Social worker Shannon Singleton on campaign for Multnomah County commissioner

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Shannon Singleton is running for Multnomah County Commission in District 2, representing North and Northeast Portland. A clinically-trained social worker, Singleton was a housing policy advisor, as well as the director of equity and racial justice in Gov. Kate Brown’s administration.

Recently, she was interim director of the Joint Office of Homeless Services (JOHS) before current Joint Office director Dan Field.

On this week’s Eye on Northwest Politics, Singleton began by discussing the county commission’s proposal to start handing out tarps and tents again this winter. This practice has led to lawsuits , as well as conflicts with the City of Portland, which wants to clear them out.

Singleton noted the handing out of tents and tarps is not a new practice to outreach workers. However, she believes the problem with where tents and tarps are situated is ultimately an issue with the current homeless service system as a whole.

“I think we’re missing some of the other pieces of the homeless service system that actually supports people,” she said. “Even if there’s not enough shelter spaces for them, they actually have someplace to go so that their gear is being broken down or stored and moved during the day, while folks are trying to traverse downtown.

As interim director for JOHS, Singleton said that while she noticed a mix of direct service as well as the policy work during her tenure, she noted there wasn’t a concrete plan around how money was being distributed. So she made a funding availability calendar so providers could better prepare to secure pathways for the funding.

However, there is one aspect that has since disappeared which she wishes would return to JOHS.

“We used to meet as shelter providers and talk about what’s going on in our shelters, what things we’re hearing from people, maybe some new best practices, what are groups that we’ve heard of,” she said. “For example, we had people start coming into the safe shelter to operate self-help groups and other shelters didn’t have that. So we could have that shared learning and resource sharing. That went away and it needs to come back.”

Regarding accountability within JOHS in terms of outcomes, Singleton notes this likely stems from an inability for providers to see system-wide data.

“I only know my data, so if my data is good, I’m good and the joint office accepts my report. But we’re not looking at it across the whole system and having a conversation about how are we doing as a whole. So that really needs to shift,” she stressed.

Multnomah County recently filed a $52 billion lawsuit against fossil fuel companies – including NW Natural – claiming greenhouse gas emissions caused the deadly heat dome of 2021. While Singleton believes there are plenty of factors that go into what caused the heat dome, she noted how some neighborhoods have been disproportionately affected.

“We know what the neighborhoods look like that have experienced those heat domes. They’re poorer, they’re blacker and browner and they have less tree canopy,” she said. “We really need to look at the full picture and move into the space of what we are going to do to change this. Because it’s not going to suddenly disappear, that we don’t have heat domes here. We’ve got to fix that problem now.

With the opening of Multnomah County’s new deflection center for drug offenders scheduled to open Monday in Southeast Portland, Singleton said she keeps asking one question: What are we deflecting people to?

“Yes, we need a deflection center, but we also lack treatment beds,” she said. “And so if we don’t pay attention to that broader system, where does somebody go if they need inpatient treatment? And that question is still not able to be answered.”

Watch the full interview in the video above.

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