The New 200-Bed Homeless Services Center is the Right Move for Portland

10/21/2021

Exterior view of the new HSC as proposed by Developers Collaborative, the group selected to partner with the City on the design and construction of the new facility.

For several years now, we've been working to replace the Oxford Street Shelter, and we are finally on the cusp of building a new Homeless Services Center at 638-654 Riverside Street that will do just that. The new, state-of-the art, 208-bed facility will be open 24/7 and it will finally provide those in our community experiencing homelessness the services they need in a spacious, welcoming, comfortable, secure, and dignified setting. This is a desperately needed facility with great community support.

Concept image of the central gathering space at the new Homeless Services Center from the Developers Collaborative design.

We've been steadily working toward this for over a decade. It is a crucial step in the well thought out, deliberate plan to prevent and end homelessness in Portland. This work that has involved community members, elected officials, city staff, service providers, and advocates, including people with lived experienced of being unhoused.

National experts have been consulted and a great deal of community input has been received and incorporated. Read on to learn about our journey to this point, and why this service model is the right move for Portland.

This is a long one, folks. Feel free to use the links below to jump around:

The Oxford Street Shelter was built in 1900 as a two-family home. It was never meant to function as an emergency shelter, and it is poorly configured and inadequate for that purpose. It has insufficient space to offer wraparound services, guest laundry, meals, or even enough day space for guests to comfortably stay during the day. If guests want to go outside, they are immediately on the street and on display.

This is the layout of the campus for the new Homeless Services Center, where clients will have access to 24/7 services, an on-site medical & dental clinic, meals, laundry, showers, storage, wraparound services, community gardens, andn potentially and outdoor sleeping pavilion.

Why the new HSC is right for Portland

First, let's acknowledge this: we absolutely, 110%, no doubt about it need more housing. We need it here in Portland. In Westbrook and South Portland. In Falmouth, Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough, Gorham, and beyond. Just like other cities and urban areas across the country, we are struggling to meet the demand for housing in our metropolitan region, and people are suffering. More housing is absolutely key to addressing homelessness, but it is not the only important variable.

Low-barrier emergency shelter is also a key component to addressing homelessness because it provides immediate shelter options for people who cannot immediately access permanent housing.

The majority of people who access our shelter services here in Portland spend less than 2 months there before moving to a more permanent housing situation. The most common length of stay is just one or two nights - but those nights are crucial in connecting peoople with services and getting them into stable housing. Without adequate emergency shelter services, thes folks would be spending this brief period in potentially unsafe or unhealthy circumstances, and their outcomes could be far less favorable.

Concept image of the building entrance for the new HSC with integrated Health Clinic at 650 Riverside Street.

Here in Portland, we are very fortunate to have a solid network of service providers, experts, advocates, stakeholders, and people with lived experience of homelessness who have known this for a long time. Over the years, through various task forces and community discussions, we've been moving along a path to create a comprehensive, collaborative system incorporating housing first approaches including rapid re-housing and permanent supportive housing. Indeed, over the last decade, thousands of people who have come through our shelter system have been placed in permanent housing thanks to the combined efforts of many in our community. But there is still need, which is why it's good that we have a plan and that we're making progress.

And recently, with the completion of an initial assessment the state's homeless services system, Maine Housing and the State of Maine have jumped in with both feet to help ensure there is a deliberate and comprehensive statewide approach to addressing homelessness going forward. In addition to establishing and helping to fund regional service hubs, the state is also proposing increased funding for new affordable and supportive housing projects while supporting emergency shelter capacity building.

The new Homeless Services Center at 650 Riverside Street and the companion Prevention and Triage Services at 39 Forest Avenue will both be key steps in the process of improving services for people experiencing homelessness here in the Cumberland County service hub. And these services are both based on years of thoughtful consideration, research, and reviews of best practices.

