New overnight shelter set to open in Portland's Old Town
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson ran on a platform to end unsheltered homelessness by opening dozens of overnight-only shelters. The first one is set to open its doors Tuesday, Wilson's seventh day in office.
The new Old Town shelter, called SAFES, will offer 52 beds for adult women and will be open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. for at least the next 90 days, officials said. What will happen after that is unclear because the currently allocated funding will have run out, according to city officials.
The shelter's opening comes after the city and county allocated $750,000 late last year to quickly open 200 new overnight shelter beds. A second emergency shelter operated by the Salvation Army is expected to open with 148 beds in North Portland soon.
Opening fast, without all the details ironed out, is the best way to operate in an emergency, said Portland City Councilor Eric Zimmerman, whose district includes Old Town. Zimmerman, who served as County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards' chief of staff before being elected to the City Council in November, said he encouraged Wilson to move quickly.
"If you've got things that can open now, you should do it," Zimmerman said he told Wilson. Overnight shelters won't solve homelessness alone, Zimmerman said, "but it's a huge part of it."
At the Salvation Army shelter, dozens of metal-frame, numbered cots with cotton sheets and thin blankets, many of them quilted by hand, line the walls and fill the center of a large, dorm-style room. There is enough room between each to walk single-file and many of the cots are laid out foot-to-foot. The beds will offer a safe, dry place to sleep, said Justin Moshkowski, the Salvation Army's executive director for shelter in Multnomah County.
"This shelter is for women at risk," Moshkowski said.
People wishing to stay at the women's overnight shelter can line up at 30 S.W. Second Ave. ahead of doors opening at 7 p.m., according to the Salvation Army. The low barrier shelter will operate initially on a first-come, first-served basis, but may transition to a bed reservation system in future.
Guests will be asked their name and date of birth and have their photo taken, but will not be required to be sober or to share a government ID to access a bed. Well-behaved pets are allowed. Anyone who identifies as female or nonbinary and is 18 or older will be welcome as long as they can refrain from violent behavior and from using substances on site. (Smoking cigarettes will be allowed at certain times twice a night, according to intake paperwork shared by The Salvation Army)
A staff of three to four shelter workers will be present each night, according to Moshkowski. Hiring for permanent staff is still in process since the public funding is not guaranteed beyond the first 90 days. Both shelters will cost $40 per person per night to operate, Moshkowski said.
The new shelter is a resurrected version of an old Salvation Army women's shelter in the same building. The earlier iteration of the shelter opened in 1999 and began receiving public funding in 2008. It closed its doors in 2019 due to changes in what the nonprofit's leaders Monday called the "ebb and flow" of funding.
At the time, the county was pivoting towards a focus on 24-hour shelters with onsite services, which is not what the Old Town shelter offered. But the Salvation Army had also received complaints for its treatment of women at the shelter, including transgender women, and its application to renew its contract with the county in 2019 fell short of the score required to qualify for a county contract, according to reporting by The Oregonian/OregonLive at the time.
"Reviewers said shelter officials didn't provide adequate answers to questions about trauma that homeless women face, equity issues and how the shelter works with other organizations to help women move from the streets to permanent housing," The Oregonian/OregonLive reported in 2019.
Since that time, the Salvation Army has managed multiple county contracts and has improved its methods, said Jonathan Harvey, commander of The Salvation Army Cascade Division.
"Although disappointed by the decision in 2019, the review process allowed for valuable organizational reflection," Harvey wrote in an email Monday. "We value teaching feedback and leaned into the opportunity to further develop our systems, our personnel and our technical expertise."
The shelter's low-barrier admission policy contains a commitment to equity that states "The Salvation Army is committed to serving all individuals without discrimination based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. This policy reflects our mission to meet human needs in a lifesaving, hope-filled and compassionate manner."
Neither Wilson nor County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson were present for a tour of the new shelter Monday. The two made a joint announcement heralding the opening of the 200 new shelter beds in December. The announcement also indicated a new willingness to work together after years of discord between city and county officials over the best ways to respond to Portland's homelessness crisis.
Critics of Wilson's plan to address unsheltered homelessness by adding more than 2,000 overnight shelter beds in less than a year have said that full wrap-around services on site are needed to help people move from experiencing homelessness to living in permanent homes. Overnight only shelters typically don't offer that level of service.
But Wilson's supporters, including many in the homeless services community who have talked on background to The Oregonian/OregonLive, have said the need is so urgent that anything that can be done to provide a safe place for people living outside to sleep should be done. And though fully staffed, 24-hour shelters may be an ideal option, proponents of Wilson's plan say other types of shelter should not be ignored.
"Going away from one type of shelter because another is preferred leaves people out on the streets," Zimmerman said.
lmhughes@oregonian.com