Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative at Portland State University

A new report by Dr. Alex Farrington, Ph.D., Colleen Carroll, Azad Amir-Ghassemi, Safia Goldsmith, and Dr. Lisa K. Bates was featured in Local Housing Solutions, a housing policy platform managed by NYU Furman Center's Housing Solutions Lab. The report, "Beyond the Shadow of Large Cities: Small and Mid-Sized Cities as Hidden Epicenters of Eviction," is part of the Evicted in Oregon project led by Dr. Bates and received funding support from the Furman Center.

HRAC Assistant Director Jacen Greene co-authored an article with Todd Ferry, Frankie Spurbeck, and Emily Leickly in the Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness. The article compares the capital and operating costs of village, motel, and congregate homelessness shelters in the Portland region. The data were from a project for the Multnomah County Homeless Services Department. Special thanks to Claudia Sharygin and Doc Ramblings for their support of the original project!

HRAC Assistant Director Jacen Greene was interviewed by KPTV Fox 12 Oregon for a segment on increasing homelessness among families with children. “We know we’re seeing the effects of a huge housing shortage here in Oregon,” Greene said. “We have a critical lack of affordable and available housing units. And as housing prices go up, as rent goes up, we’re seeing more and more families and youth who are being pushed into homelessness as a result.”

Efforts to add shelter beds in Portland have paid off, with a 24% increase in sheltered homelessness. "It’s definitely good news. When you see sheltered numbers going up, that means there are more people in shelters who would otherwise be out living on the street or in a car or in a tent.. Across the state, we have fewer than half as many shelter beds as we need... And of course, a shelter bed doesn’t fix homelessness." ResearcherJacen Greene, assistant director and co-founder of Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative at Portland State University, spoke with Oregon Business magazine about the just-released 2024 homelessness study. They talked about about racial disparities, the Magnet Myth, and the impact of homelessness on the economy. Read the conversation: https://lnkd.in/gavd-qcv

From the ongoing shortage of affordable housing to the complexities of mental health and addiction, Portland’s homelessness crisis is a multifaceted dilemma that defies simple solutions. But at PSU, researchers, faculty and students have been making inroads by studying solutions and providing community resources that put the issues driving homelessness into context and uncover ways to reduce harm and improve outcomes for people experiencing it. Read more about the ways PSU is impacting homelessness locally, and beyond:?https://lnkd.in/gWjeF6kZ

OPB's coverage of the housing crisis in Oregon draws on research led by our colleague Dr. Lisa K. Bates at the Evicted in Oregon project. "In 2019, landlords filed an average of more than 1,500 eviction cases each month. [...] Last year, it jumped to nearly 2,300 cases and twice surpassed 2,600, according to Evicted in Oregon, a Portland State University group that researches evictions." "Wages haven’t kept up with the increasing cost of rent. One in four Oregon households today spend more than half of their total income on rent, and more than 85% of eviction filings since October 2022 have been due to people not paying rent."

The 2025 Point-In-Time Count starts tonight! Center Director Dr. Marisa Zapata was quoted by The Oregonian / OregonLive.com in an article on the count: “The count offers a temperature check about the number of people unhoused in a location and their demographic information,” said Marisa Zapata, director of the homelessness research and action collaborative at Portland State University, which leads the effort. “While (it) is an undercount, it provides real information about real people experiencing homelessness. And that means something.”

Portland State University has released the 2024 statewide homelessness report. This report details findings from the annual Point in Time count, a federally required census of individuals experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness. A few key findings included: -Unsheltered homelessness increased by 16% -Almost 2,500 shelter beds were added statewide for a 32% increase -17 of 36 counties increased shelter capacity To read the full report, visit https://lnkd.in/gkJyeSGb.

The Point in Time Count (PITC) is in just a few weeks - would you like to volunteer with us? The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) requires communities that receive Continuum of Care (CoC) funding to conduct a Point in Time Count (PITC). Starting in 2023 Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington Counties have collaboratively endeavored to conduct a Tri-County coordinated PITC to fulfill this requirement. HRAC contributed to all phases of the 2023 Tri-County PITC and is again collaborating with the counties for all phases of the 2025 PITC. The tri-county PITC will take place January 23 to 29, 2025. We are eager to have volunteers from the community who would like to support the count join us in our enumeration efforts. We will work with volunteers to provide them with a "site assignment" -- most often at sites where services are provided and where the survey can be administered at that site.?A 90-min training, held via Zoom, is required prior to administering the PITC survey. Interested volunteers can fill out this form: https://lnkd.in/g2Zdhj5p Organizations and outreach workers who would like to be involved in the PITC this year, but have not heard from the PSU team yet, can reach out to [email protected] to connect about participating in the PITC in a few weeks.

OPB's Think Out Loud interviewed Dr. Anna Rockhill, lead researcher on our recent Project Turnkey report, about this program that converts motels into shelters. "A recent report from Portland State University’s Homeless Research & Action Collaborative found that several measures of a resident’s quality of life, such as their ability to get enough rest, access food and make progress toward their goals, improved after their stay at a Turnkey site. However, it also found that more than half of residents returned to either unsheltered homelessness or an emergency shelter after their stay." https://lnkd.in/gKjPhUqc