Testimony to Multnomah County Board - Good Neighbor Agreements in Nonprofit Vendor Contracts
Today I would like to discuss the topic of good neighbor agreements and how the County absolutely can and should be participating in this process via the vendor agreements they are entering into.
The majority of Multnomah County residents have voted time and again to tax themselves in order to help our most vulnerable neighbors, housed and unhoused. Yet over the years those in need have increased greatly while our available services have remained low in number, and have actually lost several resources over the past few years as the type of drugs being used on the streets have shifted and all levels of government were unprepared.
In setting up said services, be it a shelter, a pod village, a treatment center, a sanctioned camping or parking site, you are asking a LOT from the neighborhood it resides in. You are putting their literal livelihoods at stake via their property values as well as their own mental health, due to the conditions of what they are forced to live near. It absolutely behooves you as the entity that creates vendor contracts with service providers to be good neighbors.
The neighborhoods you are setting up these resources in are absolutely empathetic and want these programs to be successful and to see their neighbors move forward in their lives in a positive manner. Yet it is hard to envision how said neighbor can be successful in their healing process if the County allows illegal camping, which oftentimes brings with it drugs and crime, right outside the fence of where they are trying to heal. Meanwhile, bringing harm to the neighborhood that is trying to help.
The vendors you contract with - this type of outreach work is LITERALLY their jobs. They are the professionals when it comes to being able to reach out and talk to campers and ask how they can help, while politely telling them that they have to move away from the immediate area in order for the clients to heal and the neighborhood to have peace for their sacrifice.
It’s insane to ask citizens to do YOUR job and take time out of their already busy and frustrated lives to have to file yet another illegal camping report to the city. It is a literal CHORE to have to log in and file a report, despite how easy the website is to utilize. Many people get paid in their daily jobs to file service tickets like that; it’s insane to ask distraught neighbors to be constantly reporting the violations occurring in their neighborhood that YOUR service sites are creating. The finger pointing back and forth between the city and the county has to stop, and you are the entity in charge of our health and human services, not the city.
People don’t know the difference between these sites. They shouldn’t have to. But this is what creates what many are calling NIMBYism - they see how horrible the perimeter camping looks around any one of these sites - the safe needle exchange at the church in Montavilla that receives County funding, the Arbor Lodge shelter with a miles-long waitlist meaning nobody should be waiting outside, and then the city sited SRVs like Naito, which actually did uphold the city’s requested 150’ no camping perimeter for several months, until they decided they didn’t want to anymore. This example actually shows us that it’s absolutely possible for these providers to do this work, but because the County is clearly not writing this clause into their contracts, it’s not happening. We don’t care if it costs more, JUST DO IT!
We do not blame anyone for not wanting any type of service installed near them, because the County has set a terrible precedent for what they can expect to see immediately after opening day. The Behavioral Health Resource Center downtown is a shimmering example of how horribly wrong it is to not babysit the surrounding area after implementing a much-needed resource. It absolutely is your job as a good neighbor to keep the surrounding area clean - you are creating what are called attractive nuisances, and if you were a privately run business the city would be able to fine you for breaking the law and not dealing with it in a timely manner.
An easy way to solve this issue and make it actually the city’s job, would be to create dozens of smaller sanctioned camping and parking areas as soon as possible. Using parking lots or sites they are already camping in - they don’t require service contracts that take months to put in place, all they need is the dignity of a fence, toilet, and dumpster. The city would only then be able to truly deem unsanctioned camping illegal and have the resources to stop it, because they would have legal places to send people and be able to start cleaning up the county as this happens. There are currently far too many people living outside for the city to do this, even if they are able to stand up the 3-6 large campsites they are hoping to run. It’s still not enough, and the County needs to fill in the gaps now.
Once we have enough sanctioned places for everyone to be, it will be easier for the vendors paid via the County to go through each site and help people, closing down the sites as they go. This is honestly the only way to ensure your paid vendors are truly being successful with the taxpayer dollars you are entrusting to them, since you currently have zero data or metrics on the success of their individual programs.
Chair Vega Pederson, you have the power to direct the Joint Office of Homeless Services to insert a perimeter camping clause into all of your vendor contracts - with sanctioned site service providers as well as nonprofit entities you are giving harm reduction funding to. If they are not able to keep the surrounding neighborhood clean of illegal camping, then they do not deserve our tax dollars to continue to harm both their clients and the neighborhood. Thank you.