Transcript
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Candace Avalos
All right, good afternoon.
I am going to call the meeting of the Housing and Permitting Committee to order at 2:01 PM on Tuesday, July 7th.
Diego, please call the roll.
Diego
Good afternoon.
Koyama Lane?
Tiffany Koyama Lane
Absent.
Diego
Novick?
Steve Novick
Here.
Diego
Green?
Mitch Green
Here.
Diego
Pirtle-Guiney?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Here.
Diego
Avalos?
Candace Avalos
Present.
Claire, please read the statement of conduct.
Claire
Thank you, Chair.
Good afternoon and welcome to the meeting of the Housing and Permitting Committee.
To testify before this committee in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at portland.gov/council/agenda/housingandpermittingcommittee or by calling 311.
Registration for virtual testimony closes 1 hour prior to the meeting.
In-person testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard.
If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for 3 minutes unless the chair states otherwise.
Your microphone will be muted when your time is over.
The chair preserves order.
Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others' testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed.
If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given.
Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting.
Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass.
Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually.
Your testimony should address the matter being considered.
When testifying, please state your name for the record.
If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent.
And finally, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name.
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Thank you, Claire.
Today we have 4 items on our agenda.
We will have time for public comment as we always do at the top of the meeting.
We will then have a presentation on the North and Northeast Neighborhood Housing Strategy Annual Report from the North Northeast Oversight Committee.
And for the second half of the meeting, we will have a discussion with Urban Alchemy and Portland Solutions staff on the city's partnerships and oversight of shelter operations, including time for public comment.
So we will open those up at the same time.
We'll have some presentations, some comment, and then committee discussion.
With that, please call item 1.
Diego
Item 1, Housing and Permitting Community Feedback.
Candace Avalos
Okay, this is an opportunity for community members to share any of their concerns, ideas, or feedback regarding housing and permitting issues, and each testifier will have 3 minutes each.
So Diego, please call up the first and only person.
One person?
Diego
That's correct.
Candace Avalos
Sounds good.
Diego
Our individual signed up, Lacey Sutton.
Candace Avalos
Welcome, go ahead.
Lacey Sutton
Lacey Sutton.
Um, I wanted to say thank you to Councilors Koyama Lane and Green for your encouraging words at the last committee meeting.
You asked for examples of follow-up pre-application requirements in other cities, and I emailed those to all of you.
You also asked for examples of systems of accountability.
I've been looking, but what keeps coming up are the kinds of systems we already have.
So for now, I thought I'd share more about how impossible it's been to utilize them.
Recently at a public safety meeting, Fire Chief Johnson refused to answer my questions about Cherry Blossom again and assured the audience that anyone concerned about fire safety could lodge a complaint with the fire marshal's office.
But I did that 1,009 days ago.
And when a fire inspector came out and told me our homes were built wrong and we weren't safe, they told him to shut up.
He's the one who sued the city for racial discrimination.
And when a fire inspect— sorry.
I filed a complaint with PP&D too.
Former Director David Kuhnhausen met with Habitat for Humanity CEO Steve Messinetti to discuss things Habitat did and the city missed, like leaving huge holes in the firewalls and installing horizontal balcony railings.
The Design Commission had made vertical railings a legally binding condition of approval, citing children's safety.
I've lost track of the number of times I've had to stand under a balcony with my arms up yelling for the parents of a climbing baby.
So when I heard Habitat was given directives to replace the railings, I was thrilled, and I told Koin News, which allegedly angered PP&D, and they said they wouldn't require replacement railings after all.
At least that's what I heard.
They refused to talk to me after that.
And then there's the ombudsman, Rose City's watchdog, who rolled over like a lapdog as soon as Habitat said the word.
The morning after KOIN News aired an interview with Deputy Ombudsman Tony Green, Steve Messinetti asked to meet with him, and they did that day.
At that point, Tony had been investigating this for 5 months.
He'd already written and was about to publish his findings, which contained fire officials' admissions of failure.
But after this meeting, he deleted them and rewrote the report to exonerate Habitat, which would be bad enough for a city ombudsman to do.
Diego
Thank you.
Lacey Sutton
But it's actually worse because the story they came up with is pure fiction.
I assure you I'm not saying anything I can't back up with a pile of evidence.
But just last week I got a letter from risk management.
The city yet again investigated itself and determined it did nothing wrong and isn't liable for anything.
Well, I'm really looking forward to finally getting some answers now.
I mean, if the city did everything right, surely they'll have no problem explaining.
Thank you.
So while I like the idea of some kind of comment system where regular people can leave feedback about housing, particularly subsidized housing, I also like the idea of an ombudsman, of plan review, inspections, code compliance, codes, laws.
We already have these things, but they're overseen by people looking out for themselves and their friends.
My problem is I've been asking them to investigate them Hold them accountable, and they're not doing it.
They never will.
So now I'm asking you, please enforce the systems we already have.
Marlene Howell
Thank you.
Diego
That concludes testimony.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Please read item 2.
Diego
Item 2, North Northeast Oversight Committee Annual Report.
Candace Avalos
All right, we've got some folks coming on up.
So, um, the North and Northeast Neighborhood Housing Strategy is a strategy to address displacement in North and Northeast Portland, specifically of Black households, through housing investments, homeownership, and home retention programs for longtime residents.
The council approved the North and Northeast Housing Strategy in 2015, and in 2015, $20 million in interstate TIF was allocated to create the housing strategy.
Since that time, over $120 million of TIF have been utilized to fund the 4 strategy areas.
The Portland Housing Bureau reports that it has 975 affordable units open or in development under the North and Northeast Housing Strategy.
So today's presentation will include data through December of '25 from all 4 strategies, as well as an update on the preference policy.
And the preference policy continues to be a race-neutral national model for addressing Excuse me.
As they continue to seek guidance and technical assistance on the mechanics and structure of the North and Northeast Preference Policy.
So when we think about this policy, we naturally think of D2 communities, but this is particularly important to my constituents in East Portland as well.
Many Black Portlanders living in East Portland were displaced from North and Northeast Portland based on specific actions that previous city leadership took.
And these are the families that this policy is intended to help.
So I wanna offer my personal appreciation for the North and Northeast Housing Neighborhood Housing Strategy Oversight Committee's dedication and perseverance in this work to ensure that Portland's most displaced populations continue to have opportunities in North and Northeast Portland, especially given the current context of the federal administration that is actively working to dismantle programs like ours.
So thank you, Dr. Stephen Holt, uh, the Oversight Committee Chair, who's going to lead us off with some opening remarks, followed by PHB's Equity and Business Operations Manager Leslie Goodlow, who will report on the data.
Take it away.
Stephen Holt
Well, thank you, Councilor.
It is good to be here this afternoon.
As said, I'm Dr. Stephen Holt, and I haven't had the privilege or opportunity to get to know, uh, the new councilors.
Uh, Councilor Avalos, we have had one opportunity to sit together.
I look forward to having more.
And then, um, Councilor Green, Councilor Novick, and Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, we saw one another just a couple of weeks ago, and I appreciated your comments at the opening Thank you.
Thank you, Councilor Smith.
Thank you, Councilor Smith, and thank you to all of the members of the Strong Property family.
As I start, I want to say that I appreciate the work of the committee, that this committee has been in place for 10 years, and there have been a host of people who have given their time and given their efforts and given their commitments to this work.
They've not only been a part of the ongoing strategy itself, they've been a part of reviewing NOFAs, they've been a part of helping to strategize how the work gets done.
Appreciation for those who've been in that space.
I won't read the names of the current committee.
We've got a new group of individuals who are engaged in this work and who are extremely excited about what is going on.
Opening my comments, uh, I'm excited about the report and what we have a chance to share.
It's been 10 years.
10 Years.
And a lot can happen in 10 years.
We've had 3 mayors.
In 10 years.
6 Different housing bureau directors in 10 years.
Many changes in values and things that have been emphasized or important.
But the interesting thing is that through those 10 years, the work of this committee hasn't changed.
This committee has been absolutely dedicated to one thing and one thing only, and that's providing opportunities for people who don't necessarily get them.
Being a voice for those who don't get the chance to sit in spaces like this and have conversations like this.
People don't even know the public process of how to get engaged and get involved.
This has been both a calling and a cost of 10 years.
And sometimes I have to admit, I feel like a dinosaur.
I do.
I am— we started this, I was 49 years old, and now I sit here 60, just about 61.
I was raised at a time where who you were mattered, where character was a big deal, where what you do outweighs what you say, where you were held in a position of accountability with the decisions that you made.
My family owned a property on Williamson Killingsworth, and I used to go and pump gas in the summers.
At 8 years old, I learned a very expensive lesson, and the lesson I learned is back when gas stations weren't quite What they are today.
You could get some cigarettes, you could get some pop, or you get some bubble gum or that kind of thing if you'd go in and, and purchase it.
I used to pump the gas and I would run and do errands for folks that wanted something out of the, the station.
Well, what I learned at 8 years old was that you don't pump the gas first and then go get the goodies before people pay, because sometimes they pull off.
And what my dad taught me was that their pulling off and the cost of the gas came out of my check at 8.
So I learned very early something called choice consequence, responsibility and oversight, and standing in the place of being careful of what you do more than what you say.
I feel like a dinosaur because the day we live in, you can get canceled In a second over something that is reported or something that is captured or something that someone is impressed with, and they forget what you've done, your action.
10 Years is a long time.
And as I sit here and look at today's presentation and the information that Ms. Goodlow is going to go over and the data that's presented, the work we've done speaks.
What has been accomplished speaks more than words, more than opinions, more than perspectives, more than what's said about you.
Consider what is done.
I, I just kind of long for the days of yesterday.
Bring back the days of yay and nay where it mattered how you showed up and it mattered what you produced.
And I think for the people that have had a chance to move back into the houses For the people who've had a chance to move back into the apartments, who will never know those who stood in front of them or those who fought for them, who will never be aware of it.
What matters most is the product that's happened.
I look forward to getting to know you and your commitment in this space.
You sit in an incredible place of responsibility and accountability, and you probably know better than I do how much opinion Thank you.
What you do about who you are can impact how people think about you.
But what an opportunity to demonstrate who you are by what you do.
And I think this testimony is a testimony of 10 years of work, of a labor of love, of a guy who grew up on Williams and Wygant, whose family lost their business on Killingsworth and Williams, the old Rocket Fuel Station, and who stayed showing up month after month.
Year after year because of a community that needed help.
So, uh, we'll look at the data.
Ms. Goodloe, thank you very much for your commitment over the past 10 years.
You've been also one of those consistent voices to advocate for those who haven't had them.
Here's the report.
I'm super excited about it.
If you've got a chance to look at it, I'm sure you're hyped also.
Leslie Goodloe
Good afternoon.
Leslie Goodloe, Equity and Business Operations for the Portland Housing Bureau.
I'm going to start off on talking about the expenditures over the last 10 years.
We, through December of 2025, have spent $121.8 million in tax increment financing.
That we— the total amount we've spent is more than that, but that is the TIF dollars.
This dollar amount does not include Metro Housing Bond, construction excise tax, short-term rental funds, PSEP, and other funding sources that have also gone in to supplement the strategy.
The sustained investment demonstrates the city's long-term commitment to repairing the impacts of displacement in North and Northeast Portland.
And what began as a $20 million initiative in 2014 by Mayor Charlie Hales and Commissioner Dan Saltzman has grown into Portland's largest and longest-running anti-displacement investment.
This map shows you the investments across the Interstate District.
You can see we have 12 rental properties that are either open or in development, and then we have 4 homeownership projects that are either open or in development.
We do have one other project that you all funded earlier this year, the Monarca, that will fall under the housing strategy and the preference policy, and we look forward to Working with Hacienda on that project.
We also want to stress that while the projects were all within one district, we did try to space them out so that they are across a variety of neighborhoods.
We've created opportunities for families to have options near parks and other businesses.
Today, these investments represent hundreds of affordable homes and a pipeline that continues to grow.
Oh, go back, Leslie.
Back, back, back.
Sorry, I don't have my glasses.
I should have grabbed my glasses.
Stephen Holt
It helps.
Leslie Goodloe
Yes.
All right.
So preventing displacement is strategy number 1.
And this is primarily home repair loans and grants going to homeowners within the district.
When we started the project in 2015, we had a goal of 80 households getting loans.
And 160 households getting grants.
To date, we have served 192— well, through the end of December, 192 households with loans and 1,245 households with grants.
The loans are forgivable after 15 years, and the grants are— there's no, no lien or anything.
It is an actual grant up to $10,000, and Those are able to be reapplied for, but this count is the number of unduplicated households that we've served for a total of $13 million in TIF dollars spent.
Creating new homeowners is goal number 2.
This has been a cornerstone of the strategy, as this was the strongest issue raised during the forums in 2014.
Families and And participants were very concerned about replacing homeownership with homeownership.
We had an original goal of 40 households being served with down payment assistance.
To date, we have served 86.
32 Households through development of affordable homeownership.
We have 57 units that we've contributed to.
36 Of those were sold to preference policy families.
The remaining were sold to folks in either Habitat or Proud Grounds pipeline.
And additionally, we've been able to assist 12 homeowners to be— 12 people to become homeowners without any subsidy from PHB.
They were able to purchase a family home or a neighbor home, but they did benefit from the counseling that the bureau pays for.
We've spent about $14 million in TIF dollars and then another $3 million in other resources for homeownership.
This slide shows you how and which funding source, which color of money has gone in to support our homeowners.
North Northeast TIF, that's Interstate TIF 39.
Prosper Portland, that's also TIF dollars.
Those were awarded by Prosper Portland, CDI, or APLC.
APLC, yes.
Stephen Holt
Yes, Action Plan Leadership Committee.
Leslie Goodloe
To support folks that made between 80% and 120% of AMI.
We found that we had a lot of people that would fall at that 81%, 82%, and we couldn't serve them with our interstate TIF because of the requirements around the set-aside.
And so we've been able to serve 20 families to become homeowners through Prosper Portland.
2 Folks bought in Lentz, used Lentz TIF.
Short-term rental was $100,000.
15 Families were able to purchase outside the district.
CET, construction excise tax, another 10.
And then Olin, Kenton, both phases of Kenton, and then Culley Place were all subsidies that we put in.
Those are permanently affordable projects that we were able to support people becoming homeowners.
Additionally, with the projects and the homeownership, we created an asset preservation program.
This was developed on a recommendation from the Oversight Committee to assist seniors and homeowners at 80% AMI and below to preserve generational wealth by providing wills, trusts, estate planning, and other legal services to keep homes in their families.
The program is administered through AAH, African American Alliance for Homeownership, and the Commons Law Center.
Additionally, Portland Housing Center created a post-purchase support program that provides ongoing education, coaching, and resources to new homeowners, helping families successfully sustain homeownership long after closing.
This map shows where our preference policy buyers have been able to purchase.
You can see we have folks There's a concentration within the district, but also people that have been able to purchase in Southeast and in Lentz.
Creating rental homes, by far the largest funds— amount of funds that we've spent.
We originally had a goal of 40 to 80 units.