The new HSC will finally allow us to put into place the best practices that have been called for in the 2011 Task Force report, that were reaffirmed by the 2015 task force as the best path forward, that were again endorsed during the 2017 HHS & PS Committee work to determine how to configure the replacement for the OSS in order to implement best practices and best serve our clients.

Indeed, when Robert Pulster of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness visited Portland to review our plans and our 2020 Policy Resolution, he affirmed that our vision for the HSC is right on track with best practices.

To view the Council Workshop with Robert Pulster, use this Town Hall Streams link (the meeting starts at 1:25:00).

The Experts Speak

Robert Pulster of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness met with the Portland City Council in 2020 to talk about our new Homeless Services Center. He affirmed that the HSC model lined up with best practices around the country, as you can see in this Town Hall Streams link (the meeting starts at 1:25:00).

But don't just take Mr. Pulster's word for it. Check out what other experts are saying about the HSC and about the problems with creating multiple "smaller shelters" instead of facilities like the HSC.

U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

Brian Townsend, Amistad

When we operate hundreds of individual shelters, transitional housing, and service programs, all targeting different populations, with different screening criteria and models, we create a maze that is impossible to navigate and slows our progress. What if we could deconstruct the complicated emergency shelter, housing, and service system that we have created over the last several decades so that shelter acts as an assessment and triage center to help people quickly get on with their lives? (from the USICH paper, "Using Shelter Strategically to End Homelessness")

Eric Meyer, Spurwink Services

Portland’s existing facilities were not designed for and are insufficient to meet current demand. In our work at Spurwink, we see every day how the pandemic has only heightened community need. The new Homeless Service Center will improve service delivery, provide opportunities for enhanced collaboration with community providers, and generate better outcomes for people struggling with homelessness. Both the City and developers have worked closely with people experiencing homelessness and local providers, including Spurwink, in the development of this project. It will be a space that validates the worth of the people it serves. Defaulting to smaller shelters would be administratively and financially unsustainable and hurt the people we are working to serve. The plan approved by the Planning Board, for the new Homeless Service Center, best meets the critical community need.

October 2021, portlandcares.com

Oliver Bradeen, Executive Director, Milestone Recovery

I just want to reiterate that Milestone is in support of the Riverside project. We think that the path forward for the city is to have more services available and that that service has been thoroughly vetted and worked on for years and we need to move forward with that so that we can start creating solutions for the challenges that we're seeing in Bayside and in the rest of the city. I think the conversation about trying to limit resources is a step backwards.

We want to focus on moving towards solutions and to me Riverside is a solution that many providers as well as people who are experts in their field think will be an improved facility. The designs that I've seen look amazing. It looks like there's space for clients to have green space and their own place in community and I am excited to have the opportunity when that face gets created to have providers from all over the community. Engage with clients right where they're staying so they don't have to bounce around the entire city to receive services.

- speaking at 6/8/2021 HHS & PS meeting

Cullen Ryan, Community Housing of Maine

The city has dedicated abundant time and consulted a lot of community input and created a shelter design that Includes a comprehensive array of Support Services on-site. The goal is to surround people with everything they need to get housed and remain housed.
[...]
The idea of smaller shelters sounds good and it will probably be labeled a progressive choice, but it's actually the most conservative choice because it will most certainly keep things the same. It's a vote to maintain the status quo. The biggest losers will be people experiencing homelessness, who will be stuck without a proper service center. The reality is by requiring smaller shelters, we will never move the Oxford Street Shelter, and that's something that really needs to happen. Everybody agrees with that.

Here's why: there will not be five communities that welcome homeless shelters; there will not be resources to pay for five individual shelters; there will not be resources to staff five shelters, which will cost 10 to 15 times more than staffing our current shelter; and there will not be five homeless service centers. It will be impossible for local nonprofits to provide effective services at five different locations. They simply lack the time and capacity.

