The record · Transcript
Council session — 2026-07-07
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (27,865 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are AI-suggested and editor-reviewed (low confidence — auto-captions garble names); each color marks a speaker.
All right. Good afternoon. I am going to call the meeting of the housing and permitting committee to order at 2:01 p.m. On Tuesday, July 7th. Diego, please call the roll.
Good afternoon. Koyama Lane absent. Novick here.
Green here.
Pirtle-guiney here. Avalos present. Clare, please read the statement of conduct. 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/houg and permitting committee or by calling 311. Registration for virtual testimony closes one 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 three 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.
Thank you. Claire. Today we have four 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 one.
Item one housing and permitting community feedback.
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 three minutes each. So, diego, please call up the first and only person. One person?
That's correct.
Sounds good.
Our individual signed up lacey sutton.
Welcome. Go ahead.
Lacey sutton. 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 1009 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 inspector. Sorry. I filed a complaint with p p and two former director david howson met with habitat for humanity ceo Steve mzanetti 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 pa 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 mason asked to meet with him, and they did that day. At that point, tony had been investigating this for five 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. 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 it. 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. Thank you.
That concludes testimony.
Thank you. Please read item two.
Item two. North northeast oversight committee annual report.
All right. I've got some folks coming on up. So 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 four 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 four strategies, as well as an update on the preference policy. And the preference policy continues to be a race neutral national model for addressing displacement and jurisdictions from across the country. 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, you know, previous city leadership took. And these are the families that this policy is intended to help. So I want to offer my personal appreciation for the north and northeast housing, neighborhood housing strategy, oversight committees, 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, doctor. Stephen holt, the oversight committee chair, is going to lead us off with some opening remarks, followed by ph equity and business operations manager leslie goodloe, who will report on the data. Take it away.
Well, thank you, councilor. It is good to be here this afternoon. As I said, I'm doctor stephen holt and I haven't had the privilege or opportunity to get to know the new councilors. Councilor Avalos, we have had one opportunity to sit together. I look forward to having more. And then 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 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 ten 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. And I can't overemphasize the incredible talent in my highest 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, I'm excited about the report and what we have a chance to share. It's been ten years, ten years, and a lot can happen in ten years. We've had three mayors in ten years, six different housing bureau directors in ten years. Many changes in values and things that have been emphasized or importance. But the interesting thing is that through those ten 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 ten 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 eight years old, I learned a very expensive lesson, and the lesson I learned was back when when gas stations weren't quite what they are today, you could get some cigarettes, you could get some pop, or you could 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 eight 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 they're pulling off and the cost of gas came out of my check at eight. 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. Ten years is a long time. And as I sit here and look at today's presentation and the information that miss goodloe 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 yea 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 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 ten 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 we'll look at the data. Miss goodloe. Thank you very much for your commitment over the past ten years. It's 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. If you've got a chance to look at it, I'm sure you're hyped also.
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 ten years. We through December of 2025, 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, and other funding sources that have also gone into 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. We have 12 rental properties that are either open or in development. And then we have four homeownership projects that are either open or in development. We do have one other project that you all funded earlier this year, the monarchy 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. Lastly. Oh. Back. Back back. Oh, sorry. I don't have my glass. I should have grabbed my my glasses. That helps. Yes. All right. So preventing displacement is strategy number one. 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 1245 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 two. 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 home ownership. We had an original goal of 40 households being served with down payment assistance. To date, we have served 8632 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 12 people to become homeowners without any subsidy from fhb. They were able to purchase a family home or a neighbor home, but they did benefit from the counseling that the 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 into support our homeowners. North northeast, tiff that's interstate tiff 39, prosper Portland. That's also tif dollars. Those were awarded by prosper Portland cdi or a plc, a plc. Yes, yes.
Excellent leadership.
Committee 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. Two folks bought in Lents used Lents tif short term rental was $100,000. 15 families were able to purchase outside the district city construction excise tax, another ten, and then olen Kenton, both phases of Kenton and then cully 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 or 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 Lents 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 two pieces of property originally called the grant warehouse on 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 ffb subsidy, which has produced or total financing for 965 units, $414 million. So the city's funds have gone and 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 one bedroom, 357 two bedroom and 154 three bedrooms. When we started the strategy, we wanted to ensure that we were building family size 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 in the buildings. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail. This just gives you an overview of each building, how much ffb funds went in, what was leveraged, the total development cost, and then the number of units of each size. And am I. One of the biggest issues that we've found over the course, particularly of the last five years and since COVID, is that the area median income continues to increase in Portland. Part of that the the biggest issue is that they include homeowners and renters in. 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 that is the 80% line, the 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. That the bars across show the income available for rent. The orange line shows what the ami rent would be for a household of three. And then that bottom blue gray shows the amount of rent burden that african American families are currently experiencing, given. Given the current ami and the rents.
