Pendleton leaders tour Portland homelessness programs

In an effort to learn more about how to address homelessness, Pendleton leaders visited Portland last week.

Pendleton Mayor McKennon McDonald toured the state’s largest city with a specific focus on studying the Portland Solutions program and taking back lessons to Eastern Oregon. McDonald said she and other Pendleton officials are now tasked with figuring out how to translate the major population center’s homelessness response to a town with about 17,000 residents and far fewer resources.

Debate over a rise in visible homelessness in Pendleton has become increasingly public, shaping policy discussions and local elections. During community meetings, Portland is often held up as a cautionary tale, a place where services and policies fuel homelessness.

“I think the thing with Portland is we were able to see how things work in a much larger system, and now we have to be able to scale it down to what our needs are and the needs of our population,” McDonald said in an interview with OPB. “I think at this point in time, all options are on the table for the city.”

McDonald said Pendleton officials have visited other communities closer to home to study their responses to homelessness. But they committed to making the 400-mile round trip to Portland after the city’s mayor, Keith Wilson, personally invited them to tour Portland Solutions, a hub for programs aimed at curbing homelessness. McDonald was joined in the tour by Pendleton Library Director Jennifer Johnson, who chairs the city’s homelessness subcommittee.

McDonald said she and Johnson accompanied Portland Solutions staff as they removed encampments, met with Wilson and Portland Solutions Director Skyler Brocker-Knapp to go over the city’s coordination efforts, and visited two services for unhoused Portlanders: the Clinton Triangle City Shelter Site and the NW Glisan Oasis Day Center.

McDonald said she was especially impressed with Portland’s data collection operation – the city is able to track everything from the number of tents to family reunifications – and the level of cooperation between Portland and its various service providers.

“Getting community partners to work together can always be a challenge,” she said. “But it’s possible to do it. I think for us, it’s continuing to push to be able to talk to our community partners who have more of a direct role in this than the city.”

Cody Bowman, a spokesman for Wilson’s office, wrote in an email that the Portland mayor regularly meets with elected officials from across the region and country to talk about homelessness.

“Urban and rural communities face different pressures, but both benefit from sharing strategies, strengthening partnerships, and coordinating regional responses,” he wrote.

Portland city officials declined OPB’s request to join the tour.

McDonald said she knows that not everything about Portland’s homelessness response will work in Pendleton.

Unlike Pendleton, Portland maintains hundreds of shelter beds. In comparison, Pendleton hosts a seasonal warming shelter and a transitional housing complex, but no year-round overnight shelter.

Elected in 2024, Wilson ran on a campaign of reducing homelessness by opening more overnight shelters to get people off the streets. However, the plan was dealt a setback over the summer after the Portland City Council agreed to close several shelters as a part of significant budget cuts.

Wilson has also come into conflict with Multnomah County, which released data earlier this year showing that homelessness has risen since he took office. Wilson has disputed the data.

Pendleton has its own contentious politics around homelessness.

In May, four Pendleton City Council candidates backed by local business ousted incumbents in city elections. All four were endorsed by a community group that favors a more aggressive approach to enacting city codes targeting Pendleton’s unhoused residents or limiting where new service providers can operate.

McDonald said she knows local political change is coming and she’s committed to working with the new council.

“I don’t think we have an option to do nothing,” she said.

The courts could also play a role in the future of Pendleton’s homelessness policy. In 2025, a group of unhoused Pendleton residents sued the city, alleging that Pendleton’s rules around public sleeping or resting are unfair, hard to follow and leave unsheltered people with few places to sleep at night.

Following months of negotiation, the Pendleton City Council rejected a settlement offer in June. Both sides are now due in Umatilla County Circuit Court later this month as a judge decides whether to grant a preliminary injunction to suspend the city’s public camping policies while the case is being litigated.