October 16, 2025

As the nights get colder, your thoughts, like mine, might turn to people sleeping outside and what they can do for shelter.

As a Multnomah County Commissioner, I asked four successive County homeless services directors for the most basic information about our shelter system: Cost, number of beds, populations served, and – the ultimate goal – success at getting people stably housed. This data is foundational to any shelter system plan.

I never got an answer, and, as far as I can see, Multnomah County still doesn’t have a shelter plan. So, now out of office, I tracked the information down myself as best I could. It wasn’t easy, but what I found was shocking.

The operating cost for a single bed at a publicly funded shelter in Multnomah County ranges from $15,000 to a staggering $100,000 per year, with no discernable reason why. There is no correlation to the types of shelters being funded or the needs of the people being served.

It turns out that, despite the millions spent, there IS no shelter system or strategy in Multnomah County.

Now that I’ve compiled the information, I am sharing it publicly because what I’ve found demands action. Our county commissioners continue to approve shelter budgets without a plan. For years we’ve been told there’s a shelter strategy when there is none; that shelter beds have been added to the “system” when there’s been no baseline; that the County is using our tax dollars effectively to get people from streets to shelter to housing when leaders have no idea if what they are doing is working; and where it’s impossible to follow the money.

Just this week, I heard that County leaders emailed shelter providers urgently asking for some of the same data I had requested for years. Data I had hoped against hope that they had pulled together by now to make crucial management decisions. Because this isn’t just about time and money. It’s about lives.

This isn’t as hard as they’ve been making it. Your voice matters. Contact your county commissioner to make sure that they have the information they need to create a comprehensive shelter plan, and that they actually deliver.