Mayor Elect Keith Wilson walks through the overnight shelter room in Portland Central Church of the Nazarene in southeast Portland, Ore., Nov. 19, 2024. Addressing homelessness by increasing the number of overnight shelters like this one was a central focus of Wilson's mayoral campaign.
Anna Lueck for OPB
While Portland Mayor-elect Keith Wilson doesn’t start work until January, his plans to address Portland’s homeless crisis with new overnight shelters are already underway.
On Thursday, Portland and Multnomah County announced plans to open new nighttime shelters during the winter to accommodate at least 200 adults.
“This is a great first step in my commitment to end unsheltered homelessness in Portland,” Wilson said in a statement.
Wilson campaigned on the promise to end unsheltered homelessness in the city by 2026, primarily by opening up a number of shelters only open at night. These types of shelters, which usually offer a place to sleep and some basic amenities, traditionally require visitors to line up for entry at night and leave early in the day. The city and county stopped funding this style of shelter in 2017, after determining money spent on shelters open 24/7 was a better use of resources.
The announcement this week is an indication that county and city officials are willing to give this model another chance under Wilson’s leadership.
The city and county will evenly split the $750,000 cost to add these 200 beds in new shelter facilities across the county. It’s enough money to cover operating costs for about three months.
But many of the operational details still need to be ironed out.
Stacey Borke is the deputy chief of staff to Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson. Borke, who also spent more than a decade running shelter programs at nonprofit shelter provider Transition Projects, said that the county has yet to contract with a service provider to run these new shelters, let alone decide where they will be located. It’s also not clear what kind of buildings the city and county will use for these shelters. Wilson’s campaign proposal suggested using churches and community centers.
“Right now, we’re just talking to existing providers to see who can step up to do the work,” Borke said. “All options for facilities on the table.”
The plan is that these shelters will be run by paid staff, unlike the largely volunteer-run severe weather shelters that the city and county operate when temperatures drop in the winter. Borke said the plan is to open these shelters up as soon as possible, but it could take a few weeks to coordinate.
“What matters is the will is there,” Borke said. “Providers have the will, the political will is there. Everyone is rowing in the same direction to make this happen fast.”
Borke said that shelter staff may be limited in their ability to meet with visitors and connect with housing or other programs since many who use the space will simply want to sleep. But the idea is that visitors will be offered information about daytime shelters and resources when they leave.
The city and county currently operate dozens of 24/7 shelters with space for nearly 3,000 people in all.
While the plan is to only open these new shelters at night, county officials are hoping to find buildings that can be easily turned into 24/7 shelters. Jillian Schoene is the newest director of Multnomah County’s Homelessness Response System, a program overseeing the city and county’s new homelessness response plan.
“We need to be able to pivot these shelters in the event of severe weather,” Schoene said. “We can’t be sending people out into an ice storm.”
The funding for this program comes from money set aside for emergency winter shelters. Borke said the investment won’t impact the government’s ability to open emergency shelters this winter.
Matt McNally, a spokesperson for Vega Pederson, said the county sees these overnight shelters as a way to examine whether nighttime-only shelters can effectively reduce homelessness.
“I can imagine there will be many lessons to come from this, and guidance on how we run shelters in the future,” McNally said. “It’s a real opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t.”