We had 2 pieces of property originally called the Grant Warehouse, which is where Beatrice Morrow is, and then the project of King Parks was The other piece of property that we were able to build.
And today we have 965 units in production or open.
We've spent $55 million in interstate TIF, $111, almost $112 million in total sources of PHB subsidy, which has produced— or total financing for 965 units, $414 million.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Leslie Goodloe
So the city's funds have gone— have leveraged a significant amount of revenue from other places.
This is an overview of the rental homes that we've purchased or built.
We have 12 buildings right now, 975 units.
740 Of those units are preference policy units.
Bedrooms, we have 105 studios, 349 1-bedroom, 357 2-bedroom, and 154 3-bedrooms.
When we started the strategy, we wanted to ensure that we were building family-sized units, as that was a significant priority of the people that participated in the forums.
And so 53% of the units built to date have— are 2 or 3 bedrooms.
Income— rent and income levels, we have 202 units at 30%, 109 units at 50%, And 631 units at 60%.
Additionally, we have 108 project-based vouchers in the buildings.
I'm not going to go into a lot of detail.
This just gives you an individual overview of each building, how much PHB funds went in, what was leveraged, the total development cost, and then the number of units of each size and AMI.
Stephen Holt
Thank you.
Leslie Goodloe
One of the biggest issues that we found over the course, particularly of the last 5 years and since COVID is that the area median income continues to increase in Portland.
Part of the biggest issue is that they include homeowners and renters in the creation of the AMI across the country.
But in Portland, there's a significant difference between homeowners' and renters' incomes.
The first chart, you can see that blue line, that's 100% of the area median income through 2025.
The kind of goldish-greenish color, uh, that is the 80% line.
The, um, gray-blue line is the 60% AMI, and then the orange line is the median income for Black and African American households in Portland.
So you can see that folks that qualify for the most preference points are not even able to afford a 60% unit, which is primarily what we have built.
The second chart shows the— the bars across show the income available for rent.
The orange line shows what the AMI rent would be for a household of 3.
Steve Novick
Okay.
Leslie Goodloe
And then that bottom blue-gray shows the amount of rent burden that African American families are currently experiencing, given the current AMI and the rents.
Stephen Holt
Give them a specific example on one of those.
Leslie Goodloe
Let me see.
So in 2024, the rent was— the average rent was a little more— was about $1,250 a month.
The average income was less than that, and their rent burden about $400 a month.
So that was for 2025.
Thank you.
Land acquisition.
We're very proud to say we were able to purchase several piece— couple piece of property.
We had one donated by Kaiser.
All of these properties have been developed or are in development.
Dr. Darrell Milner was a property that opened last year.
The Strong site, we just did the grand opening a couple of weeks ago.
The Water Bureau property, formerly known as Cary Boulevard, True North, they just financially closed last week.
And the Kaiser Permanente site, we are doing the grand opening for that project later in the summer.
We spent just over $12 million purchasing land For the first— in the first 10 years.
We don't have any plans to purchase anymore because we're running out of TIF money right now.
But if something were to come along and we had funds available, we would continue to support land banking.
So the preference policy, there are 2 pieces to it.
One is the rental portion, which is open continuous, so anyone can go into the portal and apply at any particular time.
They're able to adjust, pick from different addresses based on their parent, grandparent, or guardian, where they lived, and then also where the applicant has lived.
For example, we moved— I moved 11 times between the time we moved to Portland and when I graduated from high school.
And using any one of those addresses for my parents' address and then my address, which I live in the district, I could get up to 6 If you've had a home taken or your family had a home taken by eminent domain, you have top priority and basically you have 7 points.
So you always would be at the top.
So the first chart shows the applications in 2025, the racial demographics of the folks that applied in 2025.
And then the second chart shows overall the racial demographics of folks that have applied Total.
And then for homeownership, we have had the portal open 4 times to select folks to be in the pipeline to become new homeowners.
We've had just about 4,000 people apply, and of those, everyone didn't certify.
So for example, in 2024, we opened the portal, we had about 1,000 people apply.
Steve Novick
Wow.
Leslie Goodloe
Only about 400 of those people verified their preference points by bringing the documentation.
So 400 folks went into the pipeline.
We have 600 people that we are likely going to reach back out to this year and see— give them another opportunity to verify their preference points before we would open the list up again.
One of the things that was a collaboration between the preference policy team and our renter services team was a moving assistance program.
Funds were allocated out of RSO dollars to assist families moving into preference policy buildings with moving costs that sometimes are a burden for people to be able to move.
So those things like paying deposits, security deposits, pet deposits, Trucks, moving assistance, childcare, paying old light bills, those kinds of things to help people move.
So we were able to give up to $1,000.
We served 48 families.
75% Of them were at 30% AMI or below.
60% Had families— families had a female head of household, and 89% identified as BIPOC.
And you can see that How the, the program allocated funds.
For the most part, because we were having some challenges with our rental partners, a lot of funds went to rent as opposed to security deposits because they weren't able to do it quick enough to before people moved in.
So we were able to provide credits on folks' rent.
Thank you.
Role as opposed to the moving expenses.
And right, and we've ended the pilot.
We're going to be working on evaluating it for the rest of this year and deciding whether or not we want to reinstitute it next year.
Communications and outreach.
Thanks to Gwen, who's in the room.
She has done an amazing job with our North Northeast newsletter.
Thank you.
We publish it quarterly.
We're reaching on average 4,000 people with 3 issues.
We also have a great team doing social media.
Gabriel's also in the room.
And so we reached about 2,000 folks during 2025 on our social media posts.
And then we have PHB staff that regularly attend community events Sharing information about the housing strategy, the preference policy, our home repair programs, and renter services, and a variety of other programs.
And now I'm going to turn it back over to Dr. Holt to wrap up and then have time for questions.
Stephen Holt
Thank you very much.
If you'd bring up my recommendations page.
Yes, thank you very much.
Just want to emphasize 975 doors for rental opportunities.
That's pretty phenomenal.
And then 130 homeowners, people who now own their homes who would not have been able to.
And by the time the strategy is done, there will be 200 homeowners out of the strategy.
That feels to me like something worth celebrating.
I'm going to clap.
I think it's amazing.
I do.
I think it's phenomenal what has happened in 10 years.
A lot can happen.
In 10 years.
And this is pretty big.
I think it's the kind of thing that offers a blueprint for strategy, an authentic example that now has been proven through testing and time that it produces.
We can talk about ideas and come up with theories and concepts, but we don't know that they'll work.
We've got something that has grit, that has data.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Stephen Holt
That's moved families, that's moved people, and the issue has not by any means began to abate.
It's not getting better, it's becoming more challenging.
The Delta has only increased.
And as Councilor Avalos started by talking about our current federal leadership— I'm sitting here patriotic today— as we talk about our federal leadership, we here locally have to do Something intentional, strategic, purposeful, and we have a blueprint that we could use.
I'd love to be a part of strategy and love to be a part of something that builds for long term.
So we recommend aligning affordability with actual household conditions.
You heard, you saw the data, especially for folks who look like me.
The numbers of— in terms of revenue is decreasing.
Yes.
While expense is increasing.
30% Units, great.
We almost need 20% units, 10%, 40% for sure units.
How do we do that?
Requires some strategy, some thinking, some intentionality.
Expanding and adapting pathways to homeownership.
One of the biggest things that creates wealth or creates opportunity or creates family stability, health, wellness for the community is homeownership.
It reduces crime.
It encourages and increases educational retention.
It improves and empowers people around careers.
We know, those of us who live or spend any time in this space, the significance of what happens when people can actually own versus rent.
Now, we've done a great job with 975 rental units.
I'm excited about 200 homeowners, but I think we need to bolster that.
Thank you.
Finding ways to help people secure what is, I think, a human right— stable housing, safe housing, affordable housing.
I think that's something that we should spend some real time thinking through.
Strengthening and recalibrating our retention programs.
It's great enough to get people in, but we got to keep folks there.
How do we create some pathways around them?
When, when Mayor Hales and I began this conversation Yes.
Years ago, one of the things I talked about wasn't just getting people in space.
It was also those who had the opportunity to build the spaces or be involved in the renovation of those spaces.
Those are economic drivers.
Those are possibilities.
And then how do we engage with community around these spaces?
What good is it to move people into a neighborhood where the neighborhood doesn't want them, where they can't shop, they can't live?
It's so much more than just Place.
It's also space.
Then establish clear accountability for building operations.
We've run into some challenges.
We talked about that.
You've seen it in the report.
How do we make sure that the people who are moving in benefit from the investment so that they're safe, so that their stuff that's delivered to them is safe, no one is stealing their items, and other people aren't getting into these protected, uh, communities?
How do we think about that?
What are the other support systems that can be put in place to ensure that when the family goes home, they're safe being home?
Increase Black workforce participation with measurable outcomes.
That's such a big conversation.
That is such a broad and nuanced kind of concentration.
There's so much associated with the trades and perspectives around the trades or understanding or lack of understanding.
As it goes to the trades.
And it's something that we've seen as we've done this work trying to create opportunities to sustain and bolster and build these young business owners.
And then the barriers that they have to overcome from insurance, from procurement, from— the list goes on and on.
We've got to figure out some ways to help people grow and be successful with this incredible investment.
And then maintain and strengthen the North Northeast Preference Policy.
I don't know of any other strategy.
In fact, there is no other strategy in the nation that has accomplished what this has accomplished.
There is no other example in the nation, right here in Portland, a preference policy upheld by HUD as an example of an equitable process for restorative investment.
We got to strengthen that and expand it.
We have An incredible opportunity, and I'm excited about what we can do if we'll use the blueprint.
We'll dig in and go to work.
Um, questions, comments, thoughts?
Vicki Payne
Hi.
Candace Avalos
All right, thank you all.
So yes, it looks like we've got some folks in the queue.
Um, I had my hand up, but I'm going to put it at the end.
So let's just hear from committee, and then I'll offer my questions and comments.
So let's kick it off with Councilor Novick.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I've got some questions about the rental end of things, one of which is we've heard a lot about vacancies in affordable rental housing.
Do you know what the vacancy rate is of rental properties established under the preference policy compared to vacancies in affordable rental housing citywide?
Leslie Goodloe
It's probably about the same.
We have had same kinds of issues in getting people into units As I mentioned earlier, 60% unit is just— it's about market rate, and particularly in Northeast Portland.
It's— if you can get a studio for $1,000 on the market, why would you pay $1,000 at an affordable building and have to jump through 99 hoops in order to get it?
And so there's, there's a couple of pieces there.
Again, the rents are just high, and then the amount of work that you have to do to get into an affordable building is just It's just a lot of work.
So it's about equivalent to other places in town.
Stephen Holt
And if I could jump in, I would say the other item I just was talking to, it's affordability.
It's just the reality of what folks are genuinely making.
And so our issue is how do we help create economic opportunities for those who have been impacted?
And I will just, for the sake of Making— landing my plane with, with data.
There are 400,000 individuals who've lost jobs that once held jobs because of the removal of DEI in our nation.
That has had direct impact here in our city, and I won't go into specific detail, but it's had direct impact on my own business with that adjustment.
So it's affordability.
Diego
Thank you.
Steve Novick
Along the lines of like the hoops, what's the average length of time it takes for an applicant for rental housing under the preference policy to get into an apartment from initial application submission to moving in?
Leslie Goodloe
I think it will vary based on what kinds of requirements each building has, whether they're LIHTC, whether they have HUD requirements.
So each of those are going to be slightly different.
If the— depending upon what the requirements are.
But once somebody gets on the list, we make referrals.
So if, like today, I sent out a list for M. Carter Commons, 22 names, they have several units available that they're still trying to get leased.
It will take anywhere from 2 weeks to a month for someone to get through the process of getting into a unit where they're fully approved.
It just depends on if they've got all their documentation together.
Steve Novick
Right.
Leslie Goodloe
You know, their income statements, if they don't have anything bad on their credit.
So there's a variety of factors that go into how long it takes someone to get into an affordable unit.
Steve Novick
Actually, do you refer people to just one provider or do you just give them sort of like a referral that could be used with any?
Leslie Goodloe
So once you get on the list and you would specify that you would like So, Councilor Novick, you say, I want a 2-bedroom, there's 3 of us.
And so anytime there's a 2-bedroom unit available, you would get referred.
And based on where you are on the list, they may get to you or they may not, because there may be 100 people ahead of you on the list that are also looking for a 2-bedroom.
So when they get to you, then they say, hey Steve, you're interested in a 2-bedroom, here's all the things, here's the application, all the things that you would need to So it's both how many preference points you have and then where you are on the list that determine when you get referred to a building.
But you would get referred, continue to get referred until you get into a building that you want to be in.
We have had people start out in one preference policy building and then move into another.
When Dr. Daryl Milner opened, they have washers and dryers in the units, and most affordable rental buildings don't.
Mm-hmm.
But because that was originally a condo project, They were built with washers and dryers, so we had a lot of people move from other buildings into Dr. Darryl Milner so that they'd have their own washer and dryer.
Steve Novick
Do you know how many households are on the waitlist for rental housing?
Leslie Goodloe
On ours?
Yeah.
6-Point households to 0-point.
So 0-point households are probably the largest.
And let me see, I have it here in my book somewhere, through 2025.
Steve Novick
And if you could remind us what zero-point household means.
Leslie Goodloe
So, oh, I'm sorry.
A zero-point household is somebody that lived outside of the area that you get points for.
Okay.
So there are 3 particular areas that you could get points for.
One is the Interstate URA, one is the Albina Community Plan, and the other one is the There was an area that was designated as blighted by the city.
And so depending upon where you lived within those 3 areas, you could get 3 points for yourself and up to 3 points for your parent, grandparent, or guardian.
If you never lived in anywhere in Northeast Portland, you can still apply, but you would have 0 points.
And of course, you're going to be at the bottom of the list.
So we're going to continue to feed in 6 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 households before we get to the 0-point households.
So for 2025, we had 1,639 people apply.
So some of those folks have gotten into units, so they're not currently on the list, but we have somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 people on the list at any given time on an active waitlist.
Diego
Okay.
Steve Novick
Do you have any way to have a direct connection between rent assistance funding and rental residents under the preference policy?
Leslie Goodloe
No, we don't.
We did— well, we did during COVID We had some HOME money that we designated for preference policy buildings.
But since COVID and those federal dollars went away, we don't have any specific designation for funds for preference policy buildings.
Candace Avalos
Okay.
Steve Novick
And do you track sort of outcomes for rental tenants under the preference policy, like evictions and turnover and things like that?
Leslie Goodloe
We do through our— both through RSO tracks Evictions, and then our risk analysis team can track turnovers, but that's annually, and it's usually, you know, by the time we get the information, it's 15 to 16 months after.
So it's not real live data.
Once we are up and running with our community services database, we'll have better data of people moving out because we're going to be able to track units that people Thank you.
Candace Avalos
All right, thank you, Councilor.
Up next, uh, Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Chair, and thank you for making sure this was on the agenda today.
This is such an important, um, program for us to elevate and make sure that sure we're doing the best we can to make sure that we're we don't just receive a report, but actually have a conversation about, you know, you've talked, Dr. Holt, about what will happen by the time the plan is done.
