Mercy Corps Executive Hired by City of Portland to Oversee Pod Shelters and Sanctioned Camps

The city of Portland has hired Mercy Corps senior executive Brandy Westerman to oversee two of the city’s homeless shelter initiatives: its seven “safe rest villages” and the larger sanctioned encampments that Mayor Ted Wheeler proposed earlier this year, one of which currently houses more than 135 people. The mayor is dubbing her the city’s “emergency humanitarian director.”

Westerman has been a senior director at Mercy Corps for five years, helping to lead the program’s humanitarian relief efforts. She worked at Mercy Corps for another 17 years, from 1999 until 2016, for much of it as director of the nonprofit’s Tajikistan relief efforts.

Westerman is taking on a daunting job at the city that’s mired in testy political discussions over the efficacy of shelters in helping people get off the streets. Wheeler convinced three of his colleagues on the City Council this spring to put tens of millions of dollars toward erecting four mass sanctioned camps across the city, each with initial capacity for 150 people. (His end goal, he made clear, was to ban daytime camping across the city.) After initial resistance from Multnomah County leaders, the county agreed to help fund the tiny pods that camp residents now sleep in at the one site built so far in Southeast Portland.

The city is calling the camps “temporary alternative shelters,” and the one in Southeast Portland as of mid-September housed 135 people in 125 tiny pods. The California-based nonprofit Urban Alchemy is managing the camp. Three more sites are funded and expected to open within the coming months, but the city hasn’t yet announced their locations.

Westerman will also oversee the seven tiny pod villages that dot the city, housing up to 60 pods apiece.