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Home Again: A Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness in Portland and Multnomah County

An Effective Practice

Description

As part of an ongoing effort to eliminate homelessness, Portland and Multnomah County have developed Home Again: A Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness in Portland and Multnomah County. The plan uses a "Housing First" approach, a model that reduces the time an individual or a family spends in shelter and helps them obtain permanent housing. Individuals or families who need services access permanent supportive housing, which links stable housing to medical care, mental health services and other social services depending on the household's needs. The plan focuses on chronically homeless individuals but also includes families and unaccompanied youth.

Goal / Mission

The goal of this program is to end homelessness in the City of Portland and Multnomah County by 2015. As efforts to end homelessness continue, city and county officials will focus on nine actions. Programs throughout the county will address moving people into Housing First, ending the practice of discharging people into homelessness from jails and hospitals, improving outreach, emphasizing permanent solutions, increasing the housing supply, creating new partnerships, improving the rent assistance system, increasing economic opportunity for homeless people and implementing new data collection technology.

Results / Accomplishments

Since the plan's adoption just six months ago, a number of outcomes have been documented: 254 chronically homeless people have moved into permanent housing; 108 moved directly from the streets into permanent housing. Families and youth are moving to permanent housing as well; 64 homeless families and 13 homeless "hard to reach" youth moved to stable and permanent housing.

About this Promising Practice

Organization(s)
The Portland Bureau of Housing and Community Development
Primary Contact
Sally Erickson, Program Manager
Portland Housing Bureau
421 SW 6th Ave, Suite 500
Portland, OR 97204
(503) 823-0883
Sally.Erickson@portlandoregon.gov
http://www.portlandonline.com/phb/
Topics
Economy / Housing & Homes
Economy / Government Assistance
Organization(s)
The Portland Bureau of Housing and Community Development
Source
National Alliance to End Homelessness
Date of publication
Jul 2005
Date of implementation
2004
Geographic Type
Urban
Location
Portland and Multnomah County, OR
Additional Audience
The Homeless

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  1. Alaska's Homeless Assistance Program (HAP)
  2. Mercy Housing Colorado Affordable Housing
  3. The Pacific Hotel: Low-Income Housing
  4. Affordable Housing in Arlington, Virginia
  5. Project Homeless Connect

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An Effective Practice meets the following HCI criteria:

  1. The program description includes at a minimum: the sponsoring organization, program goals, program implementation steps, and outcomes that have demonstrated program success and/or promise in achieving the program goal in one or more localities.
  2. The results from an evaluation of the program include quantitative measures of improvement in outcome of interest (i.e. increase in voter registration, not just delivery of voter registration drive) and/ or the outcome measure is increased or improved compared to the baseline measurement or the control group but the difference is not statistically significant.