporary Alternative Shelter Sites. Westerman previously served as a senior executive at Mercy Corps, and has led humanitarian response teams in Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries. She joins us to talk more about her new role as the city’s emergency humanitarian operations director, and her vision for homeless services in Portland.

This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The city of Portland has a new person to oversee its alternative shelter efforts. Brandy Westerman’s job title is emergency humanitarian operations director. She’s in charge of the city’s safe rest villages and temporary alternative shelter sites. This is her first role for the city, her first big humanitarian job serving an American population. But she has a career’s worth of experience doing humanitarian work overseas. Westerman previously served as a senior executive at Portland-based Mercy Corps and has led humanitarian response teams in Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and other countries. She joins us now to talk about that previous work, her new role, and the connections between the two. Brandy Westerman, welcome.

Brandy Westerman: Thank you for having me.

Miller: Thanks very much for joining us. Your longest overseas posting was in Tajikistan. What were you doing there?

Westerman: I went to Tajikistan in a role with Mercy Corps as a monitoring and evaluation coordinator. It was my job to collect the data, make sense of the data, and improve the programs around maternal and child health, community development. There were a number of peace building efforts working across the central Asian republics. And of course, responding to natural disasters, there were a number of deep freezes during the winter, mudslides that happened during the rainy season, that we would have kind of small-scale responses. Over the years, I was promoted into a variety of positions. Tajikistan rapidly became a second home to me, and I finished out my time there as country director, overseeing the team that was spread out across the entire country, about 160-person strong.

Miller: What about Afghanistan and Pakistan and Yemen, among others? I mean, what most stands out to you from work in those countries that you think will be applicable to Portland?

Westerman: There’s two things that I would offer. One is the people who are driven to this kind of work are an incredible sort of person. And this holds true regardless of country, location, cultural elements. The people who do this work tend to be highly motivated, very empathetic, compassionate, driven, action-oriented folks. And I see that here in the city of Portland, as well as the countries you’ve mentioned where I have that experience leading humanitarian efforts.

I think that the other thing that I would say really kind of stands out for me is the need for strong coordination. I saw it as my job in any of those contexts to really help facilitate building a careful, coordinated, compassionate response effort across all the various actors, whether those are the individuals who are affected by a given emergency situation, or those who are trying to address the implications of that situation. Coordination to me is one of the most paramount ingredients towards getting a response right.

Miller: How much did you deal with homelessness in particular when you were in those various countries?

Westerman: We used a different language to talk about something that’s quite similar. We talk about displacement, populations that were either internally displaced or fled crisis as refugees. So I think there are similarities and there are differences to the homeless situation. They’re individuals who are affected by trauma, a natural disaster, a manmade disaster, whatever the cause of displacement, it’s often a traumatic experience for somebody to have to be uprooted from their community, from their homes, from their families. There’s a lot of loss often involved. And then helping to meet people often shortly after they’ve experienced significant trauma to stabilize.

And I think you see that within the homeless population as well. We have people who may have been displaced for a variety of reasons rather than a singular reason, and have experiences that are as diverse as any group of individuals could be, but often have experienced trauma and need to be met with a trauma informed, compassionate response.

Miller: When you were in Portland, what would go through your mind in the past before you took this job when you would see, say, a homeless encampment or people sleeping on the street?

Westerman: I think like a lot of Portlanders, I found it heartbreaking. The Mercy Corps Office is located just in the center of town by Skidmore Fountain, and my office window would overlook Skidmore Fountain. And I’d see people in crisis, people sleeping, trying to catch a little bit of rest during the day.

Miller: People bathing…

Westerman: Bathing, sure, all sorts of day-to-day activities. And what really struck me is that these are individuals who, our systems within society have failed them, and they have largely been falling through the cracks, and are not receiving the services that they need to get back on their feet. The international responses that I was a part of have always felt close to me and I’ve always felt really strongly about our need to address people where they’re at, seeing what’s been unfolding here at home, and honestly, it’s not just Portland, it’s nationwide, has hit me in much a similar way. And I’m really excited to be able to be part of the solution, as hard as that may be.

Miller: [You’ve] lived here on and off for decades, having gone to school here, having been based here after some of your in-country postings. I imagine in the recent months, you’ve still had to learn much more [about Portland]. How do you go about doing that?

Westerman: I’ve had to learn so much over the past couple of months and I am still on that learning journey, absolutely. And you’re right, any response effort is going to be new. Coming in as an outsider, there’s an imperative to gather as much information as possible, talk to people who know and be able to kind of formulate enough of an understanding of the situation to move forward with intentionality, but also with expediency. One of the most important things there is to find out [is] who does have that knowledge? And talk to those people, affected populations, first and foremost. And I think that that carries from one situation to the next. Those who have been affected by a crisis are going to carry some of the most valuable important information about what this response needs to look like. So talking to the affected population, often talking to the affected population through the lens of people that they know and trust. As an outsider, I might not get the same story as somebody who has been formulating those relationships over time.

Fortunately, here in Portland, we have a lot of very dedicated, very passionate nonprofits, individuals, community members, church groups, etc. that have started to build those relationships. And those individuals can help to inform any response effort by the city or any other government entity.

Miller: What is it, some of the things you’ve heard, either directly or through the conduit of long time, trusted sources that have either changed your understanding of the situation, or really helped you put it in a deeper context? What are some specific things you’ve heard?