Give them a specific example of one of those.
Let me see, I. 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 burdened 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 couple pieces of property. We had one donated by kaiser. All of these properties have been developed or are in development. Doctor darryl milner was property at opened last year. The strong site. We just did the grand opening a couple of weeks ago. The water bureau property formerly known as carey 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 for in the first ten years. We don't have any plans to purchase any more because we're running out of tiff 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 two 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, in the in the district, I could get up to six points if you had a home taken or your family had a home taken by eminent domain, you have top priority and basically you have seven 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 home ownership, we have had the portal open four times to select folks to be in the pipeline, to become new homeowners. We've had just about 4000 people apply. And of those, everyone didn't certify. So, for example, in 2024, we opened the portal. We had about a thousand people apply, 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 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 are out of our so 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 serve 48 families. 75% of them were at 30% or 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 roll, as opposed to the moving expenses. And. Right. And we 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 in next year. Communications and outreach. Thanks to gwen, who's in the room, she has done an amazing job with our north northeast newsletter. We publish it quarterly. We're reaching, on average, 4000 people with three issues. We also have a great team doing social media. Gabriel is also in the room. And so we are. We reached about 2000 folks during 2025 on our social media posts. And then we have 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 doctor holt to wrap up and then have time for questions.
Thank you very much. If you 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 home owners, 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 we're celebrating. I'm going to clap. I think it's amazing, I do, I think it's phenomenal what has happened in ten years. A lot can happen in ten 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 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 I'd 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 while expense is increasing 30% units. Great. We almost need 20% units, 10%, 40% for sure units. How do we do that? Require some strategy, some thinking, some intentionality, expanding and adapting pathways to home ownership. One of the biggest things that creates wealth or creates opportunity or creates family stability, health wellness for the community is home ownership. 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. 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 hills and I began this conversation 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 or they can't shop, they can't live? It's so much more than just a place. It's also space. Then established clear accountability for building operations. We've run into some challenges. We've 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 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? Increased black workforce participation with measurable outcomes? That's such a big conversation. That is such a 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 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 and 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. The 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. Questions, comments, thoughts, aye, Morillo.
All right. Thank you all. So yes, it looks like we've got some folks in the queue. 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 and 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?
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 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, to other places in town.
And if I could jump in, I would say the other item I just was talking to its 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 dye in our nation. That has had direct impact here in our city. And I won't go into specific detail, but it's that direct impact on my own business with that adjustment. So it's affordability.
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.
I think it it will vary based on what kinds of requirements each building has, whether they're lie tech, 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 em carter commons 22 names. They have several units available that they're still trying to get leased. It will take anywhere from two 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, you know, their income statements, if they're 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.
Actually. Do you refer people to just one provider or do you just give them sort of like a, you know, a referral that could could be used with any.
So if you, once you get on the list and you would specify that. So. Councilor. Novick. You say, I want a two bedroom. There's three of us. And so anytime there's a two 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 two bedroom. So when they get to you and they say, hey, Steve, you're interested in a two bedroom, here's all the things, here's the application, all the things that you would need to do. 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 the with when doctor darryl milner opened. They have washers and dryers in the units and most affordable rental buildings don't. 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 doctor darrell milner so that they'd have their own washer and dryer.
Do you know how many households are on the wait list for rental housing.
On ours?
Yeah.
Six six point households to zero point. So zero point households are probably the largest. And let me see, I have it here in my book somewhere through 2025.
And if you could remind us what 0.0 point household means.
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 three particular areas that you could get points for. One is the interstate. You are one is the albina community plan, and the other was a area that was designated as blighted by the city. And so depending upon where you lived within those three areas, you could get three points for yourself and up to three points for your parent, grandparent or guardian. If you never lived in anywhere in northeast Portland, you can still apply, but you would be have zero points. And of course, you're going to be at the bottom of the list. So we're going to continue to feed in six, five, four, three, two, one households before we get to the zero point household. So for 2025, we had 1639 people apply. So some of those folks have gotten into units. So they're not currently on the list. But we have somewhere between 1000 and 1500 people on the list at any given time on an active waitlist.
Okay. Do you have any way to have a direct connection between rent assistance funding and rental residents under the preference policy?
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.
Okay. And do you track sort of outcomes for rental tenants under the preference policy, like evictions and turnover and things like that?