And it was a little jarring for me to hear you say it that way.
I recognize this is a 10-year plan.
So the strategy itself, that initial plan is done, or we're rounding it out.
Yeah.
But the work can't be done, right?
Right.
The work absolutely can't be done.
And I think those recommendations you had up there are so important because I hope that this is an opportunity for this council to recommit to the preference policy, to the North and Northeast Housing Strategy, and to the 1,000 people on the rental list, but also how many hundreds who still qualify to return to the opportunity for homeownership that was taken away from them.
I remember the events that created this work.
I was living very close to the lot under question that led to the real call for change and investment in the community and—.
Yeah.
It's been incredible to watch it come to realization.
I know there was a lot of concern that that initial commitment would fizzle, that even with an oversight body, we wouldn't really see the results.
And to see those numbers that are 2, 3, 10 times the original goals in terms of the outcomes is incredible.
So thank you both, and thank you to everybody who's on that committee for pushing for this to stay part of the work that the city does.
Thank you, Councilor.
I do have a couple of questions.
You know, the report itself says somewhere near the beginning that this didn't start as a housing solution, that this started as a way to prevent displacement, to restore wealth, right?
I forget the exact words, but it says very clearly that it didn't start as a housing solution.
And yet in many ways it has become a housing solution.
And when you put the slides up, I think it was slide 6 showed that almost half of the funding has been spent on rental development, which is very much a housing solution.
Yes, it is in many ways anti-displacement.
Yes, it is in many ways space-making and community-building.
Yeah.
But it's not a restoration of wealth.
It's not a repair for wealth that was taken away.
No.
And so I'm wondering if you can speak to the decision around the distribution of funding between the 4 strategies, looking at rentals, at homeownership, at the repair grants, and at the land banking.
How are decisions made about how much money is spent on each of those strategies, and why was the distribution of funds spent the way that it was?
Stephen Holt
Excellent question.
I'll respond first, and then, Ms. Galindo, unless you want to go first.
Leslie Goodloe
Let me go first.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Oh, let's—.
Leslie Goodloe
Because I can give the technical part.
Okay.
So initially, when we had the $20 million, we asked the community to help us prioritize And the first priority was affordable rental because there was very little in Northeast Portland at that point.
And then second was the homeowner, creating new homeowners, and then the retention.
And so the first plan had no land banking, and the community came back and was like, no, you got to put some money in.
Out of this $20 million to help to buy land now to develop it later.
And so it was really just a kind of a proportional based on what it costs to build affordable rental and then what we could shape into.
So it was originally $5 million for homeownership, $3 million for rental— I mean, for home repair.
We put $3 million into the land banking, and then the remaining amount went into rental.
Because again, we thought we were only going to do 2 buildings, and we could do 2 buildings with about $10, $12 million at that point.
When the TIF lift happened, Commissioner Saltzman was like, nope, all of that money is going to go into the strategy.
We're not going to separate.
Buildings that may be across the street from each other.
Anything that comes into interstate in the set-aside is now going to go into the housing strategy.
So as we got additional funds, we worked with the committee to allocate how much more would go into each of those pools.
The director at the time had promised some funds on the what's now Renaissance Commons.
Yes.
TriMet was doing an RFP for affordable housing, and we promised $10 million, which was a significant portion of the TIF lift.
So it was $35 million.
And then when we did the maximum indebtedness, we got another $35 million or so.
You know, it's always estimated.
And so we try to do kind of proportional based on those original goals and guidelines.
Of, of how we were allocating the money.
As part of that, we didn't think about, which now I know it's been a big issue with council, is how much goes into personnel, how much goes into M&S and to internal services.
And so, you know, all of that comes off the top and then the remaining amount goes into programming.
So that was the thought and how we at the bureau kind of looked at things.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Leslie Goodloe
We worked with the Oversight Committee to allocate those dollars in the best way that we could based on what the needs were at the time.
And so I'll let Dr. Holt—.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Stephen Holt
Thanks for giving us the background and some of the technical pieces.
I think that's an excellent question.
From the onset, our heartbeat has been around wealth creation and creating opportunities.
When I say wealth creation, that wasn't just Homeownership.
I mentioned it kind of in passing, but it was also who had the opportunities to build the housing, who were the people that were the plumbers that were hired, the electricians that were hired, who was the general contractor, etc.
All of the investment created a significant opportunity.
And for us, it was trade-offs.
And what I mean is trade-off.
When I say that part of the affordable rental versus homeownership, which where the dollars get allocated, we have a host of people that want to move back into community.
Right.
They've lost a sense of connectivity, lost a sense of space, lost a sense of driving down the street and saying hi to your neighbors and being known in the areas where you grew up and played.
That was my experience.
We knew everybody in the neighborhood.
And so if we think about the investment, what can we do that's going to get the most impact with the minimal dollars?
And at that time, all we had in the initial space was the amount that was allocated.
When the increase happened, we advocated for more homeownership opportunities.
Now, based in leadership and, and who was in the space of decision-making, voices weren't always heard, but we certainly advocated for more opportunity.
I mentioned in 10 years, 6, or is it 7 bureau directors?
So different priorities with different leadership.
So great question though.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Let me follow up, if I may, Chair.
I have a few more questions on a piece you just said there.
Yeah.
That oversight committee and the community voices, even beyond the oversight committee.
Yeah.
If we were to ask you today, we've done the 10-year plan, we need to keep doing this moving forward, is our investment split right or do we need It's a great question.
Can you capture, at least from your perspective, what you think we'd hear?
Stephen Holt
I think, uh, you would hear the same kind of thing that we heard initially, uh, and now that there's such a chasm, such a delta when it comes to affordability and income, the need for ownership has only, uh, increased.
It's, it's expanded.
Um, I think the work of Any group stepping into this space, you're challenged by resources, we're challenged by need, and we're challenged by a creative way to meet the two.
What is the answer?
And I know there's a lot of conversation around social housing and I don't want to diminish it and/or poo-poo it.
It does not though, from my perspective, accomplish what really is a pressing need, and that is The stability of households, the stability of families, and the opportunity in front.
So how we get there, no simple solutions, but I think it's certainly something that, that has to be prioritized.
And I will say this, I have not always been the most popular guy because we've taken seriously promises made need to be promises kept.
And so there are times when the challenge has been directed at the city.
Wait a minute, this is what you said.
This is what we do.
This is what we're expecting to see happen.
At times there's been challenge with the providers.
You're going to have to do business differently.
Things are there in terms of stepping up and caring for the back end.
My goal and my commitment is that the people who don't have the voice, the people who haven't had the opportunity to be in this space of advocacy, are getting the opportunity to be cared for the way we should.
It's just the right thing to do.
Leslie Goodloe
So Councilor, I'll just add, I think one of the most important things is, as the TIF dollars are going away in Interstate, all of the other districts, the new districts are working on their plan.
We just finished the Culley plan.
They have prioritized homeownership in the first 5-year plan.
But having other resources that can be used outside the districts has been And paramount to this, us being successful, and I will credit Shannon Callahan, who was the director back in 2018, who decided to use some construction excise tax and the short-term rental to provide opportunity for preference policy households to be able to purchase outside the district.
Interstate is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Portland.
Yeah.
I purchased my house in 1995 for $77,000, and now it appraises at $715,000.
It's the same 1,190-square-foot house on a 5,000-square-foot lot.
And, you know, my homeowner taxes, you know, of course are ridiculous.
But just that shows you how much has changed in that neighborhood where the average price when we started was like $300,000 less than $300,000.
Now it's $600,000 or $700,000 to purchase within the district.
And so, um, to combat that, we have increased the, um, down payment assistance 4 times.
It increased from $60,000, now it's $150,000 within the district to help people have a little more to be able to combat, you know, cash offers on houses.
Um, so I'll, I'll just say having Resources available out of whatever funding sources we've got to be able to support homeownership is really the key to continuing this.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I want to ask about one other piece of the work, and before I do that, I'll say I really appreciate your frankness about where we're at and what we need.
The repair grants, that's a piece that I think I heard a lot about when this work started.
Mm-hmm.
And I don't actually know how much funding we're still putting toward that at this point in the program.
Is that still an active part of the program?
Is it enough?
Is it a part of the program that could also benefit from further investment, or are we at the right level?
And are we doing enough to prioritize The jobs, the work, the things that will help fewer people need the supports of the program in the future as we do the repair grant side.
Leslie Goodloe
So we still have TIF money available for home repair grants and loans in the district.
We've probably got enough for the next couple years.
And one of the things that the oversight committee has considered is whether to increase the grant amount Because things cost a lot more.
It's been $10,000 for the entire time that we've been doing this, and $10,000 can do a lot.
But if your roof needs to be repaired, if you've got significant electrical, if you've got plumbing issues, you know, you're not going to get that done with $10,000.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I'm looking at a roof repair right now on my house.
I know you will not get that done with $10,000.
Leslie Goodloe
But we have been able to keep a lot of seniors in their homes.
My neighbor, for example, She's 88 years old, and through a home repair grant, they replaced her front steps because she could not get out of her house because the steps were rotten.
They fixed her sidewalk so she didn't get fines from the city for having cracked sidewalk, as we know happens with people.
They were able to weatherize so that her house will stay warm.
There's— those are the kinds of things that are keeping seniors in home and not having to go into way more expensive care.
The story I told last year of the lady who was living in the house that her father built, and she was wearing all of her clothes to stay warm.
She had no heat, she had no running water.
And through our home repair program and partnering with Multnomah County and a variety of other things, we were able to make her house habitable.
Thank you.
And now she's living in this house that her father built and doing very well.
So to say that— that's all that to say, of course we could use more money, particularly outside the districts, because right now most of that funding is resourced within TIF districts.
We do have some CDBG that we're able to use, but that gets eaten up pretty quickly because there's always a waiting list for folks outside of TIF districts.
At one point, we did have some general fund that went into home repair, but we haven't had that in a while.
So again, the new TIF districts— Culley put home repair funds in their first 5-year plan.
I know the other districts are considering it, but if you live outside a district, it's— you have to wait until that next year, or if you're lucky enough to get into a program that's funded by other dollars, then you can get the services.
I know a lot of PCF has gone into this as well.
Stephen Holt
Well, I'm just going to talk about one portion of that, and that is you haven't heard much.
And that's really something that I've been harping on the entire time we've been doing this work, is it seems like this committee, for whatever reason— my words, my feelings— was treated like the redhead stepchild.
We just did not get the capture.
We didn't get the, the kind of media coverage, the kind of exposure so that families could know, so that we could promote.
We initially started with 77,000 postcards being sent out, and I wanted to do lawn signs that communicated this house has been repaired by some way so we knew and could help people know what's available.
So it's been quiet until recently.
So thanks to Gary Barlow and thanks to To Gwen for her work of beginning to advertise and help to get the word out.
But I think the work of this committee should be shouted from the rooftops, not just because I'm the chair, but because of what it accomplished.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah, I appreciate that.
And I'm always happy to help shout.
I think it's incredibly important work.
And like I said, appreciate both of your frankness about where we're at, what's working, and where we might need a little bit Chair, I will stop there so I don't take up all our time.
Thank you.
Stephen Holt
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Vice Chair Green.
Mitch Green
Thank you, Chair Avalos.
Thank you, Dr. Holt, and thank you, Leslie, for the presentation.
I couldn't agree more that I think one of the urgent needs is to shout the good work here from the rooftops.
I'm a big believer in like this sign, this work was brought to you by Expolus.
And that your tax dollars, whether we think about TIF dollars in that way or direct dollars, are the things that made this possible because that's how voters connect with the good deeds.
And so hearing that loud and clear.
So thank you so much.
And I want to thank you guys for the work that you've put into getting us here.
I think that we're seeing some great outcomes here.
And I think what you're hearing up here at the dais is, you know, at the risk of speaking for everyone, like a firm commitment to keep this going.
Awesome.
And to make sure that we are continuing to double down and make sure that we are preserving what we built and then looking for opportunities to do more of this.
I think Councilor Avalos actually last year in the budget amendment process brought forward amendments to try to provide cash infusions to the North Northeast preference policies that had some vacancy issues so we don't lose that.
And I supported that at that time, and I think that that's the right direction to be thinking.
So that's going to be continued, sort of the spirit that I'm going to kind of bring to this work, whether I'm on this committee or not, whether I'm on this body or not.
I think that this is transformational work.
So I just want to say thank you for that.
I appreciate the concise kind of list of recommendations at the end that kind of aligns with what I've just generally been feeling is So the North-Northwest preference policy work is not unique in the challenges.
Right.
I think a lot about, you know, at the end of the day, we have scarce dollars, right?
There's only so many dollars to go around.
And so how do you spend it wisely to get the best outcome?
I think aligning affordability with the actual concerns, I don't know if you intentionally put that at the top of the list, but that to me is the first priority.
The flashing kind of red light in all of our housing work right now, which is that what does it mean to say something's affordable by name, but it's not actually affordable?
Correct.
You're not serving the folks that you want to serve.
Correct.
And so I think about that in the context of just the broad committee work that we have ahead of us.
I have been talking a lot and thinking a lot lately about— and the Bureau leadership has heard this from me, and it's also a big driver of the social housing study work.
Mm-hmm.
Do we need to decouple from those HUD definitions and move towards something that's more cost-based?
Because if you can do that, then you can decouple the question of whether you want to provide an opportunity for someone to live in a place that they should be able to live in by their choice, that they have been displaced from, from the question of whether or not you want to Some sort of formula rate about whether they deserve to keep staying there or meet that threshold to begin with.
So like I have been pushing as part of the social housing work for us to think about what is the new generation of how we fund, how do we sustain affordable housing?
Yeah.
In a cost-based approach.
And so once you've figured out that, then you can talk about how to subsidize those who are having some difficulty kind of hitting that average.
What does that average rent need to be to sustain this building?
Like, if we need to subsidize, let's subsidize.
But this moving target of AMIs over time is, is creating a, a game that we continuously have to try to catch up to.
Stephen Holt
And it's a losing one for us.
Mitch Green
It's a losing one for all the providers.
It's losing one for the city.
It's losing for every single jurisdiction because as the rich get richer, it pulls those AMIs levels up.
Correct.
And the bottom of the distribution doesn't We are outpaced.
Sorry, go ahead.
Stephen Holt
No, I just said we are outpaced.
Mitch Green
Yeah, so, so I think, um, when we were having conversations earlier in this year about how to spend housing money in various different venues, um, some of us brought forward proposals for rent buydowns or debt buydowns.
We did adopt some legislation that has some of that.
I think, I think about the North Northeast portfolio of AMI units as being a prime candidate to buy down the cost structure of those buildings so you can then lower the rents, right?
Because I think that there's a vacancy problem, and there's also folks who are lining up to try to get in, and that mismatch is something that can be solved with some policy and some dollars.
And that's probably the least expensive way to close that gap.
Yes.
Certainly less expensive than building something new.
Yeah.
So I just wanted your reaction.
Am I on track?
Stephen Holt
I think so.
I like it, I like it.
And I would say, uh, careful, Councilor, you're starting to color outside the lines.
