Are we spending smarter to end homelessness, or just spending more?

Multnomah County now spends over $53,000 per homeless individual per year, yet thousands remain unsheltered. This report breaks down the costs and effectiveness of shelter types, housing assistance, and supportive housing.

📊 Learn why better coordination—not just more funding—is the key to lasting solutions in Report #3

Report #2, A Flood of Money/A Dysfunctional System, analyses the incoherence of the current system to address homelessness in Multnomah County. And why, despite the expenditure of huge amounts to date, this system has achieved poor results and the number of homeless keeps rising.

At Portland Voice, we are working to develop an accurate number for the cost of homelessness in Multnomah County. We welcome feedback from our readers to continue to refine these numbers. 

Report #1: Despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars annually on homelessness in Portland and Multnomah County, no one is satisfied with the results. A major cause of this is the lack of useful data.