In June, regional leaders and service providers entered a large board room with a purpose, eager to discuss solutions addressing the large concentration of unsheltered populations living on forest land. Members of the county-wide effort to address houselessness, the Coordinated Houseless Response Office, along with local partners and state and federal agencies, swiftly made their way to their seats to get to work and collaboratively discuss the houseless population along China Hat Road.
Attendees introduced themselves and began discussing ways in which the region and state can tackle what many deem an unsafe public health crisis. Officials spoke about possible resources and funding, while houseless individuals, and neighbors of China Hat, were able to speak out about their experiences.
Addressing issues of this degree can be tough, as many regions struggle with addressing housing hurdles that are increasing the number of houseless individuals across the state.
Collaborative discussions and efforts, like this roundtable meeting, are one of the many purposes of the CHRO.
The office’s role is to coordinate and identify opportunities to leverage funds and resources for residents experiencing homelessness.
The idea for the coordinated office started in 2021, based on input from the community and local elected officials. The Oregon House voted on March 2, 2022 to pass House Bill 4123, which established pilot programs in eight regions and awarded each $1 million in state funding to go toward addressing houselessness.
“We need urgent action at every level of government to address the homelessness crisis, and our local communities are ready to step up,” said Rep. Jason Kropf (D-Bend), chief sponsor of the measure in a 2022 press release. “By coordinating and working together, our communities can better leverage their resources and address the gaps in our current responses to homelessness.”
The office’s role is to coordinate and identify opportunities to leverage funds and resources for residents experiencing houselessness.
Central Oregon’s local office includes only Deschutes County and the cities of Bend, La Pine, Redmond and Sisters, along with service providers and other stakeholders.
Today, nearly two years into the pilot program of this collaborative office, members are discussing how the office could evolve, which may involve a shift in how and where the office operates.
A shift in operations
In early June, representatives of the League of Oregon Cities and the state legislature discussed the future of state funding for housing efforts, suggesting a need for a “natural evolution,” to better align with state goals to decrease houselessness.
In 2023, Governor Tina Kotek enacted Executive Order 23-02, which provides funding for regions and their Continuums of Care. With this Executive Order, future funding from the governor or the legislature would likely be allocated to regional efforts that span more than one county, as the executive order was driven around the idea of regional coordination.
Given there is no clear path toward future funding for the offices created by HB 4123, local leaders are looking at expanding CHRO’s effort to address the region, rather than just focusing on Deschutes County.
In looking at how to best respond to the effort on a more regional scale, CHRO members are discussing the idea of working with a fairly new regional effort, the Regional Housing Council.
The Regional Housing Council, consisting primarily of elected officials from across Central Oregon, aims to address housing and houselessness on a regional scale.
The idea started in 2018 as an identified gap for elected officials and housing authorities. “A space where we could be talking about housing from beginning to end, everything from homelessness all the way to home ownership,” said Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council Executive Director Tammy Baney.
COIC started the council as a pilot, which was paused for years due to the pandemic and the creation of the CHRO. The RHC started up last year and is still in its beginning stages.
The thought, with this evolution, is not necessarily to merge the CHRO and the RHC, but instead, to have them both working parallel and in collaboration. Baney noted that while the RHC focuses more broadly on housing as a whole, having CHRO work alongside RHC would align efforts, funding and advocacy.
“The hope is to use that table of voices to inform policy makers on what’s going on in the region,” she said.
City Councilor and CHRO Vice Chair Megan Perkins stated that they are not in danger of dissolving the CHRO.
The current deliberations involve expanding CHRO, to include the whole region, while developing it as working alongside or as part of the RHC.
As CHRO members continue to discuss and come up with decisions around this evolution, they plan to decide how this shift could affect the CHRO and how they would like to develop it. Some members, like Perkins, are hopeful about the potential shift, but worry that evolving to a more regional approach could cause them to slow down the progress they’ve made.