Mitch Green
So I think, uh, I think I've made a reputation for myself that I'm willing to do that sometimes.
Leslie Goodloe
Um, Councilor, I just wanted to jump in real quick.
Um, we've been fortunate that in, um, that Metro has supported us being able to buy down rents in several buildings.
Um, um, Albina Vision Trust Yeah.
Was able to fundraise.
And so even though the rents are advertised at 60%, they're really more like 45, 50%, depending upon the building.
And the 30% are more like 25 or 27%.
And so it does make a difference in being able to rent units when the rents are lower.
And thankfully, Metro had some additional interest money that they've been able to put into strong Dr. Darrell Milner into M. Carter Commons, and they're able to bring those rents down.
So it's the perfect example of what we can do with a small amount of money that will have long-term impact on helping people.
Mitch Green
That's exactly right.
And it puts the city, it puts the jurisdiction in a situation where we can change the pace of the game a little bit by buying down that cost structure.
You sort to reset your cost basis so that way you're not always chasing a little bit behind inflation, right?
So I'm glad to hear that there's other conversations here and that Metro is supporting you in that regard.
I don't know how much time I have.
I don't want to burn up the rest of our time with my questions, but I wanted to get to some homeownership.
Candace Avalos
We're going until 3:20, so you got some time.
Just leave me a couple minutes.
Steve Novick
All right, awesome.
Mitch Green
I wanted to ask if y'all have been involved at all by the Portland Housing Bureau as part of the social housing study, because there's some little meetings happening about the development of what that looks like.
And a lot of the folks on the technical advisory panels are speaking to homeownership.
They're speaking to sort of other forms of ownership, limited equity co-ops, other other pieces, because I think as we designed this resolution, we did want to recognize that if you're going to do social housing in Portland, it needs to fit Portland.
It needs to fit our problems.
It needs to be connected to our institutions that we already have.
We should bring along the providers that have been in this space for a long period of time trying to do this work.
And so that way it's something that folks can say, yes, this meets a solution, this meets— it fills a gap that we have been trying to fill.
And so question is, if you haven't been involved or consulted in that, let me know, because I think you should.
I would love to hear from, from, from the committee, but also, you know, you know, you as well, Leslie, in this work to see if that study is going to contemplate and incorporate this policy as part of a broader vision, or if it's just completely disconnected, because I don't want it to be disconnected.
Stephen Holt
Well, let me say 2 things.
I have been involved anecdotally but not directly and worth the conversations.
I would say I'd love to invite you to the Oversight Committee itself and be part of this conversation with the committee.
We meet this Thursday.
I'm sure that's too short of notice.
Leslie Goodloe
No, we don't.
Stephen Holt
Isn't it the second Thursday?
Leslie Goodloe
No, remember we met quarterly.
Stephen Holt
Oh, we canceled that.
So we're not gonna meet until October.
Leslie Goodloe
We're not meeting until October.
Mitch Green
What?
Stephen Holt
I've got July off.
Oh, that's amazing.
So I'd love to have you come and make that part of the conversation.
I think that, again, we've got a blueprint, It's not the— we have a— it'll be great to look at how we expand and engage.
So I appreciate that further conversation.
Absolutely.
Mitch Green
If it's that far out, I'm sure I have no excuses why I can't attend.
Leslie Goodloe
Well, I just— I will say that I— that the perception of social housing, um, particularly in the Black and brown community, is not necessarily something that people think is for them.
And so having someone or a couple of you come and have that conversation with the Oversight Committee would be amazing.
One of the struggles we've had is that people, you know, when they have in their head homeownership, they're thinking of, you know, a 3-bedroom house with a picket fence and a driveway and a yard.
And we know that homeownership is not that anymore.
You know, that there's, there's not enough land for us to build everybody a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom house with a, with a, with a driveway and a yard.
We've been fortunate that we're partnering with Williams and Russell.
20 Units.
Everybody's going to have a driveway.
Everybody's going to have at least a little bit of yard.
True North.
Everybody's going to have a parking space.
Everybody's going to have a little bit of yard.
And those are the things that we've heard from people.
The—.
We struggled with Kenton and with Olin because those were flats.
And people on the preference policy list were not interested in buying an apartment.
And so really wanting to change kind of that narrative of what does homeownership mean, and through the social housing, what does that look like through social housing to become a homeowner for BIPOC families, and how do we support them in their vision?
Because what was lost was houses.
Correct.
It was not townhomes.
It was not apartments.
It was homes that were lost.
And so when people think about Northeast Portland in particular, they think about, my grandma's house was right there, and my grandma's best friend lived right there, and I used to go to that house and we'd get ice cream every day.
That's what you hear when you talk to people that show up at our meetings that came and gave testimony.
And so I think it would be fabulous for folks to come and for us to have that conversation at the Oversight Committee.
Thank you.
And invite our partners to come in and talk about how we can make this work for the population that benefits from the preference policy.
Mitch Green
I really appreciate that.
And I hear that too.
And that's one of the things I've been worried about.
It's like if I miss an opportunity to talk directly to folks who I haven't been able to speak directly to on the question of social housing is very important to me.
So we'll put it on our calendar and we'll come out to that.
But I think for me, just from the kind of what I think about what homeownership provides you that rental stock does not, it has some characteristics.
And, you know, we can't turn back the clock and like reproduce the population level and, you know, put back all those single-family homes.
But we can think about how we want to build the outcomes that we want as we develop as a city.
It's, you know, you don't get displaced.
You know, you're not kicked out because the landlord changed their mind and raised the rent.
It's the fact that you've got a fairly fixed-rate mortgage that over time, as your income grows, your housing burden falls as a share of your income.
Like, that's the other big piece.
That's how you build wealth.
And of course, there is the ability to hand it down to another generation.
It's the ability to sell a house and realize some capital gains in that.
Those are all the desirable pro— and it's the placemaking, of course, as well.
A lot of us—.
Stephen Holt
So if I could say, Councilor, right here, what you just did is socialize the concept.
So how do we talk about it?
How do we inform and educate people about it?
And then how do we couple that with specific places of strategic investment?
So here is the concept of it, and here's the real possibility.
Here are the things that are associated with it so that we're not selling a pipe dream.
Right.
So that new promises aren't being made that potentially you're not in space to then enforce.
And now someone with new priorities steps into a place.
That's been the lived experience over and over and over again.
And that's been what's made the difference for this work is there's been continuity.
That's why I emphasize 3 different mayors.
I can't tell you how many different people in positions of elected leadership and priorities shift.
On a regular basis.
And so if we can put policies in place that outlive personalities, that helps us.
Mitch Green
That's great.
And I am looking at the time and I don't want to rob the chair of some airtime as well.
So I think what I'll do is I do have some questions about some of the numbers and the costs.
I can email those and get those offline.
Yeah, you can send me— And we'll make a point to look forward to that committee hearing meeting.
Stephen Holt
Awesome.
We can meet prior to that.
Mitch Green
I would love to.
Yeah, thanks so much.
Stephen Holt
Thank you.
Leslie Goodloe
Thank you, Councilor.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Uh, thank you, colleagues.
What a great discussion, and I'm grateful that we had this time to kind of just have a back and forth and react to the report.
Uh, really appreciate the presentation and of course all of the work that the committee is doing to make sure that we're addressing these historic injustices in our city.
And it's really good to see as well that, uh, we exceeded those 2015 goals.
That's awesome to hear those stories and see how this policy is increasing belonging and preventing displacement, increasing homeownership.
Um, obviously lots of work to do.
Uh, I think, uh, also appreciate that slide of just like kind of your next steps or what you think is important for us to know as policymakers.
Um, the affordability and AMI thing, I mean, it's, it's an issue.
It, it's going to continue to be an issue.
Yeah.
And I think that is why, um, you know, people like Councilor Green and I are so adamant about things like social housing because one of the most important components of that to me is not only people aging in place, but also waging in place.
Yeah.
We do not want people to be forced out of these programs just because they make $1 above whatever amount is too much and they clearly don't have enough to make that next level.
That gap is just enormous.
And so I think a lot of, you know, what we learned about when we went and studied that more intently was that people are able to wage and grow their life, right?
They get their first job and then they get their second job.
They get a little bit of a pay bump.
They have a family.
And as time goes on, they're only means tested the first time, right?
They're only like just to get in and then you can start to build your life.
So that's the kind of housing we need, especially for, I mean, for all kinds of people, but I think a lot about our young people.
Mm-hmm.
And what's available to them, you know, the housing, job prospects, it's bleak for young people right now.
And if we can create housing where they can be stable, stable and not have to worry about, you know, if their economic situation gets better, that that is going to make their housing situation get worse.
That is just a horrible juxtaposition that we continue to face here in the country, frankly.
But—.
Councilor Smith.
Obviously talking about the city.
And I think too, next meeting, just so you all know, and I was going to announce it at the end, but we're going to have Metro Council President come to talk to us about the polling that they did on the supportive housing measure.
But what stood out to me and why I'm raising it is they polled about social housing, and what most people said was they just didn't know what it was.
Right.
Largest percentage was they just had no idea what Yes.
So I think there is a lot of work to do to socialize social housing, to make sure people understand, you know, what, um, what the benefits are.
Because also we know that I think the negative perceptions come from, um, the many decades that the government stood up all this housing and they're like, look, we did our job, and then they packed up and left.
And all of that housing, you know, went to crap and then people were displaced and then it was just like, And now what?
Right?
And then you've got this private market.
When 92% of our housing is the private market, it's just, it's not working.
So I think that's why we want to like understand what is the government's role here.
Obviously, you know, we have many kinds of philosophies of what the government's role is.
My personal philosophy is that we should be housing people.
That should be our number one role, in my opinion.
So I think that's kind of where that falls into the conversation.
But I would love to follow up with you on that.
You should.
I've got some questions, but I'll just follow up.
I think the main question I'll just throw out and we can continue to talk about— I just wanted to understand, um, you know, what are the— are you hearing from families that are saying they still haven't been able to return?
And what are the barriers that the program isn't addressing that is still prohibiting their return?
Anything you want to share on that front?
Leslie Goodloe
Well, I think there are a lot of people would like to move back, but again, the rent is just— the rents are just too high.
We have these beautiful new buildings that people can't afford to move into.
And then on the other side, we've got folks that have been displaced out to Southeast and other parts of town that now want a place to make where they are.
Right.
And how do we support them there?
And so that's where the new districts come in.
How do we support folks that have been displaced out into East Portland and other parts of town.
And so how do we utilize the things that we've learned through Interstate, which was handled poorly for 20 years, and then over the last 10 years we've been able to try to, you know, create something better.
And I think between PHBM Prosper and council ensuring that those districts and those plans are created by the community and that We do what those plans are written to do.
I think that's what's most important.
I think that the biggest benefit for us has been the oversight committee being able to come and bring questions from the community and cause us to have to think about what we're doing and how we're doing it.
Because our— the initial goal by Tracy Manning, who was our director at the time, she was like, we're going to do things And this caused us to do things differently, not just in Northeast Portland, but with everything that we do in the bureau.
We changed how we do loans.
We changed how we do our NOFAs, you know, looking at other things other than, hey, Councilor Avalos, we like you and we're going to give you some money because we like you.
And a lot of that was due to, you know, Commissioner Salter's leadership.
Thank you.
Just really wanting to change how the city did— built housing, how we awarded funds.
And so I know that was a long kind of winding road of an answer, but, um, I think we need to be able to support people where they are, as well as if they want to move back into Northeast Portland, that they have that opportunity.
Stephen Holt
I think there are 3, and I agree with everything that, that Ms. Goodloe just said.
I think there are 3 things that Are kind of repeated.
One of the things that's been lost by families is a sense of community.
So it's not just a place, it's not just, et cetera.
That's why people will drive in from Gresham to hang out at Dawson Park.
We've lost a sense of connectivity in space.
I think that's a repeated idea.
And when I say that, that's also a place that's welcoming and inviting.
So not just for the folks who are showing up, But even the neighborhood around them.
I think there's some work that is required of us to socialize and interact with the people who don't know the history, don't know what once was, and really don't care.
I'm here now and this is my, et cetera, and I don't see the value in it.
I think there's some work.
I don't have a simple answer for that, but I think there's some work associated with it.
I think the biggest one though, is just real opportunity and not possibilities, but real opportunity.
People are desiring to connect to something that's going to make a difference that they can count on.
If that's growth where I'm at, or if that's returning to where grandma, uncle, et cetera, where I was, or the school I went to.
And that's, you know, if you've been around any Jeffersonians, You have heard demos and the heartbeat associated with that, or we Grantonians, Generals.
There's something about place and something about significance.
So ways that we can get there is very important.
Thanks.
It was a great question.
Candace Avalos
Thank you so much.
And yes, I think to one of the points you made in there around how it is affecting East Portland is that people are getting pushed out into my district and they're trying to create place.
And, and so it's very much top of mind for me.
So thank you.
Really appreciate this discussion.
We have lots of work to do, but it sounds like we got something on the calendar for October.
And let's plan to discuss more how we can continue to implement the values and vision of this into all of our policymaking in the Housing Committee.
Thank you for your time.
Stephen Holt
Well, thank you.
Leslie Goodloe
Thank you so much.
I just want to do one last shout out to the staff at PHB and all of our development partners, all of our community partners that We wouldn't be here without them.
And this is a passion project for me.
I grew up in Northeast Portland.
My kids were raised in Northeast Portland.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with being the business operations manager for the Portland Housing Bureau.
But I took this on because Tracy asked me to, and I have not retired because I wanted to see projects break ground.
And so it's— I just want you to understand the dedication of the staff and that bureau to move this work forward over the last 11 years has been significant.
So I couldn't leave without putting that on the record.
So thank you so much.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
And that goes right back to you.
Thank you for all of your service and your work here.
Go ahead.
Stephen Holt
I was just going to say that this has been, for me, obviously not only a passion project, but just something that had to be stewarded.
Because of the benefit of the community and the people who are impacted.
I'll end with this.
I started by saying sometimes I feel like a dinosaur, and, um, the concern in my heart is as time changes and as values fluctuate, there's this constant thread of humanity and how we handle people and how we take care of folks.
And so that the promises that we've made to people become the promises that we keep.
I'm excited about what I've heard from the councilors today.
Thank you.
Thanks for caring.
Thanks for investing.
Thanks for taking the risk.
Thanks for taking the hits, because that's what goes with both of them.
Appreciate your time.
Candace Avalos
Appreciate you.
All right, committee.
Yes, so we're gonna, we're gonna go ahead and take a break, so that will be perfect timing.
So let us take a quick 10-minute break.
We'll see you at Oh no, math.
3:36.
Yeah.
Thank you.
All right, we are back from our little recess.
Diego, go ahead and call the next 2 items together.
Diego
Item 3, Urban Alchemy and shelter operations oversight discussion.
Item 4, public testimony on shelter oversight and operations.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
So today the committee will be receiving presentations from Portland Solutions and Urban Alchemy regarding the city's oversight of contracted shelter providers and the processes in place to respond to complaints and allegations of misconduct.
