Homeless inc. The most profitable business in town.

$97,0000 was spent per homeless person last year in Portland Metro

More than $724 million was spent on homeless services in the Portland metro area last year. The funds came from local, regional, State, and federal resources. Over $500 million was spent in Multnomah County alone. Where did the money go? According to the Joint Office of Homeless Services, which oversees the majority of the funds, the money was allocated to housing, safety, and administrative costs.

A homeless man living in a pedestrian underpass. Photo by Tara Faul

The most current homeless count in the Tri-County Portland metro area, according to the official Point in Time Count, is 7470 people who are experiencing homelessness.

I have participated in over five Point-in-Time counts, and that number is likely inflated. The actual number is likely closer to four thousand homeless people. Some communities count tents, not people, and calculate 1.5 people per tent. So, if you are on a block and count ten tents, that's 15 people. The problem is that more homeless individuals have 2-3 tents, and therefore, on a block with ten tents, there is probably no more than five people living there. I will honor the number they reported. When you divide $724 million by 7,470, you get just over $97,000 spent per homeless person.

A Portland homeless woman with recently amputated legs. Photo by Tara Faul

I went to the streets and interviewed several homeless people, asking them what they thought about that number and how they were helped. I met this homeless man in the Lloyd Center district, inside a Safeway parking garage. When I told him the number, he looked at me in disbelief. I asked him if he felt that much money had been spent on him in the last year to improve his situation. He pondered for a moment and said social service providers gave him about $50 in hot dogs.

I met this homeless woman in downtown Portland near the old Greyhound station. She's been street homeless for over five years and insists she wants off the streets, but doesn’t know how. She has firsthand experience dealing with social service providers. She states that they enable people to the point of dependency, suggesting that dependency is profitable and why they continue to do so. She said people are dying on their watch in record numbers and will continue to do so until they figure things out.

“If money were the solution, we would have solved it by now”

That is clearer than ever before. Not unexpectedly, the homeless service sector continues to request more funding. History as a guide suggests that in my community, voters will continue to fund social programs despite a substantial body of evidence that they are mainly ineffective. The reason they remain ineffective is the lack of oversight committees, measurable results, and metrics to report on any results. All the voting public knows is how much money is being spent, and if the job doesn't get done, will ignorantly approve more money until it is.

I met a homeless man who suggested that the official homeless count was lower than the 7,000 reported. He indicated that some homeless individuals get counted two/three times. This makes sense when there is no accurate way of tracking specific people. He also said the term 'homeless' is vague and budgets will often be spent on non-homeless people. I worked in the system for decades and confirm this is accurate and common practice.

Photo by Tara Faul

The most concerning part of all this is that, despite the $97k spent per homeless person over the last year, a good 90% of those living on the street shared that an outreach worker had never approached them. The most services they said they have accepted are places to eat, Harm Reduction supplies, occasional clothing, and new tents. The homeless addict in the photo below was recently released from the hospital and dropped off on this corner in North Portland. I witnessed two Harm Reduction workers hand her a drug kit. She was so out of it that she did not even look up at them. They walked away smiling, and she nodded back out.

Two addicts nodded off. Harm Reduction had delivered supplies to them minutes before

The Homeless Industrial Complex is a multi-billion-dollar industry. The fact that nearly a billion was spent in just a year in my community, yet the homeless population grew, says everything. As for solutions, our biggest current hurdle is that the very ones who got us into the crisis are paid to end this crisis. It's like paying an arsonist to put out fires.

Haunting photo of a homeless man smoking. By Tara Faul

The State, City, and County need to have strict oversight where every dollar is spent and to determine if it made a measurable difference. Currently, though, there is none, and it's deliberate. A high percentage of nonprofits have it written into their grant that they are not required to share any information on what they are doing, how they are doing it, who they helped, how they spent the money, and the difference they made.

I propose that all major Homeless non-profits commit to having oversight committees. These committees will be independent and have people from both sides of the aisle. They will have access to all data and publish a quarterly report. Here are a few non-profits that should be encouraged to do this. If they have nothing to hide, they won't have a problem doing this.

I have worked in the system long enough to know that $97,000 is not earmarked for every single homeless person. Some individuals require a much higher level of care, while others may cost very little. The problem is that this $97,000 was from last year alone. This means that about a quarter million was likely spent on each homeless person over the last 4-5 years, adjusting to budget changes that have increased every year for decades.

I have worked directly with the homeless for over thirty years. I calculate that I have also volunteered over thirty-five thousand hours in the last few decades. In 1994, my little brother ended up on the streets of Portland with a meth addiction. He nearly died, but fortunately, he was ready for change, and I moved him into my studio apartment. The day he moved in is his date of sobriety. He is now thriving. Has a house, a beautiful child, and a good job.

Jason and I. Jason is in the orange shirt

After he got into recovery housing, I decided to change my major and have devoted my life to solving the homeless crisis. I never imagined at the time that I was about to work in an incredibly dysfunctional system. New ideas were discouraged, dissenting opinions would get you demoted or worse, and your political views were strictly monitored. It sometimes felt more like a cult than an agency. I struck out for a long

Me and my coworker Sklyer working in a locked psychiatric program in 2012

time and learned a lot about what to do and what not to do. I saw firsthand how money was wasted daily. I never imagined how big budgets would grow. What was once a cause has become a multi-billion-dollar industry, and those in charge can’t be trusted. We can't necessarily fire them, so that's why I propose strict oversight.

Ask the State, the City, the county, or a provider, and each one will blame the others, stating it's not their fault. They can do this because, technically, that's accurate. Every level of government and provider plays a small part, and nobody is in charge of anyone else. When something goes wrong, they blame others, while simultaneously suggesting they did not have enough money to get the job done. Fortunately, voters in Oregon, California, and Washington rarely do their homework and have blindly funded the Homeless Industrial Complex for decades. It's also impossible to ignore the irony that NGO anti-capitalists often have substantial budgets and consistently request additional funding.

To anyone reading this who has believed for years what the Homeless Industrial Complex has wanted you to believe, but now you're having doubts, keep doing your research. Ask lots of questions. Hold them accountable. Demand results and, if necessary, vote differently. The only way change is going to happen is if we demand it.

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