Everyone's concerned about quality of shelter, but it's important to remember that for this particular population, the most common length of stay is one day. Next most common is 2 days, next is 3. It's not important or people spend a day or two or four, what’s most important is that they have immediate and comprehensive access to everything they need to most effectively and efficiently and their homelessness – something that wouldn’t happen if we spread things out.

What’s most helpful for people is to get them into housing quickly and to help help them stay there successfully. What’s least helpful is to send them on a wild goose chase of five different starting locations in the city of try to find the resources that are spread out like a scavenger hunt.

Attempting to create multiple small shelters throughout the city will likely lead to insurmountable challenges referenced earlier and will not help Portland move the needle on ending and preventing homelessness. In fact, it will do just the opposite. So let's work together to end homeless by creating a robust, Homeless Services Center in Portland, paramount to which is having a well-thought out emergency emergency shelter at that efficiently and effectively meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness.

speaking at August 23,2021 Council Meeting

I do not believe a model of scattered, multiple shelters would serve people in homelessness in Portland well. The existence of multiple shelters would have a critically negative impact on the ability of shelter guests to navigate our community's system of support, resources and treatment, in part because of the strain on the resources of the agencies and entities within this community who work to serve this population.
...
At the same time, shelter guests navigating a multi-shelter system would experience the reality of needing to learn multiple maps of community resources. Given the great challenge of simply getting from point A to point B with most or all of one's possessions in hand, just to meet basic needs (let alone seeking out support or treatment), precise understanding of where things are and on what schedules they operate, and how one can connect from one area to another without missing a meal or getting stranded somewhere, is needed. The introduction of multiple shelters would complicate this type of map exponentially, creating hardships and inefficiencies that having one comprehensive service location--especially considering the aspect of the in-house services--avoids.

My other thought on this question relates to a big part of the argument that some have been making in favor of the multiple shelter model. The contention I've heard is that a smaller shelter would inherently be safer. This does not seem accurate to me, nor to the vast majority of homeless and recently homeless individuals I have talked with about this. It is not the size of the shelter that determines its atmosphere of safety, but rather factors such as staffing quality, resources contained within, and the ability of the shelter to protect its guests from those who might prey on their vulnerability. I thought, as did most of the same folks I've spoken with, that the City's design concept, coupled with the removal of the shelter from the area where non-sheltered individuals often menace shelter guests, would represent a genuinely safe environment. It can be noted that Florence House, a very small shelter that is well -appointed and well-staffed, is anecdotally no more or less safe for women than is the Oxford Street Shelter. Size does not correlate to safety.

originally from a November 2018 email; reaffirmed July 2021

Rebecca Hobbs, Through These Doors

I have had conflicting feelings about both the scattered and centralized site models; there are drawbacks and benefits of both. But I have come to an opinion at this point: As I think about the City of Portland and our needs and resources, I believe that a more centralized model is in the best interests of the City and the homeless people who live here.

originally from a November 2018 email; reaffirmed July 2021

Norman Maze, Shalom House

While we understand the concerns that some have about a single 200-bed shelter, we do not believe that multiple scattered-site shelters are the answer. Norman Maze via email, 11/12/2018

A larger shelter is better suited to provide shelter guests on-site access to our many community service providers who assist such guests. Multiple general-purpose, emergency shelters would be nearly impossible for service providers to adequately staff and equitably serve all shelter guests. The original larger new shelter design is one which is most optimal to serve those experiencing homelessness, centralizing services and amenities to get them out of homelessness in the shortest time possible.

speaking at the 7/26/2021 Council Meeting

Bob Fowler, Milestone Recovery

I was at a meeting earlier this week of perhaps 20 representatives from multiple agencies which serve our homeless population. The topic of discussion concerned the alternative options to the proposed Barron Center program, and specifically the idea of multiple scattered site shelters. While there was no official straw poll taken on the opinion of these providers for scattered site versus a more comprehensive, single center, the clear supermajority opinion was in favor of the single shelter.