We do through our both through o 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 move into. And then when the unit comes back on the on to the list or to be rented.
Thank you.
All right. Thank you, councilor. Up next, councilor Pirtle-guiney, thank.
You, chair, and thank you for making sure this was on the agenda today. This is such an important program for us to elevate and make sure we don't just receive a report, but actually have a conversation about. You know, you've talked, doctor holt about what will happen by the time the plan is done, and I was a little jarring for me to hear you say it that way. I recognize this is a ten year plan. So the strategy itself, that initial plan is done or we're rounding it out, but the work can't be done, 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 thousand 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 the lot under question that led to the real call for change and investment in the community. And 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 two, three, ten 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 six 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, but it's not a restoration of wealth. It's not a repair for wealth that was taken away. And so I'm wondering if you can speak to the decision around the distribution of funding between the four strategies. Looking at rentals at home ownership at the repair grants and at the 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?
Excellent question. I'll I'll respond first and then miss gordon, unless you want to.
Go first, let me go.
First.
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 the first priority was affordable rental, because there was very little in northeast Portland at that point. And then second was the the homeowner, the home 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, to develop it later. And so it was really just a kind of a proportional based on what it cost to build affordable rental. And then what we could shape into. So it was originally 5 million for home ownership, 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 two buildings and we could do two buildings with about ten, 12 million at that point, when the tiff 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. Trimet was doing an RFP to for affordable housing, and we promised $10 million, which was a significant portion of the tiff 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 mass, into internal services. And so, you know, all of that comes off the top, and then the remaining amount goes into programing. So that was the thought and how we at the bureau kind of looked at things. 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 doctor holt.
Thank you.
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, trade offs, 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. They've lost a sense of connectivity, lost a sense of space, loss, of 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 and 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 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 the space of decision making voices weren't always heard, but we certainly advocated for more opportunity. I mentioned in ten years, six. Or is it seven bureau directors? So different priorities with different leadership. So a great question, though.
Let.
Me follow up.
If I may. Chair, I have a few more questions on a piece you just said there. That oversight committee and the community voices even beyond the oversight committee, if we were to ask you today, we've done the ten year plan. We need to keep doing this moving forward. Is our investment split right? Or do we need to make adjustments?
It's a great question.
You capture, at least from your perspective, what you think we'd hear.
I think you would hear the same kind of thing that we heard initially. And now that there's such a chasm, such a delta when it comes to affordability and income, the need for ownership has only increased. It's it's expanded. 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 in 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.
So councilor I'll, 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 put working on their plan. We just finished the cully plan. They have prioritized homeownership in this in the first five year plan. But having other resources that can be used outside the districts has been 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, I, I purchased my house in 1995 for $77,000, and now it appraises at 715,000. It's the same 1190 square foot house on a 500 zero square foot lot. And, you know, my 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 6 or 700,000 to purchase within the district. And so to combat that, we have increased the down payment assistance four 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. 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.
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, 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.
So we still have tif money available for home repair grants and loans in the district. We 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.
I'm looking at a roof repair right now on my house. I know you will not get that done with 10,000.
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 and 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. 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. We 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 cully put home repair funds in, in their first five year plan. I know the other districts are considering it, but if you live outside of 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 you can get the get the services. I know a lot of pcf has gone into this as well.
Well, I'm just going to talk about one portion then. 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 redheaded 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 gabriel 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. Yeah.
I appreciate that. And I'm always happy to help shout. I think it's incredibly important work. And like I said, I appreciate both of your frankness about where we're at, what's working and where we might need a little bit more chair. I will stop there. So I don't take up all our time. Thank you.
Vice chair Green.
Thank you, chair Avalos thank you, doctor holt. And thank you, leslie, for the presentation. I couldn't agree more that I think one of the urgent needs is, is to shout the good work here from the rooftops. I'm a big believer in in like this sign. This work was brought to you by x policy and that your 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, I think what you're hearing up here at the dais is a, you know, at the risk of speaking for everyone, like a firm commitment to to keep this going and to make sure that we are continuing to double down and make sure that we are preserving what we've built and then looking for opportunities to do more of this. I think 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 kind of a problem in all of our housing work. So the north northeast preference policy work is not unique in the challenges. I think a lot about, you know, at the end of the day, we have 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 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 the bureau. Leadership has heard this from me, and it's also a big driver of the social housing study work is to sort of say, do we need to move away from ami thresholds? Do we need to decouple from those HUD definitions and move towards something that's more cost base? Because if you can do that, then you can 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 some sort of formula about whether they deserve to keep staying there or, or meet that threshold to begin with. So 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 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 a some difficulty kind of hitting that average, what is 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 game that we continuously have to try to catch up to.
