New navigation center in Salem may help ease city’s growing homelessness crisis

On April 24, a 75-bed navigation center for people experiencing homelessness will open in Salem. The facility will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and will be the first of its kind in Marion County. Case workers will be on site to help clients access medical care, behavioral health services and transition to stable housing. City officials say it is designed to be a “low barrier” shelter which does not require sobriety for entry, and accepts all genders, as well as pets.

The Salem City Council has allocated more than $23 million in state and federal funds to expand shelter and homeless services, including launching this spring a third micro-shelter community of small living units to temporarily house young adults, 18 to 24 years old. The city is also opening 52 units inside a former Oregon State Hospital building to provide permanent supportive housing for unsheltered people who are disabled, mentally ill or have other complex medical and behavioral health needs. Joining us to talk about Salem’s efforts to tackle a growing homelessness crisis are Salem Mayor Chris Hoy and Salem Housing Authority Administrator Nicole Utz.

The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We’re going to start today in the Salem area which has seen a big increase in homelessness over the last few years. The city and its regional partners have responded with new permanent supportive housing units and a new outreach services team with more on the way including a 75-bed navigation center that’s slated to open later this month. It’ll be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week with case workers on site to help clients access medical care and behavioral health services with the ultimate goal of getting them into stable housing. For more on this center, as well as the city’s larger efforts to respond to homelessness. I’m joined by Chris Hoy, the mayor of Salem and Nicole Utz, the administrator of the Salem Housing Authority. Welcome to you both.

Nicole Utz: Thank you.

Chris Hoy: Thank you so much.

Miller: Nicole, first. How has the population of people experiencing homelessness changed in the Salem area in the last three or four or five years?

Utz: I can tell you that since 2017, there’s been a continued increase in our homeless population here in our community. And as we have progressed through our homeless rental assistance program, I can tell you that the needs have also changed with the clients that we’re serving, including additional higher acuity levels and a need for some additional health care needs and services or addiction treatments. But overall the population has continued to grow.

Miller: Can you give us a sense for what the latest point-in-time count is going to show? I mean, any bit of a preview that’s possible. This is people fanned out for, I think, three days in late January all across the country, and the data hasn’t been released yet.

Utz: I don’t have a sense of what the data is at this point. There’s been no release of that information for this current one, done in January. I can tell you that I anticipate that those numbers will  jump up quite a bit again.

Miller: Chris Hoy, obviously, homelessness is a statewide or a West Coast-wide phenomenon. But what are some of the specific factors that contribute to homelessness in Salem itself?

Hoy: One of the primary factors that contributes here is just a real shortage of housing. We have a very tight housing market with a less than 1% vacancy rate. And so we don’t have a lot of great options for folks and when you have a tight housing market like that, oftentimes people at the lower end of the economic spectrum are the ones who get driven out and into homelessness. So that’s really one of the primary things that we’re seeing here in Salem.

Also, the defunding of our mental health system over the last several years, a couple of decades, has really contributed to it. Being the state capital, we’re kind of uniquely positioned to deal with a lot of folks who have maybe previously been institutionalized and don’t have the community support they need and so they end up on our streets.

Miller: Is there any connection between the proximity to two different large state prisons and the Oregon State Hospital? I mean, do you see a connection between just the sighting of those facilities and homelessness in Salem?

Hoy: Well, I think that if you were to look at data over generations, yes, there is a correlation. There’s sort of an intergenerational cycle and culture that comes with those institutions. And that’s just sort of part of being Salem, and being the state capital that we deal with. And yes, families come here to visit, to be in proximity to their loved ones, that sort of thing, and it can contribute to that situation for sure.

Miller: Nicole Utz, how has the Salem Housing Authority’s role evolved in recent years, as homelessness has become a bigger crisis?

Utz: I can tell you that we have definitely had to shift our business role model here, and not just be a traditional housing authority. We’ve had to step out of the box, become very innovative and creative in how we help address the circumstances of the community. And by doing that, we’ve really shifted our roles from traditional affordable housing projects to permanent supportive housing projects. And that includes our most recent Redwood Crossings Hall and Sequoia Crossings. We’ve designed those to meet the needs of the clients with the highest security levels that really need a safe and stable housing option coming through the system.