Over the past several months, serious allegations involving Urban Alchemy employees have been brought forward publicly, and these reports have raised understandable concerns from shelter participants, employees, community members, and all of us who have a responsibility to ensure city-funded shelter programs are safe and accountable.
Portland Solutions has already provided council with information about its oversight and response.
The purpose of today's discussion is to bring that information into a public forum so community members can better understand understand how these systems work and for committee members to ask questions.
Our goal today is to understand the processes that exist today, how complaints are received and investigated, what oversight tools the city has available, what improvements have already been made, and where additional improvements may be needed.
We want the public to understand what happens when concerns are reported, who is responsible for taking action, and how the city works to ensure accountability for organizations entrusted with with operating our shelter system.
Following the presentations, committee members will have an opportunity to ask some questions before we open it up for public testimony.
I believe we have about 7 or 8 folks so far.
That's why I opened both of the items together.
So we'll do presentations, short technical questions, give some space for 20 minutes worth of public testimony, and then we'll go back into committee discussion and more questions.
Understood?
All right.
So with that, let's go ahead and start with Portland Solutions and take it away.
Louis Hammonds
Great.
Hank Smith
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos, Vice Chair Green, councilors.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to speak about the grievance process at City of Portland shelters.
I'm Hank Smith, Deputy Director of Portland Solutions, and my colleague here is Brandy Westerman, our Emergency Humanitarian Operations Director, who manages the city shelter services team.
We also have Margie Sackett, our Shelter Operations Manager, in the audience today.
And Portland Solutions Director Skyler Brockenkamp is out of office and unable to attend this meeting.
Today we want to take a few minutes to update you on where we are at in providing you with the information you requested about contract oversight of Urban Alchemy.
We will also outline what happens when a shelter participant files a complaint which we also refer to as a grievance throughout this presentation.
And finally, we will share how this process has changed over time.
Before we talk about policies and processes, first and foremost, we want this committee to know that the City of Portland holds all our contracted service providers to a high standard.
We work hands-on with our shelter operators And have regular ongoing oversight of shelter management and activities.
Every complaint is investigated and people are held accountable whenever we find they have fallen below our expectations.
There is zero tolerance for identified harassment, intimidation, violence, or illegal behavior.
We built our shelters and day centers to provide a stable place for individuals as they work through the challenging journey of moving from unsheltered homelessness to permanent housing.
The safety and well-being of the people we serve at our shelters and day centers is our number one priority.
To set some context, the city's shelter services team is comprised of 10 individuals who manage 16 different shelter and day center locations throughout our city.
As of today, the shelters provide a cumulative 1,609 beds for individuals each night.
About 52% of those beds are alternative shelters, meaning locations that provide 24/7 services.
This is the kind of shelter we ask Urban Alchemy to help operate, and they operate about 700 beds or 84% of our alternative shelter.
On June 24th, CA Lee shared the memo from Chair Avalos and Committee of the Whole Chair Kanal asking for these items on this slide related to the city's work with Urban Alchemy.
Responding is a priority for us, and we will provide these records as requested on a rolling basis.
But today, in the following slides, Brandy will give a high-level overview of our grievance process, the shelter operator's contractual obligations, and how we have changed that process over time.
Brandy Westerman
Good afternoon, Chair Avalos and Vice Chair Green, councilors.
I'm Brandy Westerman.
I'm the Emergency Humanitarian Operations Director.
The protection of Portland's most vulnerable is at the forefront of the humanitarian response.
The shelter system is designed first and foremost to provide safety off the streets and the opportunity to pursue stability and permanence in housing.
Requiring shelter operators to have a clear, well-publicized grievance system is a key component of ensuring our shelters are safe, welcoming spaces.
Expectations for grievance management are baked into our contracts and scope of work documents for all shelter operators.
Urban Alchemy, like the other 8 service organizations we work with, posts signs with grievance process information and makes feedback forms readily available for guests.
Urban Alchemy also outlines the grievance process in their community guidelines, which are informational documents given to and signed by every guest who stays at an Urban Alchemy-run site.
Our hope is that participants find shelters helpful in their journey towards housing, but we understand that some will experience wrongdoing and/or have complaints, and we're committed to managing a shelter system that investigates every grievance.
We are active managers of our shelter contracts.
Our team has a regular presence at the Urban Alchemy alternative shelter sites.
For shelter usage and outcomes, we rely on the Homeless Management Information System managed by Multnomah County.
Thank you.
When critical incidents occur, such as an overdose or police response to a shelter, they must be reported to us immediately after the incident.
Our team maintains daily contact with shelter operators to coordinate entries and exits, site maintenance, general challenges and opportunities.
But we also maintain standing meetings to ensure contractual obligations are met and that shelters are adequately resourced to carry out their work.
Pertinent to today's conversation, my team maintains a weekly meeting with Urban Alchemy to review the status of grievance investigations, a biweekly meeting with the city ombudsman to sync on grievances they may have received, and biannual reviews with Urban Alchemy executive leadership about the status of their work in Portland.
Here we have outlined the high-level grievance process for our shelters.
The detailed grievance process for each shelter operator is posted online on our webpage.
In general, when a participant has a complaint, we encourage them to notify the shelter operator first so that appropriate action may be taken quickly.
If an individual is not satisfied with the resolution of that complaint, they may contact my team through email, an online form, or phone.
We will then investigate the complaint and work with the shelter operators to find a resolution.
Thank you.
If still not satisfied, an individual may reach out to the city ombudsman.
Contact information for the city ombudsman is also posted at every site.
In practice, many people don't follow this process in exact order, either coming to my team first or the ombudsman, or sometimes all 3 at once.
We have set up shared spreadsheets with the city ombudsman and Urban Alchemy to coordinate complaints, investigations, and responses.
Thank you.
When a grievance comes in, we immediately log it in a Smartsheet tracker.
We created this tracker in March 2025 in recognition of a growing need to improve data.
For awareness, when the Smartsheet was created, we merged it with a previous tracker that dated back to mid-2024.
In that timeframe, the tracker had logged 83 complaints across our shelter system.
After receiving the complaint, we categorize its severity on a scale of 1 to 5.
These categories were formalized in May of this year when we updated our grievance investigation policy.
Since May, we have logged 22 complaints, 18 of which were graded 1 through 3, 2 that were graded a 4, and 2 that went ungraded because they were about non-city shelters.
Many of these overlap with grievances received by the city ombudsman, and/or the shelter operator.
After logging the complaint, we will acknowledge its receipt to the participant who filed it.
We then assign the complaint to one of my team for the investigation process, which includes seeking additional information from the shelter operator and, if needed, the participant themselves.
My team works together and usually in coordination with the shelter operator to decide a course of action, which we then communicate to the participant.
We encourage participants with grievances alleging illegal activity to be reported directly to law enforcement.
As you're aware, the Shelter Services program at the city is relatively new, started in late 2021 and opening its first shelters in 2022.
Shelter Services began as the Safe Rest Village program, focused on developing small village-style shelters.
We've evolved to building shelters that are designed to serve more people, be lower barrier, and provide safety and basic care to homeless Portlanders with the most acute needs.
Thank you.
This is challenging work.
We have had to learn and adapt considerably, and we've been asked to pivot many times, standing up new shelter models rapidly and venturing into new services we've never offered, sometimes in a matter of months.
We are committed to improvement and welcoming feedback in the spirit of improving outcomes for the vulnerable Portlanders who rely on our shelters.
Improving our grievance process is an example of this commitment.
Improvements we've made included expanding our reporting channels and formalizing our grievance policy.
Notably, Urban Alchemy recently assigned one person to serve as the coordinator of grievance communication and response across their sites.
Our Smartsheet upgraded our previous tracker, and we have established regular sync meetings where necessary to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.
Our plans for improvement include better tracking, And by requiring shelter operators to report grievance response metrics on a quarterly basis.
We are working to coordinate complaints that come into Urban Alchemy, the Ombudsman's Office, and ourselves.
And with the '26-'27 fiscal year, we are rolling out a new appeals process that will be managed by our team.
The City Auditor has also initiated a performance audit of all Portland Solutions programs to help us find areas for improvement.
Thank you.
We also remain open to meeting with city councilors and/or their staff to keep them updated about our shelter operations, including any grievances that may come in.
Thank you for this time today.
We're happy to answer any questions that you may have.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Um, so we're gonna have a presentation by Urban Alchemy next, and then I'll open it up to questions for the both of you, and then we'll do public comment.
Testimony.
Sound good?
Uh, and I think you all can stay up there if you'd like.
Uh, Urban Alchemy, come on up.
All right, like I mentioned, we had Portland Solutions, now we have Urban Alchemy.
I don't think you have a, um, presentation, a formal one.
Okay, great.
Please go ahead and take it away.
And please introduce yourselves.
Bayron Wilson
My name is Bayron Wilson.
I am the—.
I am a practitioner.
That means someone who can still do the work at a high level.
I'm also the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder alongside of Dr. Elena Miller.
Louis Hammonds
Hello, my name is Louis Hammonds.
I'm the Vice President of Operations, Urban Alchemy.
It's a privilege to be here.
Thank you.
Ian Clark
Good afternoon, committee.
Uh, so grateful to be here.
Thank you for your time.
Ian Clark, Mark Johnson, practitioner with Urban Alchemy, currently supporting as the Chief of Human Resource.
Bayron Wilson
So I'll get started with, um, it's called the 1-2-3 model.
We have one objective, that is to hire members that are formerly incarcerated, that have served long sentences, that has been justice impacted, formerly incarcerated, formerly homeless, um, maybe suffering or recovering from addiction.
That is the objective.
It's 2 objectives we are attempting to address: those falling through the safety nets and those men and women who have been locked out of the job market for periods of time.
We have 3 lines of business.
Our 3 lines are, we obviously have house communities, which we are provider, whether we provide houses for tiny homes, villages, safe parking.
And of course, we have what we call connected communities.
We operate What we call an oasis, where it's a place to be for our people experiencing homelessness.
It's a way they can connect with no judgment.
And of course, last but not least, we have what we call Safe Communities, which is we have a leading outreach through valued engagement.
Louis Hammonds
Urban Alchemy's mission is to transform people and urban spaces with respect and compassion and to heal communities at the intersection of extreme poverty, addiction, and mental illness.
Speaking about the operational model, we hold ourselves and our partners to high standards, along with the city, the ombudsman, and even the support in the requests coming from you.
We work hands-on with our shelter operating partners and maintain regular ongoing oversight of shelter management and activities.
We believe all neighbors deserve pathways and I'd like to talk a little bit about our staff hiring, training, and supervision.
Generally, all of our training comes from the esteemed Dr. Lena Miller, which is also our co-founder, as well as Dr. Lisa Delarue.
And when a practitioner— it's what we call each other's practitioners— we say we're not guards, We're safety and service.
Our practitioners are generally orientated into what our work will be out in the streets.
We'll do de-escalation, conflict resolution, victim awareness, motivational interviewing.
I think motivation is a big part of it, especially when we're working with people that are trying to work through change.
Trauma-informed care and leadership training.
That's the first beginning.
Usually you're going to be in training for about 2 weeks, and then you'll be in on-the-job training for up to 90 days before the decision is made if you're going to become a practitioner.
Oversight investigations are managed by employee relations investigators, with HR operations supporting operational follow-up, case readouts, and corrective implementations.
And usually, if we do have a case readout, we will turn that over to the city as well as the ombudsman or anyone who's making that request.
Corrective actions.
Corrective actions range from employees' retraining to separation, depending on the nature of the allegation and substantiated findings.
And I would say, as it was said earlier, we do practice a zero tolerance of any form of abuse.
You will be terminated.
We'll have to cease our operations at that point.
Ian Clark
And I'll talk about a lot of our work here in Portland.
Currently, we're operating 4 interim housing shelter sites, tiny home sites.
We also operate A downtown oasis where we're serving over 500 people a day coming in just to access kind of day services and respite.
Our shelter, we currently serve over 6— about 660 people every night.
You know, it's a privilege to do this work.
And as there became kind of a demand and an opportunity for us to expand, we expanded rapidly, you know, recruiting people to come work for us and started receiving a number of grievances.
And we've had a grievance policy You know, I'll say that there was a lapse on our end as it relates to the policy.
We had a policy, we were utilizing it, but we stopped.
You know, we had— we were starting to lose some of those grievances as they came through and we weren't tracking them adequately.
So we want to take responsibility for that today.
I know we've had the privilege to meet with some of you one-on-one, but just want to call that out head on.
You heard Ms. Westman talk about some some of the changes that we've made.
And so we've had to enhance that policy.
And what that looks like is, number one, it's posted up at all sites.
It's big.
We kind of, we have 6 ways now to receive grievances from guests.
It could be a QR code that they could hit and they could put it in, kind of a, it takes 'em to a sheet and it goes straight to 'em.
Or they can get an actual form from leadership.
They could fill it out, give it to a care coordinator.
They could drop it in a box.
Okay.
They also have a number that they could call.
They could call one of our main offices and kind of, you know, give whatever the grievance is.
We record it.
And then also lastly, there's an email address.
So there's a grievance email address where folks, if they have something, they could send it.
We made it a bunch of different ways because we know some folks have phones, some don't.
Also, if they give it to us verbally, we can help them kind of fill it out and we'll create a ticket based on that.
And so the ticket is in Zendesk.
Okay.
It'll go through our Zendesk system.
It creates a ticket.
We, part of our process now is 5 business days.
Someone will reach out to you.
We picked our best care coordinator manager to kind of receive it, sit down, understand the grievance.
It's ranging from anything from cold food to some of the most serious accusations that you all, you know, heard about in the media over the last few months.
When that grievance comes in, I'll go backwards too.
Before it gets to the care coordinator, it's kind of triaged to see if we feel like it's something very serious.
And then go to our ER team employee.
Employee relations team, which is independent of operations to where they will do a follow-up and investigation of it.
And then if it's even, if it's concerning an employee, we'll put that employee on paid leave while we kind of go through that investigation.
It's tracked so that we have some fidelity to the timeline.
We work to solve all grievances within 10 working days now.
So we feel like we're able to hit that now that we have dedicated staff to it.
We're not relying on our shelter leadership team solely to address these grievances.
We have multiple kind of leadership in, but we have a dedicated staff member to do that and work towards a resolution.
And if someone doesn't like the resolution, they are encouraged to go to the Ombudsman, who we— I know Louie had talked about— we meet with biweekly to kind of work through some of these cases as well.
Bayron Wilson
One thing I want to say, and I wanted to say thank you, Councilor For meeting with us one-on-one and allowing us to say what we need.
And we take full responsibility.
And I just shared with you then, I'll share with you now, this ain't like Johnson just said.
When something is done wrong, we move swiftly.
We move with a sense of urgency to separate, as our VP indicated.
And we also worked with the city to make sure those things doesn't happen again.
Now, let's be honest, we have bad actors.
There have been bad actors.
And when we have had bad actors, we wanted to make sure Those bad actors were notified.
And we went as far as in terms of notifying law enforcement, including meeting with law enforcement to make sure we go to the fullest extent.
Being that we are formerly incarcerated, being that we are formerly homeless, justice impacted, we're not ex-cons.