It's a losing one for us.
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 doesn't get to keep up. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Right. And so sorry. Go ahead.
No, I just said we are outpaced. Yeah.
So so I think when we were having conversations earlier in this year about how to spend housing money in various different venues, some of us brought forward proposals for rent, buy downs or debt buy downs. 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. It's certainly less expensive than building something new. Yeah. So I just wanted your reaction. Am I on track?
I think so I like it, I like it, and I would say careful, councilor You're starting to color outside the lines.
So I think I think I've made a reputation for myself that I'm willing to do that sometimes.
Councilor. I just wanted to jump in real quick. We've been fortunate that in that metro has supported us being able to buy down rents in several buildings. Albina vision trust was able to fund raise. 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 when the rents are, are lower. And thankfully, metro had some additional interest money that they've been able to put into strong. Doctor darryl milner into m carter commons and, and it's they're able to to bring those rents down. So it's the perfect example of what we can do to. With a small amount of money that will have long term impact on on helping people.
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 of can reset your cost basis. So that way you're not always chasing a little bit behind inflation. Right. So so I'm glad to hear that that's 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.
We're going until 320. So you got some time. Oh, just leave me a couple of minutes. All right. Awesome.
I wanted to ask if, if you 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 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 design 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. It 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, 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.
Well, let me say two 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 notice. I know, isn't it the second Thursday?
No. Remember, we meant.
We canceled that. So we're we're not going to meet until October.
We're not meeting.
Until I've got July off. Oh that's amazing. So I'd love to have you come and and make that part of the conversation. I think that that again we've got a blueprint. It's not the we have a. It would be great to look at how we expand and, and engage. So I appreciate the conversation. Absolutely.
If it's that far out, I'm sure I have no excuses why I can't attend.
Well, I just I will say that I that the perception of social housing, 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 three 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 three bedroom, two bathroom house with a, with a, with a driveway in a, in 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, to change that narrative of what does homeownership
Mean and through the social housing. What does that look like through social housing to become. 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 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 and invite our partners to come in and talk about how we can make this work for for the population that benefits from the preference policy.
I really appreciate that. And I, and I, and I, I hear that too. And that's one of the things I've been worried about. It's like, have I missed an opportunity to talk directly to folks who, who I haven't been able to speak directly to on, on the question of social housing is very important to me, I think so. So we'll put it on our calendar and we'll we'll come we'll come out to that. But I think for me, just from the the kind of what I think about what homeownership provides you, that 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. And it's, it's, you know, you don't get displaced, you know, you're not kicked out because, because, because the landlord changed their mind and raised the rent. It's, it's the fact that you've got a fairly fixed rate mortgage that over time, as your income grows, your, 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 the desirable. And that's the placemaking, of course, as well. A lot of.
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. So the 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 three 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.
That's great. And I, and I am looking at the time, and I don't want to rob the chair of some, some, some air time as well. So I think what I'll do is I do have some questions about some of the, the numbers and the costs. I can, I can email those and get those offline. And yeah, I'll make a point to, to look forward to that, that committee hearing meeting.
We can meet prior to that.
I would love to. Yeah. Thanks so much.
Thank you. Thank you councilor.
Thank you. 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, 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 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. Obviously, lots of work to do, I think also appreciate that slide of just like kind of your next steps or what you think is important for us to know as policy makers, the affordability and ami thing. I mean, it's, it's an issue. It is going to continue to be an issue. And I think that is why, 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 place. 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 what we learned about when we went and studied that more intently was that people are able to wage and, you know, 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, you know, their 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, 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 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 they're economic situation gets better, that that is going to make their housing situation gets worse. That is just a horrible juxtaposition that we continue to face here in the country, frankly. But obviously, talking about the city and I think to 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 a 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 the what most people said was they just didn't know what it was. The largest percentage was. They just had no idea what the concept was. So I think there is a lot of work to do to socialize social housing, to make sure people understand, you know, what, what the benefits are. Because also we know that I think the negative perceptions come from 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 that's kind of where that falls into the conversation. But I would love to follow up with you on that. 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, 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?
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 to place make where they are 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 ten years, we've been able to try to, you know, create something better. And I think between ph. B and 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, from, 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 differently from now on. 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 change how we do our nofas, you know, looking at other things other than, hey, councilor Avalos, we like you and you, we're going to give you some money because we like you. But and, and that a lot of that was due to, you know, commissioner, commissioner Saltzman 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 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.