I can also tell you that we have grown vastly, this agency… we’ve contributed also to being one of the leading outreach programs with our Homeless Rental Assistance Program as well as our landlord navigation. Really coming up with creative solutions to try to help individuals get and achieve where they are today.

Miller: You mentioned a couple different programs there. I wanna go back to the first one that you mentioned. What does “permanent supportive housing” look like currently in Salem? And then we can, as we go, get to one of the new facilities that’s actually going to open. That is, if I’m not mistaken, right on the site of the Oregon State Hospital. But what have you put in place in the last couple of years? And what’s the model of “permanent supportive housing”?

Utz: Our very first project was Redwood Crossings, and that was developed out of going up and down the I-5 corridor and seeing what the best options were to try to help the homeless needs. So Redwood Crossings is a 37-unit, single room occupancy, with one full ADA bedroom on site. We also lease six of the units to Transitional Respite, and those are leased to Salem Health and we work with the care management team. Those six units are a very innovative and creative way to help address individuals’ needs coming out of the emergency room department. The individual may be homeless or not have a safe location for them to care for wounds or some other medical need that they may have. Individuals that don’t necessarily need to stay in the hospital or ER, they can be released from there and we can provide them with a temporary occupancy for whatever Salem Health deems necessary for their care.

The  Redwood Crossings is our very first permanent supportive housing project. We opened that during the Beachie Creek Fire during COVID and it’s deemed a true gem in our portfolio, to be able to address keeping people stable and trying to work with them where they’re at when they walk through the door. Some individuals may be ready for more supportive services wrapped around them, meaning for managing their health, managing drug or alcohol addictions, working with individuals to navigate the healthcare system, maybe helping individuals get back into employment and coming up with resources. So having those services on site is vital, and we have permanent supportive housing, our supportive services are completed by Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency, Arches, on site. And we do have a method of plan that they fulfill for 24-7 there at the facility.

Miller: Chris Hoy, let’s turn to the relatively new, seven person Salem Outreach Services Team. What’s the idea behind this team and what are they doing?

Hoy: Thank you for highlighting that. That team is really focused. They’re out in the field every day. They’re meeting with people who are experiencing homelessness. They’re trying to help them stay safe, they’re trying to problem solve. If they’re maybe living in a place that maybe isn’t safe for them or isn’t safe for the community, they’ll work with them to try to get them into services or try to relocate them to a place that’s better suited, instead of say, along a busy road or in a high traffic area or something like that. They’ll try to help folks.

They’re also dealing with the impacts of people who are experiencing homelessness by removing trash, they remove tons of trash off of our streets, and out of our community and public spaces every week. So they’re really just the folks from the city who are talking with individuals and just trying to help navigate them into a better situation and trying to help the community have a better experience with folks who are homeless as well.

Miller: What effects have you seen from the permanent supportive housing that Nicole Utz was just describing?

Hoy: It’s really given a place for people who need some guardrails to be successful. We can’t just put them independently into an apartment because they just have a higher level of need. And so what that permanent supportive housing has done is it’s helped with those people who have been assessed to have just more significant needs and it gives them a place to go and to be successful and it helps them build skills, it helps them reintegrate into basic community living and that sort of thing. And it’s really been a lifeline for folks to get off the street.

Miller: How is what the two of you have just been describing… Chris Hoy, how is that different from the navigation center that is slated to open later this month?

Hoy: The navigation center is really a temporary shelter whereas permanent supportive housing is just what it sounds like. It can be permanent, the people can live there forever and it’s actual housing, whereas the navigation center is really the first step off of the street. It’s the first step out of a tent. It’s where we assess individuals. We figure out what it is that they’re gonna need to be successful, whether that’s getting into drug and alcohol treatment, mental health treatment, whether they have physical health issues, whatever it is that they need, That navigation center is the place.

It’s a low barrier shelter where people can come and stay for a period of time, maybe up to 60, 90 days, while we’re getting them ready to go off to their next place. Whether it’s permanent supportive housing, whether it’s an affordable housing unit, or whether it’s a market rate unit at that point, it’s whatever the individual needs. That’s how we really try to address it, folks here as we figure out where each person is, we meet them where they’re at, and we try to help them get to the next, more positive place.

