Oregon mayors organize homeless outreach plan, ask state for millions in assistance

Miranda Cyr, Register-Guard
·2 min read
162
Jonah Ryan, left, who lives on the street with his dog, Jesse, joins Roach (middle) and others in downtown Eugene in August 2022. Mayors from around Oregon have created a statewide plan and submitted it to the state with a request for funding and assistance.
Jonah Ryan, left, who lives on the street with his dog, Jesse, joins Roach (middle) and others in downtown Eugene in August 2022. Mayors from around Oregon have created a statewide plan and submitted it to the state with a request for funding and assistance.

Twenty-five Oregon mayors joined together for the common goal of creating a strategy to address the statewide homeless crisis using funding and construction investments, submitting the plan to state officials Friday.

A subcommittee on the Oregon Mayors Association, which included Eugene and Cottage Grove's mayors, put together the request calling for a partnership between the cities and the state to fund a response to local homelessness and preventative programs – totaling about $123 million annually.

In addition to the annual funding for those programs, the plan also calls for construction investments for shelters and transitional housing projects.

The letter to legislators highlighted the crisis, stating the municipal leaders "cannot be left to solve this statewide crisis" on their own.

"The No. 1 issue throughout Oregon – in both rural and urban communities, large and small – is homelessness. We know this humanitarian crisis is impacting both the individuals directly experiencing homelessness as well as communities at large," stated the OMA letter.

Although many cities have individual or regional programs to address local issues, the statewide crisis has exceeded their "individual capacity."

Most recently in Eugene, the River Avenue Navigation Center, a 75-bed low-barrier shelter for people with nowhere to go, opened in August – a collaboration between the City of Eugene and Lane County. However, the shelter's beds still only make a small dent in the problem. The wait lists for the city's Safe Sleep sites, which are city-funded places where people can legally sleep in vehicles, tents or other structures, has grown to over 900 individuals.

"No one single approach is effective without a collaborative and coordinated strategy to work together to create thequality of life we all want for everyone who lives in our cities and state," the letter stated. "Cities are one part of what must be a statewide approach. We need state leadership to allocate direct funding that is scaled to respond to the gravity of this crisis facing cities statewide."

Twenty-five mayors comprise the task force:

  • Jeff Gowing, Cottage Grove; OMA President

  • Teri Lenahan, North Plains; OMA President-Elect

  • Julie Akins, Ashland

  • Lacy Beaty, Beaverton

  • Gena Goodman-Campbell, Bend

  • Meadow Martell, Cave Junction

  • Beth Wytoski, Dayton

  • Jim Trett, Detroit

  • Lucy Vinis, Eugene

  • Carol MacInnes, Fossil

  • Travis Stovall, Gresham

  • Dave Drotzmann, Hermiston

  • Steve Callaway, Hillsboro

  • Kate McBride, Hood River

  • Carol Westfall, Klamath Falls

  • Ray Turner, Lakeview

  • Randy Sparacino, Medford

  • Jessica Engelke, North Bend

  • Ted Wheeler, Portland

  • Michael Preedin, Sisters

  • Richard Mays, The Dalles

  • Jason Snider, Tigard

  • Rod Cross, Toledo

  • Tom Vialpando, Vale

  • Henry Balensifer III, Warrenton

Miranda Cyr reports on education for The Register-Guard. You can contact her at mcyr@registerguard.com or find her on Twitter @mirandabcyr.

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Oregon mayors ask for state funding to aid homeless crisis