Opinion: Portland should use city tax dollars to clear city streets
Opinion: Portland should use city tax dollars to clear city streets
“Homelessness in Portland and Multnomah County is getting worse, and it’s time for local elected officials to acknowledge that the city-county Joint Office of Homeless Services is a failure. The Portland City Council should immediately stop sending city tax dollars to this growing bureaucracy and put this funding – $45 million this year alone – to more effective use.
Created in 2016 to coordinate the city and county’s efforts on homelessness, this agency now includes at least nine people with six-figure salaries, according to the Oregonian/OregonLive’s 2021 salary database.The office has a staff of 96 and a budget of $262 million for fiscal year 2023 – double the 45 full-time positions and $135 million budget of just two years ago. That $262 million, much of it doled out to nonprofit partners, amounts to roughly $50,000 for each of the 5,228 people living without permanent housing in Multnomah County. When people talk of a “homeless industrial complex,” they are describing the Joint Office of Homeless Services.”