I think there are three, and I agree with everything that that miss goodloe just said. I think there are three 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 place, it's not just, etc. That's why people will drive in from Gresham to hang out at dawson park. We've lost a sense of of connectivity and 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 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. 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 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, etc. Where I was or the school I went to. And it's, you know, if you've been around any jeffersonians, you have heard demos and the heartbeat associated with that or we antonians 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.
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 policy making in the housing committee. Thank you for your time.
Well, thank you.
Thank you so much. I just want to do one last shout out to the staff at ph. 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.
Thank you. And that goes right back to you. Thank you for all of your your service and your work here. Go ahead.
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 I'm a dinosaur and. 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.
Appreciate you. All right. Committee. Yes. So we're going to we're going to go ahead and take a break. So that will be perfect timing. So let us take a quick ten minute break. We'll see you at. Oh, no math. 336. Thank you. All right. We are back from our little recess. Diego, go ahead and call the next two items together.
Item three urban alchemy and shelter operations oversight discussion item four public testimony on shelter oversight and operations.
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 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 our. 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.
Great. 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 brandi westerman, our emergency humanitarian operations director, who manages the city's shelter services team. We also have margie sackett, our shelter operations manager, in the audience today, and Portland solutions director scott knapp 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 ten individuals who manage 16 different shelter and day center locations throughout our city. As of today, the shelters provide a cumulative 1609 beds for individuals each night. About 52% of those beds are alternative shelters, meaning locations that provide 24 over seven 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 the slide related to the city's work. With urban alchemy. Responding is a priority for us and we will provide these records as as requested on a rolling basis. But today, in the following slides, brandi will give a high level overview of our grievance process, the shelter operators contractual obligations, and how we have changed that process over time.
Good afternoon, chair Avalos and vice chair, Green councilors. I'm brandi 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 eight service organizations we work with, post 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 or miss. 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 bi weekly meeting with the city ombudsman to sync on grievances they may have received, and bi annual 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 web page. 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. 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 and exact order either coming to my team first or the ombudsman, or sometimes all three at once. We have set up shared spreadsheets with the city and woodsmen and urban alchemy to coordinate complaints, investigations, and responses. 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 time frame, 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 one through three, two that were graded a four and two 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. 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 2627 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. 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.
Thank you. So we're going to 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 testimony. Sound good? And I think you all can stay up there if you'd like urban alchemy. Come on up here. All right. Like I mentioned, we had Portland solutions. Now we have urban alchemy. I don't think you have a presentation, a formal one. Okay, great. Please go ahead and take it away and please introduce yourselves.
My name is ron 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 doctor Elana miller.
Hello, my name is louis hammonds. I'm the vice president of operations, urban alchemy. It's a privilege to be here. Thank you.
Good afternoon. Committee. So grateful to be here. Thank you for your time. And Clark johnson, practitioner, urban alchemy, currently supporting the chief of human resource.
So I get started with it's called the one, two, three model. We have one objective that is to hire members that are formerly incarcerated, that have served long sentences, that have been just as impacted, formerly incarcerated, formerly homeless, may be suffering or recovering from addiction. That is the objective. It's two 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 three lines of business. Our three lines are we obviously have house communities, which we are provider, where 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.
Urban. Our 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. Our. Speaking about the operational model, we hold ourselves and our partners to high standards along with the city, the ombudsman, and even the support and the request 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 opportunities to thrive. I'd like to talk a little bit about our staff hiring, training and supervision. Generally, all of our training comes from the esteemed doctor Elana miller, which is also our co-founder, as well as doctor lisa delarue. And when a practitioner is 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 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 two 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 our 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 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.
And I'll talk about a lot of our work here in Portland. Currently, we're operating for 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 six about 660 people every night. You know, it's a privilege to do this work. And as it became kind of a demand and an opportunity for, 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, you know, 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 miss westerman talk about 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 six ways now to receive grievances from guests. It could be a you are code that they could hit and they could put it in kind of a, it takes them to a sheet and it goes straight to them. 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. They also have a number that they can call. They can 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 and they can 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. It'll go through our zendesk system. It creates a ticket. We part of our process now is five 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 to before it gets to the care coordinator. It's kind of triage to see if we feel like it's something very serious and it didn't go to our hr team, employee relations team, which is, you know, 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 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 ten working days now. So we feel like we're we're able to hit that now that we have, you know, dedicated staff to it. We're not relying on our shelter leadership team solely to, 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 man who we I know we had talked about. We meet with biweekly to kind of work through some of these cases as well.
