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1 month ago | 
oregonlive.com | Austin De Dios |Lillian Hughes
The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners agreed Thursday to move forward with Chair Jessica Vega Pederson’s proposed budget, while signaling their intent to seek significant changes. The $4 billion plan would eliminate staff positions, deeply reduce health and homeless services, cut the District Attorney’s Office budget and end three programs. Commissioners voted 4-1 to provide preliminary approval of the budget Thursday, with Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards voting no.
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2 months ago | 
oregonlive.com | Lillian Hughes |Julia Silverman
In 2023, Oregon lawmakers outlined a plan to open up to nine specialized high schools, called recovery schools, for students working to overcome addiction. The bill, signed by Gov. Tina Kotek, authorized funding for three recovery schools in 2023 and allowed for offering three additional competitive grants this year.
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Feb 16, 2025 | 
oregonlive.com | Lillian Hughes |Shane Dixon Kavanaugh
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson ran on a platform to end unsheltered homelessness by rapidly increasing the city’s overnight-only shelter capacity and more firmly enforcing its anti-camping laws. Just over six weeks into his time in office, the mayor has already helped open 200 new overnight shelter beds and announced 50 addiction recovery beds that are due to become available soon.
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Feb 16, 2025 | 
oregonlive.com | Shane Dixon Kavanaugh |Lillian Hughes
It had already been a long week when Portland City Councilors Candace Avalos, Tiffany Koyama Lane and Angelita Morillo arrived at a dinner arranged by Mayor Keith Wilson on a Thursday night. He had chosen the Olive Garden near Mall 205 in east Portland. If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation.
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Jan 23, 2025 | 
oregonlive.com | Lillian Hughes
An effort to renew and extend the Metro homeless services tax is now headed for a potential referral to the November ballot, six months later than the regional government had originally planned hoped to put it in front of voters.
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Jan 22, 2025 | 
oregonlive.com | Lillian Hughes |Jamie Goldberg
The Metro regional government is expected to drop its efforts to place a revamp of its homeless services tax on the May ballot and instead work to get a proposed ballot measure in front of voters in November. “That’s probably where the council will head, to wait a couple more months to make sure we’ve dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s,” Metro Council President Lynn Peterson told The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board on Wednesday.
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Jan 22, 2025 | 
oregonlive.com | Lillian Hughes |Shane Dixon Kavanaugh
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson on Wednesday unveiled the multi-million dollar price tag for his signature initiative to end unsheltered homelessness within a year. Wilson said it would cost just over $28 million to achieve his goal of expanding the city’s network of homeless shelters to add 1,500 overnight-only beds by Dec. 1 and open four day centers.
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Jan 22, 2025 | 
oregonlive.com | Lillian Hughes
The point-in-time count to satisfy federal funding requirements for homeless services will take place in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties starting Thursday night. Long the only estimate of how many homeless people were living – sheltered and unsheltered – in any given region of the country, the bi-annual census is generally considered to be an undercount.
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Jan 21, 2025 | 
oregonlive.com | Lillian Hughes
A coalition of housing services providers, business leaders and community groups that support the renewal of Metro’s homeless services tax plan to ask the regional government to delay referring an extension and revision of the measure to the May ballot. “Where we continue to negotiate is around the tax package that gets all of us there together,” said Angela Martin, director of Here Together, a political advocacy group focused on ending homelessness.
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Jan 11, 2025 | 
oregonlive.com | Lillian Hughes
At 6:30 p.m. on Thursday evening, about 11 people were lined up along the wall of the Salvation Army’s newly reopened overnight women’s shelter in Old Town. It was 43 degrees and dark. Most of the women were huddled in big coats against the chill, hands in pockets, noses in collars. One lay on the cement sidewalk, her head propped on her backpack, her eyes closed. Another walked back and forth, presumably to keep warm, a blanket slung over her shoulders.
