The city of Eugene helps run several types of homeless shelters and services along with Lane County and other partners. The city has cobbled together funds to keep them running until June 2025. After that, the city will have to figure out how to keep some services going that currently rely on one-time funds. Meanwhile, Eugene has already made budget cuts to some services, like its libraries, to prioritize other emergency needs. We learn more about Eugene’s approach to funding homeless services with Kelly McIver, a communications manager for the city.
This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The city of Eugene helps run several types of homeless shelters and services these days. It’s cobbled together with money, some of it one-time funds, that’s going to keep these services running through June of next year. But after that, the city is going to have to figure out a new way to pay for these shelters. Meanwhile, Eugene has already made budget cuts to other services to prioritize emergency needs. Kelly McIver is a communications manager for the city’s unhoused response. He joins us with the details on Eugene’s approach to funding homeless services. Kelly McIver, welcome to Think Out Loud.
Kelly McIver: Thank you, Dave.
Miller: I want to start with the big picture. How much of a change has there been in terms of the role that cities play in responding to homelessness?
McIver: Well, there has been a big change. As this crisis has grown across our region, cities have had to step out of their normal role, where they would be providing services that people are used to, like libraries, police, fire, parks, things like that, and get more into response to homelessness. Traditionally, that is something that falls under Oregon statute and tradition in our country, to counties to handle health and human services including homelessness. But obviously, the scale and scope of what we see in terms of homelessness in our region requires cities to step up and be more involved in ways that they haven’t been in the past. And that’s certainly been true in Eugene in the last few years.
Miller: If this is not something that cities have historically focused on, what kinds of challenges have come just from that fact?
McIver: Well, the fact that cities don’t typically have offices and staffs that do this kind of work. Standing up shelters, overseeing the operation of shelters, applying services for the unhoused. These are all things that are a bit new to cities, and cities have had to spin up parts of their operation to be able to work in those areas, and to get different and better partnerships with nonprofits, with the counties, and with the state, and really try to do everything that they can to be effective, but at the same time, not duplicate efforts that are happening elsewhere.
Miller: There have been, at various times, tensions in the Portland area between the city of Portland and Multnomah County. We’ve heard less actually about what that looks like with the city of Eugene or other Lane County cities. What have those partnerships been like? And what are the challenges like?
McIver: Well, the city works very hard to have a very good partnership with Lane County. So, first of all, we’re all folks that live and work here in our area, most of us for a long time, and we have a great appreciation for living here and working here, and a real commitment to trying to have government that works for folks here in our city. And we work with those folks all the time. So we try to be very positive in that regard. We’re all aware that there’s going to be tension when you have too many needs and too little resources to go around. Except for that tension though, we try to be complimentary with one another. We know that the county has a charge that they are operating under from the federal government in terms of the kind of things that they need to prioritize. And the city has some demands on it from its residents, in terms of trying to keep our community safe and accessible and livable. And we try to work together in that way, and I think we do a good job of that in trying to be mutually supportive.
Miller: Does the public care at all about these jurisdictional challenges?
McIver: That’s a great question, and no, I don’t think that they really do. I think people recognize that wherever they’re living, they want to see things be safe and healthy, and they want folks who have needs to get those needs taken care of as much as possible. Folks really aren’t seeing those invisible lines about whose jurisdiction is where, or which agencies have traditionally been responsible for different kinds of services. And we need to be conscious of that. That’s why it’s important to work together and try to take advantage of any possible funding that’s out there, whether that is coming from local taxes, or funding that is passed through from the state or from the federal government.
Miller: What has the city focused on in terms of homeless services or sites?
McIver: The city’s focus has really been around shelter. So one of the things that we saw happen at the outset of the pandemic was, because of the public health regulations that changed and the requirements that had to be put into place for everyone’s safety, the capacity of some of our congregate shelters in Eugene went down. You just can’t have as many people in an enclosed space as in the pre-pandemic times. And that really affected how many people could get help, and how many people could be off the streets. The city really dove in and applied some of the one-time funds that were coming from the state and the federal government around pandemic relief to try to spin up more shelter opportunities locally.
And we’ve seen, as the last couple of years have progressed, how important that is. Even though I think everyone agrees that the long-term solution around this is having more housing available, having affordable housing, having permanent supportive housing available for people in need, that takes a lot of money. It takes a lot of time. It’s very complicated to get that off the ground and to get those facilities open. We have under-built a bit in terms of that kind of housing for our area. So shelter is something that can help much more quickly, and it doesn’t cost nearly as much. It’s still expensive, but it doesn’t cost the same that getting permanent housing up does. And so that’s where the city has put its focus, in trying to get folks off the street, trying to get them into a situation where they can receive services when they’re in a safe location, get enrolled into the county service system, and have a better opportunity to get on a track that’s going to stabilize their lives.