Miller: When you say “low barrier,” what that means in practice is that people can go there, even if they have pets, even if they have partners and even if they’re dealing with an active substance use disorder. So long, if I understand this correctly, as they’re not being disruptive to the people around them. How significant is it that they could still go to this place even if they’re still using drugs or alcohol or they have a pet or a partner?

Hoy: Well, you described it exactly right, Dave. And when you think about it, like when I think about my situation… If I had the unfortunate circumstance to become homeless, I would do anything to keep my pets with me, right? They are part of my family, and part of what would ultimately be my success. And people who are homeless are no different. Their pets are part of their family. So when we can provide them with a space where they can stay together, they don’t have to give up a being that’s an integral part of their life. It’s just critical.

Also, we don’t we don’t separate people who are in relationships and we don’t keep people out. We try to remove the things that will keep people out. That’s why we call it “low barrier,” [to] remove all of those things that might exclude somebody. Whereas maybe a more traditional shelter, it might just be for men or it might just be for women or there might be a no pets policy for instance. So we’re really focused on removing those barriers so we can get more people in who may not have been able to access a traditional shelter.

Miller: The whole idea, even this name, “navigation,” as you described it, is to help people navigate to a better place physically or a better place in their lives. But it can only work as intended if there are services available to hook people up with, say drug treatment services or employment services [or] social services. But also it can only work if there are housing options available for them to go to after those 60 or 90 days. Is that the case now? Are there enough services for the people who pretty soon will be going to this navigation center?

Hoy: Well, that’s an excellent question. And you’re exactly right. You have to have a place that they can go. And we are working on those places and yes, there are places, [but] there are not enough. There are not enough treatment opportunities. There are not enough affordable housing units. No, but we’re working on building that capacity. And as folks become more successful, as they get into those places and they transition through, say our micro-shelter community or a permanent supportive housing site, it opens up that space for the next person to come in. So we do need to build capacity. But we do have more services now than we’ve ever had in the city of Salem. So I’m actually very hopeful that people will be able to be successful.

Miller: So Chris Hoy, back to you on this question. As you just said, you have more services now than you’ve had in the past. But overall, how do you think resources in terms of responding to homelessness compare in the Portland area and in the Salem area? And I’m thinking not overall but per capita?

Hoy: Oh gosh, I don’t know how to answer that question, Dave. I’m really focused on the city of Salem and what we’re doing here. You’d have to ask Mayor Wheeler about the comparison up there. I can tell you that we have more services now than we’ve ever had. We’re getting ready to open our third Project Turnkey hotel here in the near future.

Miller: It’s been a little while since we’ve talked about that state-created program. Can you just remind us, briefly, the basics of Project Turnkey?

Hoy: Yeah, that’s where hotels that aren’t doing so well, [and] are available, are purchased through state and other resources and turned into shelters. And we have two of them currently, here in Salem and we’re getting ready to open a third one. One of them currently was for fire victims, and now it’s transitioning into people just generally experiencing homelessness. We have one that’s focused on domestic violence survivors and then this next one will just be a general for anybody experiencing homelessness.

Miller: Nicole, to go back to you, you mentioned a new place for another version of permanent supportive housing, Yaquina Hall, which is basically a repurposed nursing building at the Oregon State Hospital. What’s going to happen there? And what’s the timeline?

Utz: We’re very excited about Yaquina Hall. Yaquina Hall has been in the making since about June of 2015. And when we applied originally for funding back in 2015, there wasn’t the permanent supportive housing funding. This concept has come up in fruition. So over the course of all this time for us to bring Yaquina Hall back to life, when we originally apply for affordable housing funds, with serious and persistent mental illness dollars, the only requirement on this project was that we have supportive services for 20 units at that location and the individuals have to meet the threshold of homeless and have a disability. And so we have really morphed Yaquina Hall over an eight year period in time to be able to supply 52 affordable units, all one bedroom, one bath, with one studio. And we have turned this project into a complete “supportive service” facility.

