Over the past five years, Portland and Multnomah County leaders have poured millions of dollars into expanding the area’s homeless shelter system, creating more than 2,300 new beds in an effort to quickly move people off the streets.
County leaders enlisted nonprofits to run round-the-clock shelters they said would serve as a bridge from homelessness to housing. Meanwhile, Portland voters elected Mayor Keith Wilson in 2024 on his promise to rapidly create 1,500 overnight-only shelter beds, a plan he argued could end the city’s homelessness crisis.
But now, with homelessness still on the rise, those leaders are dismantling a significant slice of the system they just built…