Miller: If congregate shelters were a challenge because of pandemic era restrictions, what kinds of shelter options did you focus on?
McIver: We really took a look at what was going to be something that would be successful and that people would be receptive to. We know that we have a couple of facilities that have been those traditional drop-in shelters, congregate setup where you have multiple people in slightly larger spaces. We needed to look at something during that COVID area, where people were going to be able to be in their own location, with kind of a safe, contained spot, but then also trying to be efficient as possible in terms of the number of folks that you could serve. And so that’s where our Safe Sleep Site concept was born. We talked with nonprofits, we talked with folks with lived experience and people who were experiencing homelessness currently, and worked on the kinds of things that people really wanted to see, and the things that were going to really help people start to build a sense of community in those places, and start to be able to feel a sense of safety, be able to feel good about connecting with the resources that are out there to get them help that they need.
And that’s been real successful. We’ve developed a variety of different shelter types that have different numbers of folks, [different] locations, [different] dwellings that people are in, from pallet shelters to tiny home type structures, to individual tents within a larger structure. We have a number of different options, and so we feel like there’s a good chance to get a fit for people, and also take advantage and be as efficient as we can be in each of those different locations. And then put more money toward services that are there that are the real key about getting outreach to folks and getting them on toward the kind of things that are going to help them stabilize.
Miller: When you add it all up, how many new units or beds are there?
McIver: Within that COVID period, when the city stood up its unhoused response, we were able to create about 250 new spaces. And that has grown a little bit as some of the sites that were opened gradually got their feet under them, expand a bit. And we have been in a constant state of development with those things. So none of this is standing still, none of this is just standing pat. We have continued to take lessons learned and try to continue to evolve those different shelter locations, to get them to work better together and be complementary, so that as we find that maybe there are some folks who have a better fit in one shelter than another, we’re able to get folks transferred between those more efficiently. Getting shelter providers together in a consortium format to be able to kind of make the best use of their limited resources as nonprofits, take advantage, with the city’s help, of some greater buying power, being able to help with some administrative things. It all makes those limited dollars go farther.
Hopefully, it’s about that sense of community, that good fit for people, so that the folks who are really interested in wanting to take those steps, have a way to do that, and then get on toward that permanent housing that we know that the county and other agencies are working so hard to try to provide.
Miller: My understanding is that most of the sites that the city operates don’t qualify for state funding. Is that right?
McIver: That is not quite right. The all-in funding effort that was started by Governor Kotek last year, a large funding package that came out of the state and then was distributed out by the counties locally, many of our sites have been able to take advantage of the all-in funds. We had a tranche of those last year, and then we’re expecting another chunk of funding that will come here sometime pretty soon in the next couple of months. And that’s what we’re counting on to keep our operations rolling through June 30th of 2025. Most of those Safe Sleep Sites, we’ve been able to apply that funding toward those.
Some of the things that came out of the legislative short session that just ended, our sites won’t qualify for. And really, this is a case where, like I said, there’s so many needs all across the state, limited funds, decisions have to get made. We understand that. And it is possible that we won’t see much of the funding that comes out of that most recent funding effort. But still, we’re very hopeful that through the all-in funding that comes from Lane County passed down from the state, and the other one-time sources that we still have available, we’re going to be able to stretch things out to get to that end of the biennium in 2025.
Miller: And then what? What kinds of conversations are happening right now in terms of July 1st of 2025? It’s not that far away.
McIver: That is the million-dollar question, and then some. Conversations continue all across the state. And our local legislative delegation, led by House Speaker, Representative Fahey, have been very invested in this. And I know the governor’s office is very invested in it as well, in trying to make sure that this conversation is front and center in the state. It’s something that all our communities are asking about. Cities just don’t have the resources to be able to pick all this up by ourselves. And it is something that takes a statewide effort. We’re hoping that that’s going to be a real key as the next legislative session starts to get going. We’re going to need some assistance that is going to allow Eugene and other communities like it to continue the good work that’s been happening, and that hopefully we don’t have to face potentially closing shelter sites that work and turning people back out to the streets. We know that we still have too many people who haven’t been able to access shelters because of the limited amount of spaces that are available. And we want to add to those opportunities for people, not remove the ones that have been working.
Miller: Kelly McIver, thanks very much.
McIver: Thank you.
Miller: Kelly McIver is the communications manager for unhoused response at the city of Eugene.
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