Skyler Brocker-Knapp has been the face of Portland’s efforts over the last four and a half years to stand up its own homeless shelter and outreach system. More accurately maybe, she’s been the face hovering behind the face – first of former Mayor Ted Wheeler and then of current Mayor Keith Wilson.
Next week, she’ll step down from her city job to become chief strategy officer at United Way of the Columbia‑Willamette, a nonprofit that works to help vulnerable families.
In 2022, Brocker-Knapp started as Wheeler’s senior policy adviser on homelessness and emergency health. The young lawyer was quickly handed responsibility for standing up the mayor’s priority project in response to the growing unsheltered homelessness crisis on Portland’s streets: pod shelters…