Portland mayoral candidate Ted Wheeler announced Friday that if he's elected he’ll increase the number of shelter beds in the city by the end of his second year in office.
"I’m going to make sure that we have enough shelter beds in our city so that everybody that’s currently living on the street has the option of living inside,” Wheeler told OPB. “I see this as a moral imperative for this community. We have way too many people living and dying on our streets and that’s unacceptable to me.”
Wheeler said Portland needs somewhere between 1,200 and 2,000 additional shelter beds. Based on other projects around the region, Wheeler estimates it could cost about $21 million.
“It doesn’t all have to be government resources," he said. "We can leverage the faith, the business, the nonprofits around the region to help us with this. I think we can do this in a very cost effective manor," said Wheeler.
Wheeler said right now there are about 750 emergency shelter beds in Multnomah County. There are an additional 200 beds during the winter.
But a recent survey of homeless people found there were about 1,900 people in the metro area sleeping on the streets.