As the city of Portland, Oregon, clawed its way out of the pandemic, it faced a new set of crises: The city’s homeless population was growing. Tents lined some city blocks. High-powered business associations held press conferences demanding the city remove homeless people and touted self-funded surveys saying that without action, businesses and residents would flee the city.
By late spring 2021, the city committed to a new strategy that then-Mayor Ted Wheeler said would “reprioritize public health and safety among homeless Portlanders,” ultimately allocating $1.3 billion by the end of 2024.
But although the city spent roughly $200,000 per homeless resident throughout that time, deaths of homeless people recorded in the county quadrupled, climbing from 113 in 2019 to more than 450 in 2023, according to the most recent data from the Multnomah County Health Department. The rise in deaths far outpaces the growth in the homeless population, which was recorded at 6,300 by a 2023 county census, a number most agree is an undercount. The county began including newly available state death records in its 2022 report, which added about 60 deaths to the yearly tolls.
I said this in another thread about this article: They’re just flatly dividing the 1.3 billion total budget that was allocated over the years by the 6,300 number of homeless counted in 2023.
This budget likely includes programs serving homeless populations as a whole and its staffing, administration, etc. Given the time period this likely includes program funding that started, and then ended, with special funding local health juridictions recieved during covid.
Source: worked in the region in question in a local health juridiction through covid. Cutting programs and keeping police sweeps didn’t help the homeless but it tended to satiate the local businesses and residences impactes.