9/11/2018 UPDATE: Linked Documents have been updated with some new additions. See the chart below. 

On Wednesday, September 4th, the City released several documents related to the new Homeless Services Center being planned for Portland. You can find these new documents (and many more)  here. 

Some of this information was covered at the Community Forum held at USM on September 8th, but we'll also be discussing these documents at the next Health & Human Services and Public Safety (HHS & PS) Committee meeting (Tuesday, September 11th, 5:30pm, City Hall, Council Chambers).

Since it's tough to tell what all the documents are without opening them, I've created an annotated list of the ones we'll be discussing on Tuesday. Hope this is helpful!

Early conversations about homelessness and the need for an improved shelter facility predate my election to the Council. But I'm proud to have played a role, alongside stakeholders, in moving this conversation forward over the last two and a half years. We're now poised to select a site for a new, state-of-the-art facility that will allow city staff to fully implement best practices and move people from homelessness to permanent housing as quickly and efficiently as possible.

This new facility is just one step in a long-range plan to address homelessness in Portland, but it is a very important step.

​Here's a brief overview of the Micro-Timeline to Date* and how I expect the process to unfold from here. 

On Tuesday, September 12, 2017, the City Council's Health & Human Services Committee will hold a public forum to discuss the design and planning for a new emergency shelter in Portland. 

There are two shelter issues currently making their way through the Council's Health & Human Services Committee. The first concerns the design and planning of a new facility to replace the outdated adult emergency shelter on Oxford Street (the Oxford Street Shelter). The second involves making changes to the city land use code in order to allow smaller shelter facilities as conditional uses throughout the city. Here's why both of these initiatives are important for Portland.