Report: $531 million spent on homeless services in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties last year

Local governments and nonprofits in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties spent $531 million on homelessness services in the last full fiscal year, a new report from ECOnorthwest found.

Between July 2022 and June 2023, spending in the three counties equaled $295 per capita.

Spending in the 2023 fiscal year was a 70% increase from the prior year, the report commissioned by Homeless Strategic Initiatives found.

The increase in spending came from new Metro Regional Supportive Housing Services funding and one-time pandemic-relief funding used by the City of Portland to form alternative shelters.

“With this project, tri-county Portland has important information that most other regions don’t. You can’t marshal an effective response to homelessness without knowing what you’re spending. This work needs to continue,” said Stephanie Wieber, director of Homeless Strategic Initiatives, which commissioned the report.

Few states and metro regions have tracked spending on homelessness by different agencies, Homeless Strategic Initiatives and ECOnorthwest said in a summary of the new report.

“The report’s careful tracking is rare… ECOnorthwest’s search for comparable data in academic and professional literature turned up few examples,” HSI and ECOnorthwest said.

The largest funding source for the region’s homelessness spending was the federal government, which provided $89 million in pandemic-relief funding and $109 million in other funds, like housing vouchers. More than $144 million came from the Metro Supportive Housing Services measure. The Metro SHS program has generated far more in tax revenue than has been spent so far, as the counties have been slowly ramping up funding.

“More change is on the horizon. Next year’s report, the last in the series, will show a sharp decline in ARPA funding and continued growth in SHS spending. Also coming online will be state-funded interventions that were approved by the 2023 Legislature but that, for the most part, did not reach agencies before the end of the fiscal year.”

The largest expenditure category was Safety on and off the Streets, which includes shelters; outreach work; and services for unsheltered residents, like day shelters and mobile health care. That category accounted for 42% of spending. Housing placement and retention accounted for 26% of expenses, while supportive housing accounted for 22%.

The full report can be viewed online at econw.com.