Westerman: Thank you for that question. I think one of the things that stands out to me is trust, and how trust plays out in the ability to have effective services. I think I’ve known this inherently. But really hearing the stories of where people have had their trust broken in the past, who have maybe accessed services and been failed by those services, and what that does to the desire and the interest and motivation to try again and pursue additional services. So I think one of the things that really stands out to me is how critical it is to build trust and to follow through on promises as a responder, as a coordinator of shelter, or any other service for this population.

For me, I think the other thing is really learning the complex interplay between the crisis that we have of drug use, the crises that we have of mental health supports, and in general the different ways that people find themselves in a homeless situation and how that can later interplay with some of these other crises that we have on our streets right now.

Miller: One of the challenges of Portland’s homelessness response, or the response to homelessness in the Portland region, is the overlapping jurisdictions here. There’s the city, there’s the county, there’s the Metro regional government, there’s the state. How do you navigate all of that?

Westerman: This has been fascinating as a newcomer. My entire career has been working in the nonprofit industry where we, I think, saw government entities as this monolith in some ways, and the funding mechanisms coming through those as being the main way that we interfaced. One thing that really has stood out to me over these first couple of months in this role is that the coordinator at the operational level between each of these players and entities is much stronger than I think the public believes, and what stands out in the media. So at the operational level, I’m talking to people at the county at the joint office on a daily basis. And we are more aligned than I think we’re given credit for in terms of how we think about this crisis and where we set those priorities.

Miller: That’s encouraging, and I have to say, it’s a little bit of a surprise. Because it’s not like this is a kind of sensationalizing, “if it bleeds, it leads” story. It’s year in year out. We have heard, and there have been very public instances, of county and city leaders just saying “we are not on the same page, we’re not getting along.” And new leaders come in and say “I’m gonna make a difference, we’re going to work together with the other side.” We’ve been hearing this for years. You’re saying that, at the nitty gritty level, there is more cohesion?

Westerman: Yeah, I really think that there is, leaving room for my continued learning and understanding of how things evolve over the next several months. But I think there are a lot of people working at the county who have worked previously at the city, working at the city who have worked previously at the county. There’s a lot stronger connections than I think we see on a day-to-day basis when we’re talking about the political level. And when it comes to operationalizing a strategy, operationalizing a shelter, and engaging directly with the population that’s experienced homelessness, we are far more willing to connect, to find commonality, to bring resources from across the different parts of the city, the county, the state together to have the best outcomes.

Now, that doesn’t mean that coordination is perfect. It is not. There’s a lot of room for us to get a lot better about how we pool resources and maximize outcomes. But the conversations are happening. And I think that there is a level of trust and willingness to pick up the phone and talk to each other at this operational level.

Miller: Just today, Multnomah County, as I’m sure you’re aware, released the latest numbers from 2022 of people who died while experiencing home homelessness in the county. It was 315 people, up 63% from the year before. What is your response to that number?

Westerman: It’s heartbreaking. Honestly, it’s heartbreaking. I give credit to the city of Portland for recognizing that this is a humanitarian crisis, and people are dying every day. And I think, what we’re seeing in that data just tells us we need to act swiftly and we need to do more.

Miller: Your specific remit is in housing. The city’s first Safe Rest Villages Report shows that about 45% of those who left the villages went on to permanent housing. What do you think it’s going to take to increase that number? It’s one of the key metrics we can pay attention to.

Westerman: I love this question because it’s exactly the question that we’re talking about together as a team and with our partners. To me, one of the most critical factors is that we are able to build the wraparound services that meet the needs of each and every individual where they’re at when they’re in shelter. And what does that mean? That means case management, and case management that gives sufficient attention to each individual. We don’t need case managers with a load of 50 people. They’re not going to be able to give the attention to meet the needs of individuals. We need case managers with a small enough case management load so that they can build those meaningful connections, build trust, and help people move into housing.

I think ensuring that there’s strong behavioral health supports, physical health supports, addiction treatment services available is also really important pieces of this puzzle that we need to work through.

Miller: Do things take longer for you to be able to push through now because you’re a part of a city bureaucracy, as opposed to a potentially more nimble nonprofit?

Westerman: Of course. I think I’m still learning about the bureaucracy myself. Two and a half months in, I don’t know how long everything is gonna take. Fortunately, I’m gifted with counterparts within the team that I’m working with who have really good skills at navigating that bureaucracy. And I will be honest, I expected it to be more difficult to navigate than it has been these first few months. So I’m hopeful.

Miller: I’ve become a connoisseur of the pauses after I ask a question. That was the longest one of any of my questions. It seemed to say a lot. In other words, even if you’re hopeful, you’re dealing with a version of an entity that is just more deliberative and slower maybe than you’re used to or maybe than you would want.

Westerman: Sure. There’s definitely truth to that. I would also say that working in the regulatory environment here in the United States slows things down.

Miller: In other words, it’s not just Portland, it’s the country.

Westerman: Absolutely, absolutely. The need to comply with local, state, federal rules, that doesn’t exist in the same way in an international humanitarian response. And I fully recognize I have a lot of learning to do in that space to make sure that we can navigate those appropriately.

Miller: Brandy Westerman, I look forward to talking again. Thanks very much.

Westerman: Thank you.

Miller: Brandy Westerman is the emergency humanitarian operations director for the city of Portland.

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