County Asks For ‘Open Referral’ System Across Homeless Shelters

Just as regional leaders learned about a forecasted $104 million budget shortfall in Multnomah County’s Homeless Services Department this week, county commissioners sought clarification on how homeless individuals are able to access shelter services, citing concerns over the “opaqueness” of the process.

“As I was out talking to both individuals who were seeking shelter but also who were being served in our shelters, one thing that came up frequently was that individuals who were in adjacent neighborhoods, who were houseless in that particular community around a shelter, didn’t actually have access to the shelter,” Multnomah County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards said during Thursday’s board meeting. “There’s a frustration that they weren’t having access to the shelter or the services that were being provided in various parts of the city – in my case, Southeast Portland.”

Connecting To Services

The By Name List released last month showed 5,394 people experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

Representatives from the Homeless Services Department (HSD), until recently known as the Joint Office of Homeless Services, explained that the county’s homeless services system is divided into four main systems of care: families, youth, adults and survivors of domestic and sexual violence. There is also a smaller system to serve veterans.

“They all have different shelter referrals policies,” Anna Plumb, deputy director of HSD, said.

Plumb explained that open referrals, where anyone can refer themselves or another person, are available at congregate shelter locations, where multiple adults are assigned to sleep per room and sometimes in more private areas, as well as at alternative shelters like pods located in safe rest villages. Other facilities operate on a closed referral system: at motels repurposed into shelters, vulnerable populations with chronic medical issues are prioritized and are generally referred through congregate shelter locations and culturally specific and other internal pathways. For safety purposes, the locations of shelters for survivors of domestic and sexual violence are not posted, and referrals to these shelters are made through a variety of pathways, including crisis lines.

Barriers To Entry

Within the shelter system, however, there exist exclusions: Some shelters require abstinence from alcohol and controlled substances, for example.

“I think there’s another important component to this that wasn’t talked about today – that these different programs have different exclusion policies, and different lengths of exclusions, and those have a really significant impact on people’s ability to access those shelters,” Commissioner Shannon Singleton said.

The shelter referrals presentation served as an opportunity for new commissioners to be brought up to speed on the current state of homelessness response in the county. Singleton worked previously in homeless services in Portland and had detailed feedback for the programs as they continue to evolve.

She suggested ways to close the referral gap between providers and those in need of shelter.

“Because we have a large number in Multnomah County of unsheltered families,” Singleton said, “I would love for us to make sure all outreach workers are equipped to do that (intake) assessment, so that when they are coming across families they can refer into those programs, as opposed to having folks call 211.”

In addition, she suggested prioritizing feedback from those who received shelter services.

“As this process moves forward and you’re doing the assessment, (we need to) understand what the feedback is from the youth that are accessing these shelters, and what the referral process feels like for them. And if it’s effective. I’d say that for every population, to really understand what the participant feedback is.”

After a discussion on collecting data about where shelter-seekers had previously stayed, Singleton emphasized the importance of a holistic approach to homeless services.

“I’m very much less interested in where folks are coming from to shelter, and more interested in how they're getting out of that shelter,” she said. “I want to state very clearly, not everyone has to go through shelter to get back into housing. It is vital that we have a lens toward what outreach work can do, and make sure that we’re resourcing those folks so that they can do housing placement and/or get folks into temporary stays in hotels and motels as a part of that work. So when we talk about shelter, I’m always thinking about the gentleman who might want to stay in the same neighborhood, and may be a right fit (with) an outreach worker as opposed to a congregate shelter or an alternative shelter.

“Overall, when we think about the shelter components, it’s going to be really important to me when we’re examining which type and mix off shelters to fund and provide in light of some of the budget scenario that we’re looking at, that we keep our eye on the need to get folks out of shelter.

"It is important that we don’t just warehouse people. If we don’t have pathways out of shelter, we have not ended homelessness. People are still homeless when they’re in shelter. I really hope we can find that right balance.”