We're fathers, we're husbands, we're men, we're women.
We served our time and we wanna make sure those things are addressed in real time.
Thank you.
And because of that, you know, we understand that how we are looked upon as— but at the end of the day, what we, we want to make sure the guests have a better experience and they're treated— they're our number one priority.
Because once upon a time, we were in some of their shoes.
So I just want to address that.
And I just want to say thank you all for, for meeting with us and talking about that.
Louis Hammonds
Thank you, B. Yeah, and kind of reference to that, it's not us versus them, it's just We're all together in this together, from our housed neighbors to our unhoused neighbors to our guests.
Speaking with the coordination with Portland Solutions, we are in constant communication, and it's appreciative, the communication that we have and the guidance that we receive.
We maintain a regular communication cadence with Portland Solutions, as was indicated earlier, with weekly operational meetings, biweekly shelter services, And we do meet also, as he said, with the ombudsman.
It's actually a team of ombudsmen that bring certain grievances that people need support in, and we've been very supportive of that.
I think it's a blessing to have an ombudsman that's going to help somebody kind of walk through the process and be with them.
We do also turn over— we have a great camera system, and we turn over the cameras whenever there is a camera.
We've also turned over a section of where the pods are that identify If there is a camera there so that the city or an ombudsman would know if there's availability of some kind of additional information that may need to be received.
Reporting.
We adhere to the HMIS reporting requirements, critical incident reporting requirements, and we notify by telephone immediately if there is any serious violation or anything has anything to do with emergency.
Ian Clark
We call the city, we call our Yeah, and we take all complaints seriously, grievances, whether they come from guests, and we have received some from the community.
We have a good neighbor policy where we take care of not just the inside but the outside of our facilities.
We also understand that, you know, what we aim for and why we're grateful that we're still receiving grievances is there's trust in the process.
Some of us coming from marginalized situations, me formerly incarcerated, It's really about, we do believe and we model that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution.
You know, we wanna build interpersonal relationships that are built with, you know, trust with folks so we can kind of walk 'em through that rehousing process, share some of our experiences and, you know, get to know them.
But also just build an environment where, you know, rooted in love and respect.
And a big part of that respect is folks trusting the process, knowing that they can go to leadership, they can put in a grievance, and they have a voice and will be heard.
Not only by Urban Alchemy staff and leadership, but also by city leadership.
And they have kind of multiple levels that they, that they could submit those.
And we're grateful that we're continuing to receive those.
And we have a feedback loop.
We have community meetings where we're able to kind of meet with folks and hear back from them.
So sometimes it doesn't even take getting to a grievance process.
And we really look to illuminate community.
Transparency.
We really just want to have transparency.
We're grateful for this opportunity to come speak.
We invite council to, you know, reach out to us, you know, personally or our staff, and sometimes just pop up like they're, you know, and talk to guests, talk to staff, see, see the work that we're doing, see the impact that we're making.
And also, you know, you know, with over 660 guests, we know it's not gonna be perfect.
We can't, you know, we have folks with backgrounds and we can't necessarily guarantee what they've done before they work for us.
But while they work for us, if it's brought to us, we're gonna hold them accountable.
And it ranges anywhere from retraining all the way to separation.
Louis Hammonds
I want to talk a little bit about the lessons learned and the priorities that we have.
Our number one priority is the safety and well-being of all of our guests.
Lessons learned, we're forever students.
I think it was important that we did continue to improve everything that we were working with, be it the grievance process, Be it who we had at certain sites, be it all of the different groups that we run to make sure that our guests are prepared for long-term housing, from NA to AA to art and all the other things that come through.
It really helps to just bring a community together.
Just recently for 4th of July, you know, I think it was one of the best.
Sometimes I forget what I'm doing or why I'm doing it.
I'm gonna be honest with with you, there's a lot of trauma that we're seeing.
It's one reason why one of our values is self-care, because the trauma is real and you can very easily fall into compassion fatigue or burnout.
But one thing Urban Download believes in is something that saved my life, is that we do believe that we can and we will care for others more than they may care for themselves at that time, because that's what turned my life around.
And that's the mission and the vision that we have, is to treat everybody as human beings and to recognize that if we are the ones that did wrong, then we're going to hold ourselves accountable.
And that's going to come straight from our mouths to the city, to you here, because we believe that that's what's most important, is the priority of our guests and keeping people safe.
Lesson learned.
Lesson learned.
Ian Clark
Oh, my bad.
Just continue improvement, tracking it, You know, our oversight leadership, it's going through, you know, not only, you know, weekly and biweekly with the city, but with ourselves going through and making sure that we're checking our boxes.
And when I mean checking our boxes, going through our Zendesk system, you know, has this been seen by HR?
Yes.
Has this been addressed?
Is there closure?
Are we communicating with the guests what the disposition was?
And then accountability for ourselves.
I'll just also say, you know, Intent versus impact.
Sometimes there's policies, there's community guidelines that are meant to keep people safe.
They have a negative impact sometimes on the individual who is in there.
So sometimes really just giving folks a voice, explaining the why behind some of the policies that the facility may have, and it goes a long way.
And really dedicating the resources, which in this instance really has been manpower of having people dedicated to hold this space of grievances.
The guest experience, we strive for that 5-star experience for our guests.
And so really putting people in position to hold that space and deliver that.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Are we good?
Sounds good.
I saw a natural close, but just—.
Louis Hammonds
People over policy.
It's people over policy.
It has to be that we got to critically think about what we're looking at.
Our secret sauce is interpersonal relationships.
That's how we're going to get everything done.
And the stakeholders, you guys included, we appreciate all the work that you're doing, and we appreciate this oversight and insight.
Makes us all better.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Thank you again for your presentation and for setting the stage here.
Um, colleagues, I don't see hands in here, and if it's okay, I'm going to move to testimony just so we can get that out of the way, and then we can bring you all back up and have Further discussion.
Thank you all.
All right, so Diego, why don't we go ahead and call up testimony?
Diego
First we have Peggy McDaniel, Lori Lang, Robert Powers.
Candace Avalos
Welcome, please state your name and go ahead.
Brandy Westerman
Hi, I'm Peggy McDaniel.
Um, I am a homeowner and I live 3 blocks from the Clinton Triangle Shelter.
I have served on its community oversight committee for the past 3 years and actually led yoga classes in the wellness program there.
I urge you to continue supporting Urban Alchemy as a shelter service provider across multiple sites.
I recognize there have been complaints from individuals who have received services through Urban Alchemy, and those concerns should be heard and addressed.
Accountability really does matter.
And every organization receiving public funds should be held to the highest standard.
But we should evaluate Urban Alchemy based on the totality of its work and its built relationships, including those with its neighbors.
Urban Alchemy serves people experiencing homelessness, which you all know, addiction, mental illness, and trauma.
This is some of the most difficult work in our community.
They do a great job de-escalating conflict, building relationships, and creating truly safer shelter environments, and I've seen them move people towards stability.
And—.
Oh, I'm out of time almost.
Um, let me just finish with saying their model reflects something that we say we believe in— second chances.
And so I'd like to see us continue to support them and the work that they do here in Portland.
Leslie Goodloe
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Go ahead.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Good afternoon.
Mitch Green
My name is Robert Powers.
I am a guest at the Urban Alchemy North Safe Rest Village.
I have been there since February.
Since that time, I've gotten my documentation squared away.
I've become employed.
I'm about 2 weeks away from hopefully being permanently housed.
Was illegally evicted in October of last year and spent two weeks in a two-man tent on the Springwater Trail, followed by two and a half months in a car.
When the city came to take the car away, I thought I was going back to the tent.
Dan Ryan
Councilor Smith.
Mitch Green
I was homeless for a little bit.
One of the PBOT employees asked me if I had looked into shelter.
I have post-traumatic stress disorder, so dorm-style shelters are not something I can do.
He made a phone call and got me in and out at Urban Alchemy, and I'm really pleased to be there.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And thank you.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Diego
Once more for Lori Lang.
Okay, next up is Marlene Howell, Vicki Payne, Tatiana Prieto.
Marlene and Vicki are online.
Marlene, you're welcome to begin your testimony and unmute yourself when you're ready.
Marlene Howell
Hello, councilors.
Vicki Payne
Can you hear me?
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yes.
Marlene Howell
Okay.
Hello, I'm, I'm Marlene Howell.
And I thank you for the opportunity to share with you today.
I work with Southwest Outreach, an organization which addresses some of the basic needs of neighbors living outside in the general areas of Hillsdale, Multnomah Village, Ash Creek, Crestwood, With Urban Alchemy facing allegations of both civil and criminal offenses, how does Portland Solutions and other city offices assure that within a robust due process that those making the allegations are taken seriously and held safe from retribution?
I didn't hear much about that today in the earlier presentation.
Are those who allege violations really expected to first go to a member of Urban Alchemy?
I think that's a very good question.
To make a complaint.
I'd like to have that clarified.
Which neighbors in the Multnomah Village do the mayor and some of the District 4 councilors take most seriously?
It's important to note that the loudest and most connected neighbors do not necessarily represent the neighborhood overall.
Some of their concerns are valid, and while others are clearly grounded in ruling class politics, it's important to make that distinguished.
Thank you.
Many of us welcome the MSRV, and we do want it to succeed.
Where will those who are not ready for a high-barrier shelter really go, given that so many county and city shelters are closing?
And how about microvillages as a part of social housing?
They are less costly, they are self-governed, and we know that they deserve more serious attention from the city.
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Go ahead.
Brandy Westerman
Hello, my name is Tatiana Prieto, and I, um, basically am working at Oasis right now.
But before all that, I was a resident at Urban Alchemy in Clinton Triangle.
Candace Avalos
Um, I felt so safe there.
Brandy Westerman
Um, I love the whole experience.
Um, currently right now, I actually got my housing too through them, so I'm, I'm perfectly safe, and, and I'm enjoying I really hope that they go strong and for a very long time.
Candace Avalos
Oh, I'm sorry, that's all.
Thank you.
Diego
Next is Vicki Payne.
Vicki, you can unmute yourself and begin your testimony when you're ready.
Vicki Payne
Hi, my name is Vicki Payne.
I'm speaking on my own behalf, once again urging you to not single out Urban Alchemy as a provider when the issue is the model.
Councilor Smith.
Low barrier sites with peers in recovery in charge are asking for sketchy situation— situations to occur, and we've seen similar incidents play out with several county vendors using this model as well.
If this council has an issue, you need to take it up with the county, but I know Councilor Green has somewhat hypocritically been outspoken about not converting an SRV in his district to high barrier, something hundreds of clients have asked for so they can meet requirements to enter supportive housing.
Urban Alchemy's Clinton Triangle task site has pushed the most clients through to supportive housing faster than any other provider in Multnomah County.
While other providers have been in the news with clients saying they've lived in their pod for 1 to 3 years, many UA clients move on to housing within 2 to 3 months.
Of course, we need oversight and accountability of complaints, but we need to understand one size does not fit all in this extremely difficult behavioral health work.
Also, when are you going to be scheduling the public comments on Home Forward?
Let's focus on the issues there and that much more important next step in our homeless neighbors' path forward.
The mismanagement issues have continued to be ignored by certain members of this committee, and we need a public hearing on that before the Trump administration starts cutting more funding to this much-needed resource.
We are not treating our low-income housed neighbors with the dignity they deserve by ignoring this widespread issue.
Thank you.
Diego
That concludes testimony.
Candace Avalos
All right, thank you so much.
Marlene Howell
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Um, go ahead and come back on up.
And just want to say to the testifiers who shared their experience and also shared that they're on their way to housing, congratulations.
And really good to hear, um, that that is a service that has benefited you.
So thank you for sharing that.
Louis Hammonds
It's important.
Candace Avalos
All right, so colleagues, now is the time to ask some questions.
Okay, we got someone in the chat.
Go ahead, Vice Chair Green.
Mitch Green
I'll kick us off.
Thank you so much, Chair Avalos.
And I want to just give a warm moment of gratitude, particularly to Urban Alchemy.
You're not required to come here.
We didn't compel your attendance.
We asked if you would like to join this and be a little bit vulnerable here.
And you said yes.
And I think that that's laudable.
You had a meeting with my office, and I heard basically everything, everything you shared with me, you shared with the public.
And that's a good thing.
That for me is a big piece that I think has been missing for a lot of Portlanders.
And it's not necessarily about you.
Well, it is about Urban Alchemy, but it is, it's just about this gap in transparency.
Yeah.
I'm very encouraged to hear that you're committed to that.
So thank you for kind of showing up the way that you've shown up.
I think most of my comments will be for Portland Solutions.
There may be some areas where we need to ask around committee to kind of weigh in on that, but I wanted to make sure right up front I gave you guys due credit for kind of showing up in this space, which could potentially be a little unknown and a little hostile.
And so I just, you know, and I can tell you guys are feeling I'm feeling your work up there, and I want to acknowledge that.
So thank you for that.
I think that I just kind of want to start by contextualizing this a little bit.
I want to recognize that this is an enormous challenge.
Like, the contract that we have signed to do this work tries to do an awful lot, and it's responding to basically a series of failures in our society that have— that people have dropped through the cracks because of.
We generate poverty by underinvesting from, like, you know, cradle to grave, basically.
We have failed to invest in the public health institutions that we need to give folks an opportunity to stay healthy in our community.
And so— and also we've failed to build the housing and to have the affordable housing that we need.
And so we're seeing the sort of Conjoint outcome of those cumulative failures.
And so addressing folks experiencing a variety of complicated issues in through like a sheltering model is not the best tool, but it is the tool that we've chosen to do at this point in time.
And so I just want to recognize that that's the work ahead of us.
That doesn't then take away though the need to ask questions.
To engage in some very public conversation around what controls we have on the city side that we can either improve and what the public understands that their dollars are being used for in connection to those outcomes.
So that's kind of the spirit that I'm bringing here.
I'd also note that in the budget, I brought forward some amendments that were reacting to some reporting that was also reacting to My feeling that I kind of took a leap of faith actually when I entered this job, because I entered this job knowing that in 2023 there was already concerns, or maybe as early as 2022 perhaps, there was already concerns that if we were going to go down this road instead of a different model, we were going to expose ourselves to some issues that some other jurisdictions had faced.
And so didn't kind of take it up right away because it's like, I'm going to trust the process.
And now we're at the point now, a year and a half later, where, okay, I have to intervene as councilor as part of a budget committee.
And so my budget amendment really was entering into the space to say, like, how can I as a councilor say yes to a budget that provides another year without knowing that we've tried to have some of these crucial accountability questions addressed?
That amendment wasn't— it didn't have the support it needed to pass in that moment.
But the need to do oversight didn't go away.
And so I was thinking about how do I want to continue this work?
And, you know, I'd had some— I had some colleagues with Councilor Pirtle-Guiney when she was the council president on like, what does oversight look like?
I approached the chair of the Housing Committee to say, is this appropriate for us to have a very informal, actually, conversation here that's not a resolution that I file to start to kind of like—.
Yes.
Have that same spirit that we had in the housing context.
I think that I wanted to start at a very low level of temperature, right?
I want to ask questions in good faith.
