Why Are We Still Treating Homelessness Like a Five-Alarm Fire?

Even if you don’t pay close attention to public dollars like we do, you may have a general sense of how things are going in terms of funding for state and local governments. Due to a combination of federal cuts and the end of some pandemic-era funding sources, the budgets for area governments are going to be much curtailed compared to recent years past. We are now six years past the start of the global pandemic that turned the world upside down, and while some people continue to suffer the effects of that disruption, it’s also safe to say that the emergency is passed.

During an emergency, we can expect some level of chaos. As it pertains to addressing the sudden rise in the number of people experiencing homelessness during the pandemic, state and local governments should be commended for working quickly to try to address that humanitarian crisis.

Bend and Redmond, for example, were two cities that, before the pandemic, did not have permanent low-barrier overnight shelter facilities that could house people even on the coldest nights of the year — let alone managed camps, safe parking or other options. Prior to 2020, the winter warming shelter in Bend was moved around to various churches and other facilities. With low-barrier shelters and numerous other facilities now operating year-round, both cities have come a long way. If the annual Point in Time count of area unhoused individuals is any indication, those efforts have begun to move the needle and get more people into permanent housing.

Some of the most effective means of transitioning people out of homelessness will not be funded this year, or will have to be seriously cut back. That’s not right.

And then came the federal cuts and a presidential administration that sees criminalization as a valid solution for homelessness, along with the end of federal special program funds, such as the American Rescue Plan Act. It doesn’t take a financial wizard to understand that this was all going to mean we wouldn’t be able to fund things at the level we did before — and yet we still think this next chapter is too shambolic, for a time that is no longer an emergency.

In last week’s Feature story, Reporter Clayton Franke outlined how some providers of homeless services in the region are suddenly facing down a serious funding shortage, thanks at least in part to diminished budgets. Funds are tight; we get it. What we don’t get is the last-minute, rushed nature of how the funding — and the communication around funding — seems to be rolling out.

In preparing to mete out the next round of funding, staff from the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council knew they were going to be getting less than they got before. As such, they created a rubric of sorts, letting them assess “shelter experience, design and operations, consistency in data reporting, cost reasonableness and readiness.” Area shelters and other providers, including those that run things like safe parking programs, knew they probably wouldn’t get funded to the amount they’d prefer, but thought they’d probably get something.

That is, until officials from the state, in a last minute notification, clarified who’d get funding in late July: Only those who got funding under the governor’s emergency declaration for shelter facilities last year would get funded this year. That left safe parking programs without a state funding source.

According to data published by the City of Bend, safe parking has a high “graduation rate” of transitioning people to housing — meaning, in the spectrum of interventions, it’s been among the most effective at getting people out of homelessness. As service providers will tell you, we need an array of interventions — low-barrier shelters and safe parking among them — to fully address homelessness, so it would follow that we need to also fund all those intervention types.

Fixes to the way the funds were allocated this year will likely be put in place by the time any funds are meted out next year — but in the meantime, some of the most effective means of transitioning people out of homelessness will not be funded this year, or will have to be seriously cut back. That’s not right.

This year, poor communication from state officials and a rushed funding allocation process are making this feel like we are living in a sudden crisis.

It’s been six years since the start of the pandemic. Why are we still treating homelessness like a five-alarm fire?

This article appears in the Source August 27, 2026.