“When we started this group, I really thought, ‘we can’t waste this money. We have to spend it where it’s really needed,’ so I’m really happy that we actually have funding that we can put behind some of these projects.” – Commissioner Patti Adair
Since the CHRO began in 2022, it has put money toward a few efforts, while also putting attention to joint partnerships that can help move solutions forward. The office has adopted a strategic plan to prevent and end houselessness in the County and launched the China Hat pilot partnership, a multi-agency initiative to address unsheltered individuals on federal land. In terms of funds toward specific projects, the office is spending about $47,000 on the creation of a data dashboard with information on houseless individuals. It’s also putting $150,000 toward a Request for Qualifications, which is looking to create or expand shelter beds, managed camps or safe parking.
“When we started this group, I really thought, ‘we can’t waste this money. We have to spend it where it’s really needed,’ so I’m really happy that we actually have funding that we can put behind some of these projects,” said County Commissioner and CHRO Chair Patti Adair.
The pilot program has seen success in other counties as well. While not as large or dense as Deschutes County, Polk County Commissioner Jeremy Gordon spoke to the success of its region’s coordinated office. Since July 2023, Gordon said the rural county has been able to remove 196 total individuals into permanent housing.
The office, which covers the rural part of Polk County, spent funding on outreach workers, who make contact with folks experiencing homelessness, as well as data collection and the addition of shelter beds.
“It’s been a game changer for rural Polk County. There is so much need in rural areas as well. A little bit of seed money, it really inspires partners across sectors to engage and I’ve been so impressed with these partnerships,” said Gordon.
Complexities of an evolution
According to Mickie Derting, strategic initiatives manager with the City of Bend who assists the CHRO, the evolution to a regional office would increase CHRO’s impact, providing more funding opportunities while expanding access to collaborate with decision makers in the housing continuum.
Drawbacks of this shift, described by members of CHRO in past meetings, include a potential for more meetings, as well as an extensive onboarding process for elected officials in added counties and cities – a possible disruption to the CHRO’s process.
Some CHRO members have brought up the very specific needs of Deschutes County, which looks different than other counties and cities in our region.
“I feel like we have our specific Deschutes County worries. The region is definitely much larger, but do we have the bulk of the homeless in the forest in Deschutes County? Yes,” said Adair.
Councilor Perkins, who sees this merge as the only natural progression for the office if it wants to continue receiving state funding, resources and support, hopes the CHRO’s efforts will remain unchanged, and that decision-making will remain somewhat autonomous from the RHC.
Redmond City Councilor Cat Zwicker, who is a member of both the CHRO and the RHC, said at a July meeting that she worried about starting over again, taking time to go over things the group has already discussed.
“The key thing is we don’t want to lose steam, and that’s something we all agree on right now. We have a lot of really great work that we’re doing. – Megan Perkins
“The key thing is we don’t want to lose steam, and that’s something we all agree on right now. We have a lot of really great work that we’re doing,” said Perkins.
The CHRO went through some changes in May 2022, when its executive director Cheyenne Purrington announced her resignation, due to what she described as public pressure and undefined roles and responsibilities.
Derting suggested that the office could start looking at staffing again once it knows the direction it’s going. For now, members have stepped up as a team to carry out its strategic plan.
While the shift could potentially change the way CHRO operates, Perkins added that members are determined to continue the work they are doing. CHRO members planned to address what a merger between CHRO and RHC could look like at its Aug. 15 meeting. However, they ran out of time and were unable to address it. They plan to discuss the evolution and continue deliberations at the next meeting in September.
“This is an issue that we all have to tackle together. We come to these meetings oftentimes not agreeing on a whole lot except for the fact that we have to find solutions. I think the one thing that I would like to see going forward is to ensure that we are continuing to have elected officials at the forefront on this board. Without electeds, there can’t be really any solutions, and we can’t bring that information back to our respective regions and get work done,” said Perkins.
This article appears in Source Weekly August 22, 2024.
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Houseless? Evolve? Let’s cut the BS. Our most pressing issue is we have a large group of people strung out on drugs milking money away from the few people we have out there even capable of maintaining a FREE home! Truth.
Until you folks get it through your heads that we do NOT have a homeless issue but rather a drug and mental crisis issue…………you are just burning our tax dollars.