Thank you for all that you do. We need transparency, accountability from the non profits that run this show. Honestly it should probably just be state run.
Glad to come across this post. I have no connection to Multnomah County and have never actually dug into the Housing First orthodoxy. I simply heard about it in the usual manner, for me living in DC and working in the non profit world (not at all related to homelessness), and assumed that it had a decent enough evidence base. But this is a reminder to not take simple sounding policy solutions at face value.
Portland should have received a good lesson in why Housing First doesn’t work back in 2006 when James Chasse died after an encounter with police.
Chasse, 42, lived in a studio apartment on North Broadway. He had schizophrenia and had spent time in the now-closed Dammasch State Hospital. As you point out, many of these people need more than housing to function. They don’t stay locked up all day in their apartments or rooms. They head for the streets where, like Chasse, some citizens call the cops on them.
A couple of weeks before his deadly encounter with police, a social worker visited Chasse at his apartment to check on him. He ran out the door. A police officer accompanying the social worker asked her if he wanted him to run after Chasse. The social worker said no. Had she said yes, perhaps he would have received some help. He needed someone to make sure he stayed on his medication.
After his death, all fingers pointed at Portland police and their lack of training in handling the mentally ill. Chasse’s family received a settlement.
Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association of Portland, who is frequently quoted in the media as an expert on the homeless and mentally ill, helped produce a “documentary” on Chasse’s life called “Alien Boy.” Nowhere in this film do the media or concerned citizens or Chasse’s family and alleged friends consider that their political values might have contributed to his sad end. Nobody was to blame except the cops.
If all James Chasse needed was housing first, he would still be alive.
I forwarded your piece to Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meiran with the following letter:
Dear Commissioner Meiran:
I have been a resident of Multnomah County for most of the time I have lived in Portland. I moved here in 1977 to attend Lewis & Clark Law School. Now that I have retired from the practice of law, I am able to follow local politics more closely than ever. Among my many sources of information is Kris Olson's "Rational in Portland podcast." I was greatly impressed and encouraged by your recent appearance on the podcast, so much so that I am taking you up on your offer to contact you about matters falling within the County's purview.
Today, I am forwarding an outstanding article by freelance journalist, drug-and-alcohol counselor and homelessness consultant Kevin Dahlgren that describes why and how Multnomah County's Housing-First policy is failing the County's homeless and housed residents.
I urge you to read the piece, speak with Mr. Dahlgren and work with your fellow commissioners to remedy the flaws Mr. Dahlgren has identified. Having worked in social services for twenty-five years, he knows whereof he speaks.
Lest there be a misunderstanding as to my motives, I do not know Mr. Dahlgren and have no stake in this matter beyond that of any other Portland voter-taxpayer who long ago lost patience with local governments’ bungling of the homeless crisis.
The most frustrating aspect of this phenomenon is that it flows from the deliberate policy choices described below. One can scarcely believe rational and compassionate politicians would countenance such a state of affairs, much less preside over its creation.
To quote from Mr. Dahlgren's essay:
• Housing First will never be a success as long as there are no rules related to drug use, mandating participating in programs, and strict behavioral expectations.
• Housing First advocates believe that “People have the agency to select the supportive services they need and want.” This is also known as voluntary personalized services. Translation: Nobody placed into a Housing First model is required to work on the problems that led them to the streets or kept them on the streets.
• Staff makes minimal, if any, effort in getting a person to accept services since that goes against their belief in body autonomy— another social justice philosophy that a person has an absolute right to govern what happens to their body without external influence or coercion.
• [Progressives] successfully created a $-multi-billion industry paid for by taxes that house formally [sic] homeless individuals for life with virtually zero expectations that they’ll become self-sufficient. This is why homeless budgets always increase. New homeless are entering the system while the old homeless never leave.
• Imagine any other industry that is well funded, rewarded the more they fail, and do not share what they are doing, how they are doing it, and how long it will take to see measurable results. This is the result of a progressive government that has written a blank check to a highly profitable yet largely unsuccessful model.
I do not know who the Housing First activists are whose influence produced such a flawed system or where they derive the moral authority for their misguided social justice philosophy. However, I do not believe that a majority of the County's residents would ever vote in favor of the chaotic, ineffective and wasteful housing system Mr. Dahlgren describes in his article. It is long past time to show the architects of the current Housing First system the door and replace them with knowledgeable, experienced and qualified individuals who are not compromised by an unworkable and antisocial philosophy.
It is designed to.
https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/1064729/Gessner_georgetown_0076M_15195.pdf?sequence=1
Where are these motels?