I don't want this to feel adversarial at all because I want us to get to a place where Portlanders feel very good about this idea that if we're going to spend a lot of public money on trying to solve an issue and that there are reasonable concerns about that, that City Council is, is going to ask the tough questions and give you an opportunity, Mayor, City Administrator, Portland Solutions staff, to engage in that dialogue with us, the provider with us.
So that's the spirit I'm showing up in.
I'm really, you know, I sort of asked my staff to help prep me on this, and I said I don't want any sort of like, you know, where did you know this by that, you know, like none of that energy today.
Really, for me, it's like I want to kind of ground, level set some assumptions that we have.
What we have done since, and you've laid out some of that in your presentation, Brandy, but, you know, what we have done since and what we can expect ahead of the next budget decision, frankly.
And so because I did start this as a councilor through the budget, I'd want to start through procurement, actually, when I start my questioning here.
One of the things that One of the things that I was informed of, or one of the responses I got from Director Brokernapp during the budget amendment process, was that it's really not feasible to try to find a different vendor, or that we did try to find potentially a different vendor and that there were not any takers at that time.
And so really Urban Alchemy stepped into this space and we're, you know, there is no alternative for Urban Alchemy, which was kind of the message.
I think that's a fair statement.
That's the message that I received.
So I want to make sure that that's true.
But also, I want to understand a little bit more about the RFP process that the city went through, which I think precedes a lot of us, certainly precedes all the elected officials.
But it might— I mean, surely Portland Solutions has some continuity of knowledge there.
And so help me understand that RFP process that probably began in 2022 that led to awarding the contract to UA.
And then what would it look like if we had Do you want to speak to 2022?
Hank Smith
The first one, right.
I'll speak to '24.
So we're on the same page.
That's good.
Yeah, thank you for the question, Vice Chair Green.
You know, I actually started my work with the City of Portland right in the midst of that first RFP in which Urban Alchemy applied for that and then got the contract.
And I think that's where Director Brokernapp was referring to during that That RFP, there weren't a lot of applicants and there weren't a lot of— and of those applicants, not very many were qualified, especially to handle sites as large as we were planning at the time.
And that was a pretty rigorous process still.
I was here in this room when we had upwards of 8 hours of public testimony about that kind of— that contract to be transparent, to get questions out.
Thank you.
In that RFP, we're asking for shelter provider to do something very hard.
And I think you put it eloquently about folks slipping through the cracks because of decades of underinvestment in a wider service net.
And those folks are on the streets of Portland and require a high level of care.
They're high acuity folks that might need a certain level of behavioral Healthcare service that isn't there right now.
But to stay on the streets is only to make it worse.
And so we're asking a shelter operator to take that kind of population in and care for them and help them navigate to a better place.
And that first RFP is where— that sentiment is where that RFP was coming from.
And then the number of folks applying to do that work was relatively low.
And Director Brocker-Knapp was involved in kind of researching and traveling around and got to know Urban Alchemy at that time.
And they submitted a package that did ultimately earn that contract.
Subsequently, we've had another RFP that's had wider, a wider variety of applicants and kind of, I think, a wider variety of needs outlined in the RFP.
And Brandy can speak to that.
Brandy Westerman
Yeah, thank you for that question.
And I also just want to say thank you for that framing.
I think that's a really important framing that you provided Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
So I appreciate that.
So a year and a half ago, approximately, we ran a second RFP process for 3 different types of shelter.
And this was with standing up the mayor's plan to address unsheltered homelessness.
We were looking for providers for overnight shelter, for day centers, and we included the alternative shelter 24/7 provision in that RFP process.
Yes.
So this was an open applicant process.
We received just 4 applications in total for alternative shelter.
Those, all 4 of those organizations that applied were awarded contracts.
So that included Urban Alchemy, Sunstone Way, the Salvation Army, and Cultivate Initiatives.
So those have been our 4 partners working in alternative shelter, as you know.
Sunstone Way has had some problems of their own and has recently closed their doors as of last week.
Salvation Army was running the Sunderland RV park site for us.
They continue to be an operator with us for overnight shelter.
They're not currently operating alternative shelter.
Cultivate Initiatives continues to successfully operate the Menlo Park Shelter in East Portland.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Would you say that it's— is it fair to say that the number of respondents to the RFP is really a function of the scope and what you've tried to put into this one big contract?
Brandy Westerman
Well, I think we have to go through a process of actually checking that assumption, right, and asking the providers in our metro area why or why not.
In terms of whether they applied for the RFP to really understand what's at play.
I do think it's a big ask.
What we're asking in these alternative shelter sites is big.
We are asking folks to care for individuals who are coming from potentially decades of sleeping outdoors, and that can be a really, really hard task.
Some of the sites are very large, and I think we also have to acknowledge the complexity with serving a large population.
Thank you.
Mitch Green
Thank you for that.
If I'm not mistaken, so the master contract was for $90 million.
That's what we get in the City Administrator's report.
And in this last budget, I think there was only about $33 million of headroom left on that contract.
And I think that's what we appropriate in this budget.
So this contract is expired.
It would need to be re-upped in the next fiscal year.
And so— I think I raised that question only, one, to check my assumption on that, but then also, two, to say, you know, if like the path before us is kind of— there's like a twofold path here.
Okay.
One is to sort of say, do we seek money to refresh that master contract and continue doing the same thing that we've been doing?
Or when we think about preparing for the next budget, preparing for the next RFP cycle, are we going to think about a different scope that we're I'm wondering if Portland Solutions— Mayor, feel free to weigh in on that.
I appreciate your attendance today, but these are the kind of questions that I'd really like to understand at this juncture.
Because I think what I learned in the budget process is despite my best efforts, I don't think that I necessarily had enough time to make my case to my colleagues.
But also I heard from folks, I think I heard from Councilor Pirtle-Guiney, that like, I'm with you on the need to have this conversation, Let's have a longer conversation around this, and this isn't the space for it.
So this is the time to have that.
So I'm curious if you have a response to that.
Brandy Westerman
I can respond.
Did you want to share something first?
Okay.
I think a couple of things that I'd just like to raise into the conversation.
I don't think I have a direct answer for you at this time because I think that that decision is really a decision that all of you are going to also need to work with us on.
I think we are ready to implement What gets decided.
I will say that what we've been trying to do is balance a need to provide a high level of service that helps people move to the next best step for them from shelter, which is really meant to be a transitional space for growth and, and kind of further momentum and stability.
And we're trying to work at scale.
So we, we know that what we've What we've seen is a rising number of people experiencing homelessness in our community, and we're trying to ensure that we have a bed for everybody every night and that they have that opportunity to then get into a high-service shelter like those being operated by Urban Alchemy, where they can work with a care coordinator and find connection to services that are going to help them on that journey.
And I think those are the things that we find challenging to weigh when we look at other shelter models and shelter options is being able to ensure that we have that high service possibility and we can serve everybody who needs a bed.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
I'm— oh, oh, go ahead.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Yeah, let me—.
Dan Ryan
And Brandy, thank you.
First of all, Brandy, Hank, Bayron, Louie, and Ian, thank you for being here and for your comments.
And a heavy conversation but a lighthearted moment.
Is it required that you're bald if you work for Urban Alchemy?
Louis Hammonds
You must be big, you must be ugly, and you must be kind.
Bald is not a requirement.
Look at Jeff.
Dan Ryan
I appreciate Brandy's point, and she talks about the, the global.
And when we're contemplating next year, we have to also think in terms of not dollars but outcomes.
And when I look at Urban Alchemy and I look at the other providers, they're all good.
I think Brandy has done a really good job.
Her and her team have really shown sort of how we provide care.
I stopped by an Urban Alchemy site and all of our shelters at least once a week, and I visit in particular Dennis at Oasis.
We had 31 reunifications in the last 2 weeks.
And so reunifications are when we help people get back home.
And so far we've We've helped people in like 45, 46 states.
Of those 31, of all of our shelters, 15 of them came from the Oasis by Urban Alchemy.
I always quantify that based on, you know, if we did rental assistance, how much are we saving?
If we did a housing, right, $300,000 per doorknob is our average, you know, that's $4.5 million we saved in housing in Portland.
Mm-hmm.
We provided that person with their social network, their mom, their brother, whatever the case.
That's outcome-based.
When I look at shelter to housing and I look at our, how effective are we at housing, when Brandy talked about 2 to 3 months is our velocity versus other shelter providers when it's sometimes 2 years, I look at the outcomes of the providing that we're getting from Urban Outreach.
And so I really wanna make sure that we're not only looking at the dollar figure, but we're looking at, you know, the guests that we're helping into housing and to their loved ones as well.
So that's that sort of other part of the equation.
I appreciate your framing.
I think we need to constantly be, you know, I always say our assets need to sweat, but that means saving lives at the same time.
So thank you.
Mitch Green
And thank you for adding that additional context there and intention.
I'm going to wrap up my questions and yield the time here in a second.
But council's always sort of in a bit of a catch-22, which is like, okay, we're responding to your budget.
We don't have a lot of time.
Is this the time to do new policy?
But then when we're in the offseason, is it appropriate to get ahead of your budget?
Do you see the sort of like catch-22 there?
And so this conversation, I think, is part of that.
And I Thank you.
And I hope you see it that way.
The other piece that I want to switch to, some maybe slightly more difficult questions, and I, you know, I wanted to frame it up in the spirit of collegiality here, but I want to go to the KATU reporting a little bit.
KATU report had reported that at least one resident was sexually assaulted by an employee but who didn't report it.
And so that made me wonder, I really appreciate your emphasis on your grievance lifecycle and the lessons learned and all that and your commitment to it.
But one of the things that I worry about, and I hope that there's a response to this on either side, actually, I would like this response from Portland Solutions in particular, but how do we know that we're not creating a sort of disincentive to report, right?
Because of fear of reprisal, fear of kind of—.
Yeah.
You know, as I think one of the, one of the people who testified earlier was concerned that, are we setting up a system that disincentivizes folks to reach out to say, hey, I'm not being served by this system, because their first contact is the folks who they've had the bad experience with, right?
And so during the kind of records request process, the Oregonian did records requests.
I got some of that.
And there was a a guest who had suggested that it was policy that there's no photographing, no videotaping, none of that of staff members.
And so I think for them, they felt like, how do we know that we don't have— that we have proper and due recourse?
So I'd like a response to the sort of idea that we might be having some underreporting going on in our system.
Brandy Westerman
Thank you.
Thank you for that question.
And I really appreciated hearing that in the testimony as well, that concern about Thank you, Councilor Smith, for that clarification, because that's a concern that I think we all need to carry when we're thinking about the grievance process.
I do want to clarify one point from our presentation.
A participant is always welcome to reach out to the city first or to the ombudsman first.
So while we encourage reporting to Urban Alchemy because we believe that we can resolve the majority of complaints through that system fastest, There will be times when a complaint may be ultra-sensitive and that that's not the appropriate channel for that individual.
And in those cases, law enforcement, the ombudsman's office, or our office may be a better first stop, and that is welcome.
So I— yeah, go ahead.
Mitch Green
Cut you off.
I am running out of time, so thanks for that response.
That's what I needed to hear.
I think what we'll need to do is make sure that's crystal clear to our guests.
That reminds me, one last question, then I'll yield.
Ian, I may have heard it from you, but Bayron, I think I also— we had this conversation in my office too.
One of the indications was if there's a criminal complaint, you reach out to law enforcement straight away.
Do we have— can we verify that that's— how do I verify that law enforcement has been contacted?
Yeah.
Because that's the piece that I think I need to bridge.
So I think as part of this kind of request from the chairs, Avalos and Kanal, for some more information, I would love to see some sort of reporting on like, yeah, we actually have been receiving those police— those requests to law enforcement, and here's what we're doing about it.
That would be a great thing for me to get some access to.
Louis Hammonds
Absolutely.
Candace Avalos
We can get you that information.
Thank you.
Louis Hammonds
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay.
Candace Avalos
Councilor Pirtle-Guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Thank you, Chair, and Councilor Green.
Thank you for taking a chance on this type of oversight.
I think it's a really important piece of what committees do.
You know, I look at the spaces where we can prevent and address The types of allegations that we heard about in the press, because frankly, you're, you're going to get complaints about the operations day to day that should go to Urban Alchemy, that you should figure out how to address internally, that probably unless you're receiving so many of them that there's a clear pattern of services not being provided in the way that they are supposed to in the contract, aren't things that Portland Solutions is going to step in on.
But we're here today because we've heard that there are some high-level allegations as well.
And so as I think about how to prevent and address those, I see kind of 4 places where we need to make sure that we are doing things right.
The first is in the recruitment.
What does recruitment look like to minimize, to minimize these issues?
And I have a question or 2 about that that I'll get to.
The second is in what What happens after— what happens to file a complaint?
And I have some concerns that we have stepped up the outreach to folks who are in our shelters now because there have been these high-level allegations that have made the news.
And I want to ask a couple of questions about how we're making sure that when somebody has a grievance, has a And what the processes are, and for Portland Solutions, what the requirements are, what the expectations are for our shelter providers 8 months from now when this hopefully is not in the news because we've resolved issues and there haven't been other high-profile issues.
The third is what we do after that allegation is submitted, that grievance is submitted.
Thank you.
So we have a And how both providers and Portland Solutions are— our staff at the city are making sure that somebody who has filed a grievance is not face-to-face with the person who they believe they were aggrieved by.
And we also have a fair process for staff and what that looks like.
And then what What repair happens, what the fixes are, how we prevent in the future.
So I just, I lay that out because I want to ask a couple of questions about each step of the process.
And the first is on recruitment, because other than hearing that you work hard to provide second chance employment for people, which is something that I think is very important, I didn't hear anything about your screening.
How are you recruiting people, not just training them for 2 weeks and then overseeing them for 90 days, but going through the process of offering somebody that position to begin with to try to minimize the high-profile conflicts that we've seen in the news, the allegations of abuse, mistreatment, the things nobody should experience when frankly they're in a very vulnerable place, not just Just because, you know, we sometimes talk about people who need service and support as vulnerable.
Coming to a shelter requires asking for help, and asking for help requires any of us to be vulnerable.
So we have people who are asking for help.
How are you making sure in your recruitment and hiring process that you're hiring people who are not going to take advantage of the fact that somebody's in a Thank you for that question.
Ian Clark
First and foremost, we have a full kind of applicant tracking system where, you know, we prioritize based on resume.
We have our talent development team where we'll reach out to a candidate if they express interest.
You know, we'll look at— we'll vet that, kind of look at the resume.
And again, we have some folks, this might be their first job.
So a big part of it is in the interview.
I think that's There's a great question.
A 30-minute interview process minimum.
Sometimes there's a 2-step interview process where, you know, someone will sit across from you.
Either it's a director of one of our programs, either it's someone from our training team, and we also have a recruiting team as well, where they'll sit down, have a conversation with you.
In that, we're gonna ask kind of what's your lived experience, what's your experience, you know, what drives you, but also get to some scenario-based kind of conversations where we're in a, To be honest, we're gonna attempt to trigger you in a sense to see how you react in certain situations.
We're gonna challenge your value system.