One thing I want to say, and I want to just 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 as I shared with you, then I'll share with you. Now that's an Clark johnson just said, when something is done wrong, we move swiftly. We move with the sense of urgency to separate as as our vp indicated. And we also worked with the city to make sure those things don'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 we went too far in terms of notifying law enforcement, including meeting with law enforcement to make sure it's. We go to the full extent being that we are formerly incarcerated, being that we are formerly homeless, just as impacted. We're not ex-cons, we're fathers or husbands. We are we're we're men. We're women. We are. We served our time. And we want to make sure those things are addressed in real time. And because of that, you know, we understand that how we are looked upon as. But at the end of the day, we. We want to make sure the guest 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. I want to say thank you all for for meeting with us and talking about that.
Thank you. Yeah. And can a reference to that, it's not us versus them. It's just us. We're all together in this together. From our house 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 I said, with the ombudsman, it's actually a team of ombudsman's 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 identifies if there is a camera there, so that the city or an ombudsman would know if there's an availability of some kind of additional information that may need to be received. Reporting. We adhere to the reporting requirements, critical incident reporting requirements, and we notified by telephone immediately if there is any serious violation or anything that has anything to do with emergency. We call the city, we call our obviously leadership, and most importantly, we will call the police.
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 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 want to build interpersonal relationships that are built with, you know, trust with folks so we can kind of walk them 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, our staff and sometimes just pop up like, 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 going to 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 going to hold them accountable. And it ranges anywhere from retraining all the way to separation.
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 or 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 an a 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'll be honest 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 a compassion fatigue or burnout. But one thing urban council 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. 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, checking our boxes, what 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 a closure? Are we communicating with the guests with 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, to hold this space of grievances, the guest experience. We strive for that five star experience for our guests. And so really putting people in position to, to hold that space and deliver that.
Thank you. Are we are we good? Sounds good. I saw a natural close, but just.
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.
Thank you. Thank you again for your presentation and for setting the stage here. 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 a further discussion. Thank you. Thank you all. All right. So, diego, why don't we go ahead and call up testimony.
First, we have peggy mcdaniel, lori lang, robert powers.
Welcome. Please state your name and go ahead.
Hi, I'm peggy mcdaniel. I'm a homeowner and I live three blocks from the clinton triangle shelter. I have served on its community oversight committee for the past three 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 amount of time almost. 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. Thank you.
Thank you. Go ahead.
Good afternoon. 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 two weeks away from hopefully being permanently housed. I. 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. 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. And thank you.
Once more for lori lang. Okay, next up is marlene howell, vicki payne, tatiana brito, marlene and vicki are online. Marlene, you're welcome to begin your testimony and unmute yourself when you're ready.
Hello, counselors. Can you hear me?
Yes.
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, west Portland park. But today I speak only for myself. 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 to make a complaint? I'd like to have that clarified. Which neighbors in the Multnomah village do the mayors and some of the district four 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 distinguish. Many of us welcome the msv, 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 micro villages 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.
Thank you. Go ahead.
Hello. My name is tatiana prieto. And I basically am working at oasis right now. But before all that, I was a resident at urban alchemy and clinton triangle. I felt so safe there. I loved the whole experience. Currently, right now I actually got my housing two through them. So I'm, I'm perfectly safe and, and I'm enjoying every little bit of time of working with this company. I really hope that they go strong and, and for, for a very long time. I'm sorry. That's all.
Thank you.
Next is vicki payne. Vicki. You can unmute yourself and begin your testimony when you're ready.
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. 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 Greene has somewhat hypocritically been outspoken about not converting an rv in his district to high barrier, something hundreds of clients have asked for so they can meet requirements to enter supportive housing. Urban alchemy 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 with 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 housing neighbors with the dignity they deserve by ignoring this widespread issue. Thank you.
That concludes testimony.
All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. 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 that. That is a service that has benefited you. So thank you for sharing that. It's important. All right. So colleagues, now is the time to ask some questions. Okay. We got someone in the chat. Go ahead, vice chair 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. And 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 urban alchemy 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, I can tell you guys are feeling, feeling your work up there and I want to acknowledge that. So, so, 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 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, we generate poverty by underinvesting from like, you know, cradle to grave, basically, we, 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 have the affordable housing that we need. And so we're seeing this 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 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 were 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, 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, crucial accountability questions addressed that that amendment wasn't it didn't have the support it needed to pass in that moment. But 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 filed to start to kind of like have that same spirit that we had in the 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 going to ask the tough questions and give you an opportunity. Mayor, city administrator, Portland solutions staff, to engage in that dialog with us, the provider with us. So that's the spirit I'm showing up in. I'm really, you know, sort of asked my staff to help prep me on this. And I said, I don't want any sort of like, you know, when 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, some assumptions that we have, what we have done since. And you've laid out some of that in your presentation, brandi. 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 counselor through, through the budget, I want to start through procurement, actually. And when I start my questioning here. One of the things that I was informed of, or one of the responses I got from director brucker 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 a 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 or alchemy, which was kind of 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 let me 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 to find an alternative vendor?
