The need for a better first response on Portland streets

Portland knows its response to street homelessness is inadequate, but does it know how to fix it? Portland knows it has a problem: Every day, costly police resources are dispatched again and again to handle low-priority calls for service involving people experiencing homelessness and behavioral health issues on Portland’s streets. One Neighborhood Response Team officer reported spending 90 percent of a typical day responding to citizen reports of homelessness in a survey of city staff that Portland State University students recently conducted. These aren’t the calls police officers joined the force to answer, and much of the time, these calls don’t warrant a response involving a badge and a gun. And it’s not just police. The same survey, and its resulting report, found city employees working for other bureaus, including Portland Parks and Recreation, Bureau of Development Services and Portland Bureau of Transportation, as well as at City Hall, find themselves working on issues around homelessness anywhere from 15 minutes to eight hours per day. Some reported that time is spent working on policy planning and service coordination, but the most common tasks involved rule enforcement. The report’s authors, then-graduate students at PSU’s School of Social Work, Kathleen Evans, who… Read full this story

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