In recent years, some of Portland’s largest nonprofit providers of supportive housing have begun to face a remarkable new expense: They effectively had to start self-insuring their properties after insurance companies backed away amid surging costs to repair units that had been burned, flooded or left in disarray.
The dynamic underscores the interconnected nature of Portland’s mental health, drug addiction and housing problems—and the challenges of the “housing first” model implemented by Multnomah County, which prioritizes permanent housing over getting people into treatment or sobriety.
Nonprofit leaders discuss the matter gingerly…