Do you want to speak to 2022.
To 24? So we're on the same page. That's good. Okay. 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 and then got the contract. And, and I think that's where director brock knapp was referring to during 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 eight hours of public testimony about that kind of that contract to be transparent, to get questions out, feedback. We in that RFP, we're asking for shelter provider to do something very hard. 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 high level of care under high acuity folks might be that might need a certain level of behavioral health care 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's 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 broker 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. Brandy can speak to that.
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, vice chair. So I appreciate that. So a year and a half ago, approximately, we ran a second RFP process for three 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 over seven provision in that RFP process. So this was an open applicant process. We received just four applications in total for alternative shelter. Those all four 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 four 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.
Thank you, I appreciate that. And 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?
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 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 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 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 if in the next fiscal year. And so I raised that question. Only want to check my assumption on that. But then also to, to say, you know, if the path before us is kind of there's like a two fold path here, 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, 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 asking for? 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 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.
I can respond. Did you want to share something first? Okay. I think a couple of things that I, 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 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.
Thank you. I'm oh. Oh.
Go ahead. Yeah. Let me and brandy. Thank you. First of all. Brandy. Hank, aaron, louis and ian, thank you for being here and for your comments and a heavy conversation. But a light hearted moment is it required that you're bald if you work for urban alchemy.
You must be big. You must be ugly, and you must be kind. Bald is not a requirement. Look at jeff.
I appreciate brandy's point and she talks about 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 two weeks. And so reunifications are when we help people get back home. And so far we've helped people 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 door knobs, our average, you know, that's $4.5 million we saved in housing in Portland. And 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 brandi talked about 2 to 3 months, is our velocity versus other shelter providers when it's sometimes two years, I look at the outcomes of the providing that we're getting from urban alchemy. And so I really want to 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 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.
And thank you for, for adding that that additional context there and intention. I just 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 off season, is it appropriate to get ahead of your budget? Do you see that? You see this sort of like catch 22 there? So this conversation I think is is part of that. 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 kt reporting a little bit. K2 report had 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, and I really appreciate your emphasis on your grievance life cycle and the lessons learned and all that and your commitment to it. But, but one of the things that I worry about, and I hope that there's a response to this on, on either side, actually, I'm, I would like a 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, you know, as I think one of the one of the people who testified earlier was concerned that a re 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 a records request. I got some of that, and there was a guest who had suggested that it was policy that there's no photographing, no videotaping, no, 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 I'd like a response to the sort of idea that we might be having some underreporting going on in our system.
Thank you. Thank you for that question. And I, I really appreciated hearing that and the testimony as well, that concern about retribution, 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, and 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 yeah, go ahead.
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 is, you know, I may have heard it from you, but 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 can we verify that that's how do I how do I verify that law enforcement has been contacted by urban alchemy? 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 this. Those police, those requests to law enforcement. And here's what we're doing about it, that that would be a great thing for me to, to get some access to.
Absolutely.
We can get you that information.
Thank you, thank you.
Okay.
Councilor. 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. The spaces where we can prevent and address the types of allegations that we heard about in the press, because frankly, 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 four 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 two about that that I'll get to. The second is in 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 complaint, they always know what to do and what the processes are. And for Portland solutions, what the requirements are, what the expectations are for our shelter providers. Eight 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, 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 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 two 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 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 is in a vulnerable state?
Thank you for that question. First and foremost, we have a full kind of applicant tracking system where, you know, we prioritize based on resume, and 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 big part of it is in the interview, there's a 30 minute interview process minimum. Sometimes there's a two step interview process where you know, someone will sit across from you either as a director of one of our programs, either 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 going to 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, to be honest, we're going to attempt to trigger you in a sense, to see how you react in certain situations. We're going to challenge your value system. We're going to 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 three interviews to, 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. And so that's how that's how we address it. I think that there is I know that there's an introductory period of 90 days, which you heard louis 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 separate.
And are you screening for current substance use during that process as well?