I was struck by what seemed to be a unanimity of opinion by colleagues who’ve dedicated their careers to this population.

There was concern that the effect of establishing multiple scattered sites would be to dilute the services all of us who were/are intending to provide at the homelessness services center. There were also concerns about how scattered sites would work in practice, and how in practice decisions would be made about who’d be sent to which shelter (and potential related ADA violation issues). The considerations of increased costs of scattered sites was mentioned in passing, but the clear primary concern among the providers had to do with their/our sense that diminished level of service to the clientele would result from this model.

from a November 2018 email, when Bob was serving as Executive Director for Milestone

Everybody Loves a Timeline

To start, here's a timeline showing the progress toward replacing the Oxford Street Shelter over the last ten years, from 2011-2021.

How Do You Improve a Timeline? Annotate it!

Below are expanded descriptions of what happened at each point on the timeline above. Keep scrolling to get the details, or skip to the next section:

2011
The Task Force to Prevent and End Homelessness comprised 21 community members, including representatives from Preble Street, Mercy, Maine Med, The Opportunity Alliance, Avesta, DHHS, Homeless Voices for Justice, The United Way, and others. Details about their purpose and documents relating to their work can be found on the City's website, here.

2011-2012
The Final Report of the 2011 Task Force recommended a retooling of the emergency shelter system, as explained a slide from their pubic hearing presentation, at right.

With no other facility coming close to being able to serve

as the point of centralized intake, the task force identified the Oxford Street Shelter for this purpose temporarily, until a more suitable site could be established. In another slide from the public hearing presentation (below), the task force illustrated how this general shelter tasked with performing central intake would fit and function within the rapid re-housing initiative.

From the 2011 Task Force - the vision of for Portland's rapid re-housing system. Triage, including prevention and diversion, was anticipated to take place at the single "General Shelter" (the OSS).

The recommendations of the 2011 task force were shared with the City Council at it's November 12, 2012 meeting via Communication 5 (second item on page 3 of the minutes of the 11/19/2012 Council meeting), at which time the Council referred two of the task force's recommendations to the HHS & PS Committee for action. Those two items were Retooling the Emergency Shelter System and Rapid Rehousing.

There's nothing on the timeline from 2012-2015. What gives?

Between 2012 and 2015, City staff, working with community partners, made great strides on Rapid Rehousing with their implementation of the award winning Long-Term Stayers Initiative. The LTS initiative sought to address capacity issues at the Oxford Street Shelter by focusing resources on those people who were homeless for the longest period of time. Unfortunately, the HHS & PS did not make similar progress on "retooling the emergency shelter system" during that period. The inadequate Oxford Street Shelter, a facility with insufficient day space and no ability to consolidate services on site, continued to function as the Central Intake/General Shelter, just as it does today.

2015
The HHS & PS committee, chaired by Ed Suslovic (District 3), once again takes up the issue of the inadequacy Oxford Street Shelter to serve as an emergency shelter. After some discussion, the committee recommends a second task force, essentially to examine the recommendations of the 2011 task force. This task force, The Task Force to Examine the Feasibility of the Consolidation of Shelter Services, was formally established by the Council on March 16, 2015 through Order 182-14/15.

The primary goal of the 2015 Shelter Planning Task Force was to recommend a replacement for the OSS that was feasible considering funding resources and with an eye to use "resources as efficiently and effectively as possible" while serving "the best interest of people experiencing homelessness and the city as a whole."

To that end, the 2015 Shelter Planning Task Force considered multiple service models, including:

continuing the status quo: 229 beds spread between the Oxford Street Shelter (154 beds) and the overflow space (74 beds); use of Preble Street's Day Shelter at 5 Portland St.; and use of Preble Street's food program at 252 Oxford St.
creating 5 smaller shelters, each of which would offer all of the services currently spread out at the OSS, overflow, and Preble Street's locations.
creating 2 gender specific shelters, one for men and one for women, each including all functions currently spread out in the status quo system.
creating one new facility, called at the time the "Homeless Triage & Assessment Center," which would serve all genders and include all services on site.

