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The Clackamas County Board of Commissioners approved 20 homeless services grants last week totaling more than $7.2 million to the cities of Canby, Estacada, Gladstone, Happy Valley, Lake Oswego, Milwaukie, Molalla, Oregon City, Sandy, West Linn and Wilsonville.
The grants will fund expenditures that local elected officials have said will improve conditions in their communities. They include a food pantry in Gladstone, rent assistance in Milwaukie and a community services officer in Sandy.
“This is a monumental step,” Clackamas County Chair Tootie Smith said in a statement. “Every city is different and has unique needs, and they need the resources to respond to their own constituents. This grant program has been valuable because it’s spurred creative ideas and brought up new conversations across the county about how we can solve homelessness together.”
The relatively large distribution to constituent cities highlights a difference in the way Clackamas and Multnomah counties allocate money from the Metro supportive housing services measure, which has delivered far more revenue than economists originally predicted. (The tax is expected to raise $356.7 million in fiscal 2024, nearly $100 million more than original projections.)
Last month, WW reported that three cities in east Multnomah County—Fairview, Troutdale and Wood Village—have felt neglected by the Joint Office of Homeless Services, complaining that needs in their communities are going unmet even as the Joint Office continues to struggle to spend the money it gets from the Metro tax.
Related: East County Cities Want Some of the Cash the Joint Office of Homeless Services Cannot Spend
The Joint Office has pushed back on criticism that it’s not doing enough in east county, noting that it enjoys a strong relationship with the city of Gresham, which is far larger than the three cities expressing unhappiness.
“The Joint Office gives direct funding to the city of Gresham and to nonprofits that serve Gresham and other areas of east county,” says Julia Comnes, a spokeswoman for the Joint Office.
Comnes says the Joint Office will send $1.46 million directly to Gresham this year. (For comparison, Multnomah County’s allocation of the Metro tax dollars is a little bit more than twice Clackamas County’s, so the $7.2 million Clackamas County is sending to cities would be like the Joint Office sending out $15 million to constituent cities.)
Comnes adds that the Joint Office has also hired an east county homeless services liaison to improve coordination and delivery of services. “This first-of-its-kind position was funded with unanticipated revenue from the supportive housing services measure,” she says. “The Joint Office also devotes street outreach resources to east county.”
That outreach includes three navigation teams staffed by various nonprofits, which are working with the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office Homeless Outreach and Program Engagement Team and Housing Multnomah Now, which is concentrating on the long-term homeless camps in Thousand Acres park at the confluence of the Sandy and Columbia rivers.
Meanwhile, Adam Brown, deputy director of Clackamas County Health, Housing & Human Services, says his agency is responding directly to a strong desire from city officials to be directly involved in creating solutions.
“Our cities have been eager to understand how the county’s homeless services system addresses the needs that they see locally,” Brown says. “We see this as a huge opportunity to improve our homeless services, spur innovation and creativity to better address homelessness, and supplement often under-resourced local efforts to meet the needs of low-income households in cities.”