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Earlier this month, city officials informed a Portland nonprofit that one of its three contracts to run tiny pod villages probably wouldn’t be renewed.
Instead, the city told Sunstone Way, officials had entered into contract negotiations with Urban Alchemy, a San Francisco-based shelter provider, to operate Multnomah Safe Rest Village.
The switch comes as the city takes over all the contracts for the pod villages, which are intended to provide living quarters for unhoused people as a stepping stone to apartments. Since the inception of the villages, Multnomah County has held the actual contracts with the nonprofit operators. But the city is now assuming full control of all seven pod sites, inking its own contracts with operators.
As an out-of-town operator whose entry into Portland was greeted with skepticism (“Oh My Pod,” WW, March 27, 2024), Urban Alchemy raised eyebrows with its impending takeover in Multnomah Village. But email correspondence obtained by WW shows the city was dissatisfied with how Sunstone Way had run the Multnomah Village pod site since 2022.
Sunstone Way, previously called All Good Northwest, is a nonprofit originally launched with the help of Multnomah County homeless tax dollars, which adds extra sting to the city’s critique.
In an email exchange between Sunstone Way CEO Andy Goebel and city staff last week, the two parties discussed what had gone wrong. The city alleged Sunstone Way had fallen short of the city’s expectations for accepting high-needs residents, keeping pods filled, and moving residents into apartments. Sunstone argued the city was oversimplifying the issues and Sunstone had actually excelled and nimbly navigated challenges.
The backdrop of the email exchange: a recent report by Multnomah County that showed housing placements out of city pod shelters had dropped from 57% last fiscal year to 14% in the current fiscal year.
Here are the four reasons the city laid out in an April 17 email for grading Sunstone poorly, and Sunstone’s defense of each.
Moving residents into apartments
The city wrote to Goebel that Sunstone had from July 2022 to December 2024 placed the lowest percentage of exiting pod residents into housing of any of the village contractors: Only 20% of departing clients made it into an apartment.
Goebel replied that 20% was actually a “strong outcome,” “especially when considering that this site did not receive short-term rental assistance or rapid rehousing dollars.” (City spokesman Rob Layne says Goebel misunderstood the denominator. The city meant 20% of those who exited the shelter went into units, not 20% of shelter participants moved into apartments.)
Sunstone had also subcontracted with Urban Alchemy to find housing for Clinton Triangle residents, Goebel added, and housed 130 residents. “These placements account for more than 70% of the total placements made through those programs.”
Accepting high-needs residents
The city alleged that during its fall expansion, Sunstone excluded residents seeking a pod.
The city wrote Sunstone had “conducted screening interviews for potential participants which led to denial of entry and/or the early exclusion of potential participants for reasons seemingly not consistent with the low barrier model that we are prioritizing for this shelter site.”
Goebel defended the way Sunstone turned away some hopefuls.
“We also recognize that [pod villages] are not licensed care facilities, and there are instances where it is not safe or appropriate to place someone in that environment. For example, individuals who are unable to manage their activities of daily living may require a level of support we are not equipped to provide,” Goebel wrote. City spokesman Layne says Sunstone was “told that the screening processes they used were not in line with the outcomes required of the site.”
Goebel wrote that Sunstone had pushed back against the city’s initial promise to the village’s neighbors in 2022 that the pod operator would conduct background checks on participants, a fight the nonprofit—in alliance with the Joint Office of Homeless Services—won. The city eventually dropped that request, requiring no background checks.
“This was a significant moment of advocacy for us,” Goebel reminded the city. In other words, the Sunstone CEO wrote, the city once wanted more people turned away and was now penalizing Sunstone for rejecting too many.
Keeping occupancy high
The city wrote that Sunstone fell below the city’s expectation that 90% to 95% of pods would be filled at all times.
The city also alleged that Sunstone had done fewer intakes per week than it had initially promised. “Our records indicate that intakes rarely exceeded 5 in a week and were more often fewer,” the city wrote.
Goebel wrote that the unfilled pods during the site’s expansion from 28 to 100 pods was “not the result of neglect or inaction.”
“Everyone involved understood that growing from a 28-person site to a 100-person site would take time—and more importantly, it would require careful attention to safety,” Goebel wrote. “Units were brought ‘online’ that lacked basic utilities…we could not, in good conscience, place participants into uneven units.”
Since late last year, Goebel added, occupancy has remained about 90%. Layne, however, says the village’s occupancy has “frequently been between 85% and 90% since December.”
Neighborhood relations
The city wrote that Sunstone had reneged on a pledge it had made to the neighborhood to “provide extended neighborhood ambassador engagement in the immediate area of MSRV,” which, the city wrote, “contributed to a reluctance on the part of some neighbors to trust the city of Portland, Multnomah County, and their contracted partners.”
Goebel wrote that the city had changed its anti-camping perimeter guidelines without communication, and therefore put Sunstone and its unionized workforce in a difficult position.
“When we informed the city—in our October 16, 2024, email—that this new expectation would require a renegotiation with our union, we were transparent about the challenge,” Goebel wrote. “Our union took the position that this newly expanded scope of work was no longer aligned with shelter operations.”
Goebel called the statement about poor neighborhood relations “disappointing to hear—because it does not reflect the reality on the ground. Our team has consistently shown up and remained engaged.”
The city takes issue with that argument, too. “Our position is, we had an agreement that they pulled out of, and we had to find a different group to meet that agreement.”