We're gonna ask your value system.
With that, a decision is made either to hire or not hire at this time.
There can also be a decision to maybe there's a second interview.
Sometimes folks have gone through, you know, up to 3 interviews to get hired by us.
And we've actually, one of our learnings from some of the most recent things is to be a little more, you know, meticulous in that process and a little more thorough in that process.
Beyond that, there's also, we do a background check.
So there's a background check for everybody.
We believe in second chances for all.
Unfortunately, because of the population we serve and the sensitivity of the environment, anyone that has a sexual offense is unfortunately filtered out of our hiring process.
So I do need to say that.
Mitch Green
Thank you.
Ian Clark
And so that's how we address it.
I think that there is a— and I know that there's an introductory period of 90 days, which you heard Louie kind of speak about.
So we believe that not only is the interview kind of the one-on-one or the two-on-one, it's also the interview is still going on during training.
It's still going on during your introductory period.
And we have gotten tighter in that.
If we see things that are outside of our training within that introductory period, we will.
Vicki Payne
Thank you.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And are you screening for current substance use during that process as well?
Ian Clark
We are visually.
We're not drug testing folks when they come in.
A lot of us, because we have lived experience, if we see those cues, we know some of those cues, we're not going to move forward with hiring you.
I will say, you know, one thing unfortunately that we've had to, especially in the last couple months, kind of look at Yeah.
For us, you know, if you asked me a year ago what was the biggest success story for Urban Alchemy, for me it's the, the individual that comes through the shelter, stabilizes their life, maybe lives in the shelter a couple months, gets a job, gets housing, and then comes work for us.
You heard the young lady speak earlier, right?
And those are still success stories.
For us, we've kind of had to look at that a little more stringent, to be honest, because we know if someone has lived in our shelter system that there are There are potential triggers within the shelter system.
There are preexisting relationships within the current shelter system.
And so we've even learned over the last couple months to look at that a little stronger as well, which is some of our learnings from some of the most recent things that have happened.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I appreciate hearing about some changes.
For Portland Solutions, have we looked at best practices in hiring quite as much So I'll answer that question.
I think the direct answer is no.
Brandy Westerman
I think we don't get involved in the direct human resource practices of our contracted providers.
At the same time, what we do do is have a regular ongoing sort of peer learning series where we bring together our partners, our operators on a monthly basis to cover certain topics where they're able to share their own learning and experience and things that are working well within one And that's an area we can explore, kind of doing something like that around the topic of hiring individuals, for sure.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I'd like to ask that we do that and especially look to providers who have not had some of the challenging allegations that I know not just Urban Alchemy but others have faced as well, share some of their best practices.
Thank you.
I want to ask about the process when somebody does have a complaint, and I have 2 questions for Portland Solutions here.
The first is, I know that there have been a lot of postings in our shelters recently And I assume that's not just within Urban Alchemy, but that those are in all of our shelters, those run by all of our providers.
Those posters aren't going to stay up forever.
So what is the plan, whether it is replacement of those posters, requiring in a contract that information be given, requiring that information be given to the public?
I think that's a great question.
To every single individual specifically when they enter a shelter.
What is our plan moving forward to ensure that people who are staying in a shelter know how they can share a concern?
Like I said, 8 months from now when those posters have come down in the rain and the filing of grievances isn't in the news.
Brandy Westerman
Yeah, thank you.
And it's all of these.
All of the above.
Okay.
That the process of getting the word out to participants about how they can file grievances did not start with the news coverage.
I wanna be clear about that.
That's a requirement under the contract from the very beginning and something that our team regularly monitors when they're on site to ensure that that information is visible and available to participants.
We hosted the Ombudsman's Office at each of the alternative shelters to come join community meetings with participants to talk about their role and what they can do to ensure individuals are treated fairly, or in the event that they feel that they've not been treated fairly, how they can raise those concerns.
And we'll continue to work with them to get more of those sessions scheduled, as well as having our own team onsite on a regular basis available and interacting with folks.
Our general kind of site monitoring includes checking to be sure that that information is available for participants to see so that they know how to file a grievance.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
And is that part of the contract with all of our providers that they give access to the ombudsman and have that information posted?
Brandy Westerman
That they have the information posted and they have a clearly communicated grievance policy, yes.
Specified in the contract that they need to provide access to the ombudsman, but that's never been an issue.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
Okay, um, I'm going to limit myself to one more question.
I'm cognizant of the time.
Um, I share the concern that my colleague raised about, um, underreporting, and I worry that if somebody believes that their first line of reporting is to organization that they think will have the back of their employee, they may not bother to report something.
I also worry that saying to somebody, go report it to the police, when that person may be either experiencing substance use disorder or mental health challenges that make executive function difficult, that follow-up doesn't always happen.
Additionally, we have a system where somebody files a complaint and then they're reached back out to.
But we also know that for many people within our houseless population, consistent access to email, cell phone, etc., isn't— it just isn't consistent.
So what is our plan to do better than we currently are?
Not just what do we do now, but what is our plan?
Yes.
In ensuring that the grievance process that exists encourages people, not the small concerns that I think people can report or not, but with the large concerns— drug dealing, drug access, um, abuse— what is our plan to make sure that people are encouraged, empowered to report, feel safe reporting, are not asked to jump through hoops at a level of executive function that they may not be able to muster right now, and that that follow-up on investigating doesn't rely on being able to reach somebody who might have left the shelter because they felt unsafe and who we might not Can I jump in?
Sure.
Candace Avalos
It's—.
Hank Smith
That's a good question, Councilor, and how we capture more of possible complaints that go unreported is a challenging question.
But I do want to point out that the shelter services team is not alone within Portland Solutions managing this.
Many of the guests who go into our alternative shelters are referred there by our street outreach team.
So that's about 10 folks.
And it's not unusual for them to maintain contact with that outreach team.
So there's a lot of trust built out there on the street.
Somebody's living on the street and they're not necessarily saying yes to going into a shelter right away.
Trust is built over time.
And so we do rely on that street outreach team to communicate things they hear.
It might not be an official grievance, it might be something they hear about, and then we can address it.
And I think that just speaks to—.
Yeah.
The multiple channels of— you present to somebody multiple pathways to let somebody know something might be wrong.
Even if they say, I don't want to make this official, but I want to say this, right?
I think that's important.
The street outreach team does it.
We have a really high staff-to-participant ratio at our shelters with Urban Alchemy.
So there's many individuals and maybe one there is more Trusted by a participant than another.
And I know early on, that is why we folded the ombudsman into the process.
We said, how can we— all of our thinking about the flows for the complaint kind of fall within the city structure, right?
We hold the contract, we work with Urban Alchemy.
And so how can we have a flow outside of that process for somebody to complain?
And of course, the ombudsman has a different— Yeah.
Oh.
Authority, right?
Although it might still be perceived as government, a city of Portland.
And so that it does present a challenge, but there's a sort of overt way of getting into the spaces and maintaining contact with folks to solicit some of that.
And I'll just note our outreach team, their offices were at the Clinton Triangle Shelter for a couple years.
Now they're at a different shelter.
But Brandy's staff is at shelters Almost on a different shelter, almost on a daily basis.
So just being present and having a diverse array of folks, I think, can help with that.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney
I appreciate hearing about the folding in of the outreach team in some of this work.
I think there might be opportunity for us to do follow-up better by using that team.
And we don't have the time today to get into it, but I'd like to hear in the future future some ideas for how we can make sure that folks feel safe reporting and that those reports can be followed up on when we can't reach somebody or that we have the outreach team working with us to ensure that we can.
Again, I'm not worried about those lower-level complaints that you all talked about.
I want to make sure that we're preventing and when they do happen, doing the right type of work to allow people to report the, the more egregious concerns.
Hank Smith
Thank you.
And, and I might also add, um, our 311 call service rep colleagues receive calls from all the shelters, not just our own, um, and are in daily contact with Portland Solutions.
It's often for somebody looking for help.
They're on the streets looking for help, uh, but occasionally it's feedback about a shelter.
And if it's ours, we pass it to the shelter team, and if it's Thank you.
Candace Avalos
Thank you.
Um, I appreciate that line of questioning, um, because I am deeply concerned about, um, the allegations of abuse.
It's very serious.
Um, it takes a lot of courage and vulnerability for somebody to even report it, and most people don't report that kind of thing.
So, um, I do appreciate that line of questioning.
Hank Smith
Thank you.
Candace Avalos
I'm going to zero in on that a little bit.
I'll pause to just give your— because we don't have much time.
I will second all of the framing that my vice chair stated at the beginning.
I'm really grateful that you all are here and taking this opportunity to not only talk to us but to the public about how the standards you all hold yourselves to and the ways that you're trying to improve.
Because again, residents of Portland want to feel secure that the people we've put in charge of working with vulnerable populations are doing so in a way that is, you know, meets our standards as a city.
So I want to zero in on this.
This is very specific, but it is really important to me.
So, you know, you all, as far as the hiring process and all that, you all were saying that anyone that has a sexual offense is unfortunately filtered out of your hiring.
Your words.
Yeah.
In 2024, an Urban Alchemy staffer was accused of some serious sexual assault harassment while working in California, and they were transferred to Oregon according to a lawsuit that was filed in California state court.
That staffer, Tracy Webb, relocated to the Clinton Triangle.
So how are accusations handled in the hiring process if this is somebody that's internal from Urban Alchemy coming from another state?
I think that's a great question.
Yes.
How are you filtering them through?
Because I would assume you would have known ahead of them being transferred that they had such a serious allegation, and yet per this process, seemed like they were able to transfer.
I guess I'm curious what happened in that transfer, and obviously I understand that people are, you know, deserve their due process, but is there a policy in place for when someone is facing a criminal or civil litigation related to an alleged crime happening in our shelters, like sexual harassment?
What's your process for filtering those people out?
Ian Clark
Thank you for the question.
I'll start off by saying the sexual harassment allegation was not out before the individual moved to Oregon to work for Urban Alchemy.
So I want to start there.
Secondly, because the person that made the allegation was separated from the alleged perpetrator, I'll call him a perpetrator in this instance.
It was independently investigated.
We brought in kind of 2 sets of different independent investigations in California to look into it.
There was zero evidence that it did happen.
It became civil litigation.
That individual was afforded due process while that process happened.
I'll say that individual is no longer with Urban Alchemy.
It was still not founded to be true.
Based on what was seen through the independent investigations.
We also have to give folks due process.
We also have to— we're gonna lift up any victim that brings anything forward.
We're gonna stay victim aware, restorative justice, make sure that they're sound.
But when they brought that up after the individual was moved to Oregon to work, which is not uncommon, we transfer people that are in director positions to go do work in other spaces.
We're going to do our due diligence internally and let the process play out.
Louis Hammonds
And can I add also that relative to the recruitment, a background check was also done on this individual and there was no crimes or cases relative to that type of situation.
Candace Avalos
Thank you for clearing that up.
As you can imagine, that was an alarming thing to read that news story about and Absolutely.
Because it ties to the broader issues that we're here to address, right, of allegations of abuse and how we're protecting residents of it.
We're going to run out of time soon.
I'm going to leave you with a question for Portland Solutions, which is, as we're continuing to exercise this oversight, and as I mentioned to you all before this, expect that this is the beginning of broader discussions and oversight, but what information do you think council should be receiving on a routine basis Yes.
So that we're not waiting to hear something in the media to understand how these systems are functioning.
So I'll leave that as a lingering question that I'd love to get an answer to in the future, but I think it speaks to the broader question that we have about how we can exercise our oversight powers by— but we can't exercise those if we don't know what's happening, and we want to make sure that we're not hearing about it in the news.
So I'll leave it at that, and then I'll have Councilor Novick, close us out.
Steve Novick
Thank you, Madam Chair.
First of all, I have to respond to the mayor's question to Urban Alchemy about a baldness requirement, and I will note that actually the voters of Portland adopted something of such requirement.
They're so committed to diversity that when they elected 6 men to the council, they insisted that 3 of them be bald and 3 of them have hair.
So that's a principle that the voters have adopted.
Following up for a second on people's Concerns about where people lodge a complaint first.
Just a question from Portland Solutions.
I mean, it seems to me, and maybe this is repetitive, that you said that you encourage people to use the Urban Alchemy complaint system.
Mm-hmm.
But what I'd want to be sure is that you're telling people, hey, there's an Urban Alchemy system.
You can also call the cops about something illegal, but you should not hesitate to contact the city If there's something that you have a complaint about and you're not comfortable contacting law enforcement or Urban Alchemy.
I just want to be sure that that conversation is happening.
I can confirm, absolutely.
Okay.
And second, and again, I'm not suggesting that we're here at Urban Alchemy, but I think people would want to know, I want to know, have you thought about what threshold of complaints and founded complaints there would be before you might make a decision that Even though it's really hard to find other contractors, like, have you sort of established a, if something reaches this level, then we would terminate the contract, or we would like take the contract into receivership and have the city exert more direct control over the operations of a contractor?
Brandy Westerman
Yeah, I will say if we find a situation— well, first of all, we see a repeated complaint that's not being addressed through changes within the organization, that would be a major red flag.
If Urban Alchemy stops coming to the table to work with us on continuous improvement and policy changes that provide protection and safety and ensure that there's fairness when an allegation is raised, that would be a major red flag.
I do think that there's the option of, you know, always going back and requesting additional organizations to, to to step forward and to bid on contracts with the city.
There's always the option of the city taking on the work directly as well.
So there are options there.
One thing that I will say is I've really appreciated that Urban Alchemy leadership and staff have been willing to come to the table when things aren't going well and work with us on those solutions.
And we've seen real change be implemented in those occasions.
Steve Novick
I mean, this might be like really hard to do, but I would— I think it might be useful for you to sort of spell out to all contractors, listen, we wanna work with you, but there are circumstances under which we would need to take steps to terminate the contract and sort of outline what those circumstances might be.
Maybe you've already done that.
Thank you.
That's all I had.
Candace Avalos
All right, thank you, Committee.
So as far as what next steps look like, again, really appreciate your time.
Just for the public to understand the role, the couple steps I will be taking after this.
Councilor Kanal and I sent another memo over to the city administrator requesting more information.
We're currently getting a slow trickle of that as makes sense and is good for the timing.
The plan is for us to continue this discussion possibly at a committee of the whole and bring the whole council along to discuss, but I need to figure that out with Councilor Kanal.
And overall, you know, we want to keep in communication with you.
And like I said in my question, let's figure out what are the things that we can continue to provide council so they can be up to speed and feel like they're not being surprised in the media about anything related to operations of a very important resource that we offer to vulnerable communities.
So thank you so much again for your time.
Appreciate you.
Thank you.
Committee members, our next meeting is Tuesday, July 21st, and at that meeting we will have a presentation from Metro on public polling related to the supportive housing services measure.
And my intention in doing that is for us to have a discussion about our role as government to start to build back confidence in the public that we are working towards solutions on homelessness.
After that, we'll also have an ordinance on some city finance, uh, on foreclosure properties.
Uh, with that, I will adjourn the meeting of Housing and Permitting Committee at 5:01 PM.
Vicki Payne
Thank you.