So everybody who will reside at this building will be provided wraparound services by our supportive service provider on site, which is Crossroads Communities. And anybody who lives in the building, whether they’re in our designated units or the affordable units, will be able to have those wraparound services every single day that they’re living there.

Yaquina Hall has a grand opening event this week. However, we will be starting the cycle of having our new residents arrive in the first part of May. We’re just in the final finishing touches of  getting final inspections and punch box completed there. It is a beautiful restoration of the former nurses’ quarters on the Oregon State Hospital grounds, which is just north of Center Street behind the dome building. And we’ve really revitalized that with historic low-income housing tax credits and a lot of partners that have helped to make this happen.

Miller: You noted that services that will be available to everybody who’s there. My understanding is that  participation in those services or treatment, it’s not mandatory. How do you encourage people to take advantage of support that’s available to them?

Utz: That’s a great question. And I have to tell you that through the course of time I’ve been with the Housing Authority for nearly 20 years and I’ve started from boots on the ground and all the way up to where I am today. And I can tell you that we have to meet every individual where they’re at, whether that means that somebody needs a little extra assistance or somebody is ready to go into housing and that’s where all these important collaborations really come into play. And I can tell you that we can maybe talk to an individual 97 different times before they decide that they’re ready to come in and have peer support services or gain some additional help through wraparound services. We continue and continue to do that encouraging. And we know individuals out through the city of Salem, Kaiser and other areas by going out and continuing to talk and address and build that relationship. We do the same thing at our affordable housing sites, whether they’re permanent supportive housing or affordable housing. We meet people where they’re at and then when they’re ready for our services, then we make sure they’re connected and there isn’t a gap in making sure that happens.

Miller: Chris Hoy, the Governor has made it one of the centerpieces for her first year in office to get lawmakers and others to over time, increase housing supply. And you said that in Salem, as in so many other parts of the state, it’s a lack of housing that is maybe more than anything driving homelessness overall. Do you have specific goals in mind for what an increase in housing would look like in Salem?

Hoy: Yeah, thanks Dave. And we couldn’t be happier that the governor has really focused her energy and all the government’s efforts on this, on building our housing stock. You know what it would look like when we’re successful is that every person has a place to live. Everybody needs a place to go home to. That’ll be when we’re successful, that’ll be the case here in Salem and we’re working really hard to get there.

We’ve worked to allow more density near our transit lines. We’ve allowed taller buildings and with smaller setbacks, those sorts of things to try to incentivize builders to build on our transit network. That sort of thing, we’re doing all of that we can, as a city, to try to take down those barriers to development and build that housing stock we use. We have a number of tools that we can use in terms of tax incentives. And we’ve done those all over town, whether it’s downtown in our core or clear out on the edges of town. We’ve created single property urban renewal areas, which is a new thing for us, where we’re able to abate taxes for a period of time to help developments become affordable for a certain percentage of the units to be affordable, that sort of thing. So we’re really working hard pulling all the levers that we can to try to incentivize more building here in Salem.

Miller: The sense that I’ve gotten from a number of conversations about these issues is that even with a lot of levers being pulled, as as you were just talking about, we’re still looking at a long time frame before, for example, there could be a big meaningful increase in housing units which leads to either a decrease in the price of housing or a stabilization of the rate of increase to those housing units. Do you think that the public is ready for that long timeline in terms of, of seeing the fruits of this labor?

Hoy: Well, I don’t know what they’re ready for, but we didn’t get here overnight, Dave. It took us a long time to get to this place and it’s gonna take us a long time to get out of it. And given that the property tax system in Oregon is pretty broken, and so municipalities don’t have the ability to just change things overnight in terms of projects that a city or a county is funding because our tax system is very steady in terms of property tax. Which is how we fund cities and counties in Oregon. And so there isn’t some big infusion of cash that we’re gonna be able to solve this problem overnight. It’s going to take time, it’s gonna take commitment and it’s gonna take some patience. But I think that we have all of those things in place here in terms of building that capacity and getting to a good outcome. It is gonna take time now and it is gonna take some patience for sure.

Miller: Chris Hoy and Nicole Utz, thanks very much.

Hoy / Utz: Thank you.

Miller: Chris Hoy is the mayor of Salem, Nicole Utz is the administrator of the Salem Housing Authority.

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