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 of months, kind of look at for us, you know, if you ask me a year ago, what was the biggest success story for urban alchemy? For me, it's 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 potential triggers within the shelter system, there are preexisting relationships within, you know, the shelter system. And so we, we've even learned over the last couple of 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.
I appreciate hearing about some changes for Portland solutions. Have we looked at best practices in hiring, questions that are helpful for our providers to ask? And do we do anything in terms of support and sharing of best practices to ensure that all of our providers are as successful as possible in hiring people who are going to be able to. To provide the level of care in our shelters that we as a city should expect.
So I'll answer that question. I think the direct answer is not, not really. I think we folk, 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, 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 contracted provider with other contracted providers. And that's an area we can explore kind of doing something like that around the topic of hiring individuals. For sure.
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 but others have faced as well, share some of their best practices in terms of how they do that screening and see if we might be able to, to ensure that we head off as much of this at the front end as we can. I want to ask about the process when somebody does have a complaint, and I have two questions for Portland solutions here. The first is, I know that there have been a lot of postings in our shelters recently about how to file a complaint if one has a concern, and I assume that's not just within urban alchemy, but that those are in all of 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 an a contract, that information be given, requiring that information be given 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, eight months from now, when those posters have come down in the rain and the filing of grievances isn't in the news.
Yeah. Thank you. And it's all of the above that the process of getting the word out to participants about how they can file grievances did not start with the news coverage. I want to 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 and join community meetings with participants to talk about their role and what they can do to ensure individuals are are treated fairly or in the event that they feel that they've not been treated fairly, how they can raise those concerns and will continue to work with them to get more of those sessions scheduled, as well as having our own team on site on a regular basis available and interacting with folks, our general kind of site monitoring includes checking to be sure that those that information is available for participants to see so that they know how to file a grievance.
And is that part of the contract with all of our providers that they give access to the ombudsman and have that information posted.
That they have the information posted, and they have a clearly communicated grievance policy. Yes. The we have not specified in the contract that they need to provide access to the ombudsman, but that's never been an issue.
Okay. I'm going to limit myself to one more question. I'm cognizant of the time. I share the concern that my colleague raised about underreporting. And I worry that if somebody believes that their first line of reporting is to an 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 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 to do better 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. 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 be able to reach.
Can I jump in? Sure.
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 ten folks. And it's not that it's not unusual for them to make contact with that outreach team. So there's a lot of trust built out there on the street, somebody 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 the multiple channels of you present to somebody multiple pathways to, to, 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 participant than 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? The, the 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 authority, right? Although it might still be perceived as government, a city of Portland. And so that 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 of years. Now they're at a different shelter, but brandi's staff is at shelters, almost 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.
I appreciate hearing about the folding and 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 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.
Thank you. And I might also add our 311 call service rep colleagues receive calls from all the shelters, not just our own, and are in daily contact with Portland solutions. It's often for somebody looking for help. They're on the streets looking for help, but occasionally it's feedback about a shelter, and if it's ours, we pass it to the shelter team. And if it's somebody else's, like the county shelter will make sure they get that information to.
Thank you.
Thank you. I appreciate that line of questioning because I am deeply concerned about the allegations of abuse. That's very serious. 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 I 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. So 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, tracie 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, 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 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?
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, oklahoma perpetrator in this instance. It was independently investigated. We brought in kind of two 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 found to be true based on what was seen through through the independent investigations. We also have to give folks due process. We also have to we're going to lift up any victim that brings anything forward. We're going to stay victim aware, restorative justice, make sure that they're they're sound. But when they brought that up after the individual was moved to Oregon to work, which is not uncommon, we 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.
Can I add also that relative to the recruitment background check was also done in this individual, and there was no crimes or cases relative to that type of situation.
Thank you for clearing that up. As you can imagine, that was an alarming thing to read that news story about and wanted to just be direct, 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 counsel should be receiving on a routine basis 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 this out.
Steve Novick: Thank you, madam chair. First of all, I have to respond to the mayor's question. 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 they elected six men to the council. They insisted that three of them be bald and three of them have hair. So that's a 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's it seems to me and maybe this is repetitive, that you said that you encourage people to use the urban alchemy complaint system. 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 or you're not comfortable contacting law enforcement, urban alchemy. And 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 on 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.
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 would 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 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.
I mean, this might be like really hard to do, but I would it I think it might be useful for you to sort of spell out to all contractors, listen, we want to 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 have.
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 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. I appreciate you.
Thank you, thank 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 on foreclosure properties. With that, I will adjourn the meeting of housing and permitting committee at 5:01 p.m.