Building upon the work of the 2011 task force, the 2015 task force also concluded that the best and most sustainable path forward was to create one central facility for single adults that would provide all the necessary services on site in order to allow for "a quick assessment, appropriate and relevant case management, and a customized placement and support plan [all of which] increases the likelihood of stable housing" (source).

One of the best practices memos the 2015 Task Force studied featured this graphic from the Massachusetts Housing and Shelter Alliance.

As you can see, it is very similar to the graphic created by the 2011 Task Force with the exception of one element: it shows the triage and assessment process outside of the emergency shelter to demonstrate the desire for diversion from the shelter system whenever possible.

Interesting side note: This year (2021) we have set up a separate triage and assessment space at 39 Forest Ave for exactly that reason.

This graphic from the Massachusetts Housing & Shelter Alliance best captures the key components of best practice models from around the country.

2016

Once again, the HHS & PS Committee, still chaired by Ed Suslovic, takes up the issue of replacing the Oxford Street Shelter. This time, the committee visits shelters in Boston: Father Bill's Place in Quincy, and the Caspar Emergency Services Center & Shelter on the MIT Campus. At the shelters, the committee has the opportunity to talk with staff and residents about best practices while touring the facilities.

2017
The HHS & PS Committee and the Council pass ordinance amendments to expand zoning in the City where emergency shelters can be established as a conditional use. Prior to this expansion of zoning, emergency shelters were only allowed in one small area of the city - in the B3 zone.

The B-3 Zone, where shelters were allowed prior to the zoning expansion, is the small area in RED in the map at right.

In June of 2017 the Council voted to expand the zoning where emergency shelters would be acceptable as conditional uses to include the pink, purple, green, and yellow shaded areas.

Also in 2017, the HHS & PS Committee spent several months considering the layout and design for a new Homeless Services Center to replace the Oxford Street Shelter. While this exercise didn't produce a binding, final design for the facility, it helped to give us an idea of how large a footprint we needed and where we might be able to find land appropriate to site the facility.

2017-2019

For the next two years, the HHS & PS Committee and the Council worked to find a good site for the new facility. To get more details on this process, check out the articles below:

Shelter Update: Finding the Best Site
Shelter Process: Narrowing the List

Ultimately, after narrowing the list at the HHS & PS Committee, two sites were forwarded to the full council for consideration: Angelo's Acre and 634-658 Riverside. In June of 2019, the Council selected the Riverside site as the location for the new HSC.

2019-2020
Once the site was selected, the HHS & PS Committee took some time to craft policy guidance for the operation of the new facility. You can find that guidance in Resolution 7-19/20.

2020-2021
The City issues an RFP to solicit designs and building plans for the new Homeless Services Center. The winning proposal came from Developers Collaborative and can be viewed here.

In September of 2021, the Developers Collaborative design and plan was approved by the Planning Board. You can see the documentation from that meeting here.

2021-2023
The HSC is expected to break ground toward the end of 2021 and be ready for occupancy by early 2023.

Other Resources

I can't believe you're still reading! Good for you. Here are some other resources to check out:

True Confessions: I used to think smaller shelters were the answer, too
City of Portland: Planning for a New Homeless Services Center
Data and Statistics from the City of Portland and the Emergency Shelter Assessment Committee
The Scattered Site Model: A History
10 Years, 400+ Articles on Homelessness
Vote for Option B on Portland's Question 1
Smaller Shelters Initiative is not what it seems
Portland Ballot Question Would Limit the Size of new Homeless Shelters
September 14, 2021 Planning Board Agenda with detailed plans for the HSC (click the "Agenda Items" tabe and scroll down to Item 5.iv: The Major Site Plan and Conditional Use review for the project)

The New 200-Bed Homeless Services Center is the Right Move for Portland

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