3 Portland commissioners pull filing to end joint homelessness efforts with Multnomah County
PORTLAND, Ore. ( KOIN ) — Three Portland city commissioners officially decided Wednesday to cancel filing an ordinance to terminate their joint efforts to tackle homelessness with Multnomah County.
This comes after an Oct. 16 city council meeting in which commissioners Dan Ryan, Mingus Mapps and Rene Gonzalez signaled potentially withdrawing the city from its multi-year, $31 million contract with the county's Joint Office of Homeless Services in favor of a fresh approach which they said was because the current agreement wasn't getting the results they were looking for.
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The ordinance, jointly filed less than a week ago by the three commissioners, was originally set to be heard at the next city council meeting on Thursday.
According to a spokesperson for Commissioner Ryan, the decision to pull the ordinance from the agenda was to give the new city council, mayor and county commissioners an opportunity to all renegotiate the agreement.
Meghan Moyer , who works with Disability Rights Oregon, could become one of those members of the county commission if early results hold . She told KOIN 6 News she believes the city and county will be able to work together better under a new mayor and new city council to reduce homelessness.
"I think it is incredibly important that the newly elected, members of both go in with a desire to work collaboratively and not at cross-purposes," she said. "Because I think one of the things that this election shows us, by the fact that there are so many new faces, is that the way things have been handled was clearly defeated in this election."
Meanwhile, leading Portland mayoral candidate Keith Wilson is still holding on to his pledge that everyone who is living on the streets will at least have an indoor place to sleep overnight within a year.
"We've opened up shelters, we've proven that we can do this at a tenth of the cost the city is currently doing it at and also in a much more rapid sense," he said. "We can set up nighttime emergency shelters in 90 days and we can do this work quickly if I am the next mayor."
Mapps, Gonzalez and Rubio are also running in Portland's mayoral election, while Commissioner Ryan is looking to be on City Council for District 2 in Portland's reformed city government.
