New Report Shows More People Helped Out of Homelessness in Multnomah County

PORTLAND, Ore. — After the Homeless Service Agency reported a 21% increase over the previous year, 5,477 people become housed, commissioners including Sharon Meieran pushed back.

“Are you saying that you have an accurate and complete number? You do, and it’s that 5700 and whatever number? How do you obtain that number? 5, 398. How did you obtain that number,” she asked.   “We’ve detailed that in such clear detail about how we developed the number from.  Total number of homeless in our community.”

Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Peterson promises the county will keep up efforts to educate the public about what’s being done to solve one of the community’s toughest problems.

“We are going to be putting out dashboards in the next several months that will provide some sort of high level public transparency on the number of folks experiencing homelessness.”