Portland's new director of health and human services is finding her footing
Nov. 11—Portland's new director of health and human services is homing in on homelessness and substance abuse as some of the biggest issues facing the city.
In an interview last month, Maggie McLoughlin praised the work her department already does but said it's too early to lay out her hopes going forward.
McLoughlin was hired over the summer after a lengthy search. The previous director, Kristen Dow, stepped down last fall after 18 years with the city and nearly four years as director.
Health and Human Services is one of the city's most important departments and oversees the Social Services, Public Health and Elder Services divisions as well as the Barron Center, the city's long-term care and rehabilitation facility.
McLoughlin moved to Portland from Nigeria, where she worked with Mercy Corps, a humanitarian aid organization operating in regions that have experienced political instability. She spent a decade working in Africa in Uganda, Timor-Leste, Congo, Laos, Kenya and South Africa.
She's been on the job three months now and said her focus has been on meeting with staff and city councilors to listen and learn about their work.
"I'm impressed across the board," McLoughlin said. "This team is so willing to put work in. There's always going to be more we can do, and we're never going to get it perfect, but the willingness to engage is there."
McLoughlin said, principally, she views her role as carrying out the will of the City Council, whether that be continuing operations of the city's shelters or getting newly approved projects off the ground — like the recently approved needle buy-back program, a new day space for homeless people and an on-peninsula methadone clinic that will offer treatment for opioid addiction.
At this stage, she said, those projects are still just getting started and she couldn't provide a timeline for when they may be up and running.
The department has put out a request for proposals for operating the day space and methadone clinic, including where they will be located. She said preference will be given to organizations that can offer their own space. For the first year, those programs are being funded by opioid settlements, but after that, financing plans are murky. McLoughlin said the hope is to find a local partner who will eventually be able to take over the new projects, including funding them for years to come.
In the meantime, operating the existing shelters is a top priority for the department. While the city's family shelter and shelter for asylum seekers are both full, McLoughlin said that lately, the city homeless shelter in Riverside has had a handful of beds open each night.
The city's Housing Opportunities for People in Encampments program, a housing-first program that started up early this year, has been largely on hold due to a federal housing voucher freeze. In the meantime, McLoughlin said staff have been trying to come up with creative solutions, such as moving people who had been staying at the city shelter for a long time into Winter Landing, an affordable housing development downtown.
Aside from the pressing issues of homelessness and substance use, McLoughlin hopes the department can make progress on other issues too, like the aging population of the state, obesity, food insecurity and chronic disease.
"There are some quieter challenges that don't get as much attention but are important for us to keep an eye on," she said.
"We have to be thinking about how we make Portland a city where people can age appropriately," said McLoughlin.
Her new role, in many ways, is markedly different from the work McLoughlin has done in the past. Previously, she worked with federal, state and local governments as a partner; now, she is on the other side of the desk. Some of the problems facing the communities she worked with in Africa are very different than the problems facing Portland, she said.
Still, she said there is significant carry over. She has experience as a manager and has tackled a host of public health issues abroad. She also thinks her experience with these populations in the past will help her be more effective in Portland.
"I am used to working with populations from the same regions that our asylum seeking population is largely coming from, which is helpful to understand how to engage and ensure that we're being supportive of their needs and the journey that they've been on," McLoughlin said.
McLoughlin knows the job will bring new challenges — like recruiting a new director of public health — but said she's excited to be living in Portland, where she's been inspired by the tight-knit community and the accountability local government is subject to.
"I don't think we'll ever have a moment of stasis," she said. "But this is what I signed up for."
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