Thank you for all that you do. We need transparency, accountability from the non profits that run this show. Honestly it should probably just be state run.
Glad to come across this post. I have no connection to Multnomah County and have never actually dug into the Housing First orthodoxy. I simply heard about it in the usual manner, for me living in DC and working in the non profit world (not at all related to homelessness), and assumed that it had a decent enough evidence base. But this is a reminder to not take simple sounding policy solutions at face value.
Portland should have received a good lesson in why Housing First doesn’t work back in 2006 when James Chasse died after an encounter with police.
Chasse, 42, lived in a studio apartment on North Broadway. He had schizophrenia and had spent time in the now-closed Dammasch State Hospital. As you point out, many of these people need more than housing to function. They don’t stay locked up all day in their apartments or rooms. They head for the streets where, like Chasse, some citizens call the cops on them.
A couple of weeks before his deadly encounter with police, a social worker visited Chasse at his apartment to check on him. He ran out the door. A police officer accompanying the social worker asked her if he wanted him to run after Chasse. The social worker said no. Had she said yes, perhaps he would have received some help. He needed someone to make sure he stayed on his medication.
After his death, all fingers pointed at Portland police and their lack of training in handling the mentally ill. Chasse’s family received a settlement.
Jason Renaud of the Mental Health Association of Portland, who is frequently quoted in the media as an expert on the homeless and mentally ill, helped produce a “documentary” on Chasse’s life called “Alien Boy.” Nowhere in this film do the media or concerned citizens or Chasse’s family and alleged friends consider that their political values might have contributed to his sad end. Nobody was to blame except the cops.
If all James Chasse needed was housing first, he would still be alive.
I forwarded your piece to Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meiran with the following letter:
Dear Commissioner Meiran:
I have been a resident of Multnomah County for most of the time I have lived in Portland. I moved here in 1977 to attend Lewis & Clark Law School. Now that I have retired from the practice of law, I am able to follow local politics more closely than ever. Among my many sources of information is Kris Olson's "Rational in Portland podcast." I was greatly impressed and encouraged by your recent appearance on the podcast, so much so that I am taking you up on your offer to contact you about matters falling within the County's purview.
Today, I am forwarding an outstanding article by freelance journalist, drug-and-alcohol counselor and homelessness consultant Kevin Dahlgren that describes why and how Multnomah County's Housing-First policy is failing the County's homeless and housed residents.
I urge you to read the piece, speak with Mr. Dahlgren and work with your fellow commissioners to remedy the flaws Mr. Dahlgren has identified. Having worked in social services for twenty-five years, he knows whereof he speaks.
Lest there be a misunderstanding as to my motives, I do not know Mr. Dahlgren and have no stake in this matter beyond that of any other Portland voter-taxpayer who long ago lost patience with local governments’ bungling of the homeless crisis.
The most frustrating aspect of this phenomenon is that it flows from the deliberate policy choices described below. One can scarcely believe rational and compassionate politicians would countenance such a state of affairs, much less preside over its creation.
To quote from Mr. Dahlgren's essay:
• Housing First will never be a success as long as there are no rules related to drug use, mandating participating in programs, and strict behavioral expectations.
• Housing First advocates believe that “People have the agency to select the supportive services they need and want.” This is also known as voluntary personalized services. Translation: Nobody placed into a Housing First model is required to work on the problems that led them to the streets or kept them on the streets.
• Staff makes minimal, if any, effort in getting a person to accept services since that goes against their belief in body autonomy— another social justice philosophy that a person has an absolute right to govern what happens to their body without external influence or coercion.
• [Progressives] successfully created a $-multi-billion industry paid for by taxes that house formally [sic] homeless individuals for life with virtually zero expectations that they’ll become self-sufficient. This is why homeless budgets always increase. New homeless are entering the system while the old homeless never leave.
• Imagine any other industry that is well funded, rewarded the more they fail, and do not share what they are doing, how they are doing it, and how long it will take to see measurable results. This is the result of a progressive government that has written a blank check to a highly profitable yet largely unsuccessful model.
I do not know who the Housing First activists are whose influence produced such a flawed system or where they derive the moral authority for their misguided social justice philosophy. However, I do not believe that a majority of the County's residents would ever vote in favor of the chaotic, ineffective and wasteful housing system Mr. Dahlgren describes in his article. It is long past time to show the architects of the current Housing First system the door and replace them with knowledgeable, experienced and qualified individuals who are not compromised by an unworkable and antisocial philosophy.
Sincerely . . .
Good article. I wrote the commissioner last week about my pessimism about her plan.
Well written and succinct. Forwarded to my district's County Commissioner.