Hope for a cure............................................ PAGE 10 Taft Basketball.......................................... PAGE 12
February 7, 2023
$1.50
$977,000 housing and shelter grant awarded STAFF REPORT Country Media, Inc.
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Nonprofits navigate through local homelessness crisis
Help for the homeless
WILL LOHRE Country Media, Inc.
O
ver the past several years, the issue of homelessness and affordable housing has become a widespread concern across Oregon. In her first address as Governor, Tina Kotek declared a state of emergency on the homelessness crisis. As with so many other parts of the state, Lincoln County and Lincoln City are trying to solve problems with the unhoused. During the pandemic, keeping exact tallies of the number of homeless people in the area has been challenging. “I do know that we have some camps in some open spaces and that there is a lot of homelessness, but I don’t think we’ve done a very good job in the past of the point-in-time count,” Lincoln City Mayor Susan Wahlke said. “We’re trying to do better this year, I’m afraid that we need more preparation for it in the future, and hopefully, we can get a better, more accurate count.” Lori Arce-Torres, the Lincoln City Chamber of Commerce Executive Director, said that homelessness affects “every aspect of a town” and pointed to job losses and the Echo Mountain Fire as potential causes for an uptick in homelessness. “Many locals who worked in the hospitality industry lost their jobs during the pandemic and have yet to recover financially, not to mention those who continue to be displaced by the Echo Mountain Fire,” Arce-Torres said.
evelopment of an emergency shelter and transitional housing in Lincoln City is a step closer. Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Centers (Helping Hands) has been awarded $977,000 in Project Turnkey 2.0 grant funding to complete the final phase of renovation to a building donated by the City of Lincoln City in 2019 for the purpose of creating emergency shelter and transitional housing. Oregon Housing and Community Services (OHCS) and Oregon Community Foundation (OCF) announce the first emergency housing site for Project Turnkey 2.0, the second iteration of the state-funded grant program administered by OCF which aims to increase the state’s supply of emergency and transitional housing “These services are so vital in every community when addressing the needs of those that are experiencing homelessness,” Helping Hands Founder and President Alan Evans said. “It is because of partnerships, that we are able to bring this facility to Lincoln City, “ Helping Hands CEO Mike Davis said. “Thank you, Oregon Community Foundation, for selecting Helping Hands to receive the final funds needed to complete this project.”
Sky-rocketing demand
The project
In Lincoln County, rent prices and the loss of jobs have put people in precarious situations. Family Promise is a non-profit organization in Lincoln County that helps find shelter, food, and comprehensive assistance for families who are low-income or homeless. According to the Executive Director at Family Promise, Elizabeth Reyes, even before the pandemic, waitlists for apartments in Lincoln County were sometimes “30 to 40 families deep.” After the shutdown during the pandemic and the wave of fires that hit the area, these problems were exacerbated. As Mayor Wahlke said, Reyes detailed that having an accurate count of how many families are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless is difficult to pin down. Reyes said the waitlist numbers jumped to 70 families deep, and now many of the waitlists are closed under the high demand. The result has been a trend in different demographics struggling to meet basic needs. “The pandemic and the shutdown has been the start of generational poverty for a lot of families,” Reyes said. “We’re seeing families that parents are educated, two-parent households; they have good credit, they have credit cards, they have a savings, and then the pandemic hits, and so they could no longer work, so they’re trying to get unemployment. Well, even if you applied for it ASAP, we’ve all heard the stories; 6 months, 9 months to a year before you actually see a penny.” Reyes said that because these families are unaware of the different resources available to lower-income demographics, families in these situations are finding it difficult to handle their current predicaments. “They don’t know what to do. Sometimes they’ll get evicted, or sometimes they’ll leave because they’re scared of an eviction, and they don’t know their rights because this is completely out of their realm,” Reyes said.
Helping Hands will renovate the property to create both emergency shelter space and longer-term transitional housing units. When complete, the “Lincoln City HOPE Center at the LeRoy Benham campus” will provide 69 beds, including 12-14 emergency beds and 55 transitional housing in dormitory style rooms for 3-4 people per room. There are also two rooms for participants with children. The total cost of renovation is estimated at $1.9 million, with the remaining $600,000 being provided through a 0% interest loan over 20 years from the City of Lincoln City, and $325,000 in grants from foundations. This is a unique grant in that it is for the final phase of renovation only, as Helping Hands has already been gifted the building from the City of Lincoln City, according to a release from OHCS. “Project Turnkey 2.0 aims to stand up approximately 10 emergency shelters in the state by identifying appropriate properties,” the release reads. “To help meet the unique needs of specific communities, allowable property types expanded in the legislative language ¾ it is no longer just the conversion of hotels and motels.” “We are seeing many creative proposals for repurposing existing properties,” Oregon Community Foundation Senior Program Officer, Economic Vitality and Housing Megan Loeb said. “These include duplexes and triplexes, vacant apartment complexes, and even vacant commercial buildings. The flexibility provided in this round of state funding helps to better address some of the unique housing needs of specific communities, including rural places.” Properties will be owned and operated by local nonprofit organizations and entities, such as cities, counties, or tribes, that will provide safe housing as well as critical support, including access to medical and social services, computers,
See HOMELESS, Page 9
See GRANT, Page 9
Oregon’s health care workforce ‘crisis’ MOLLY ROSBACH News Guard Guest Article
Oregon needs to improve the supply and distribution of health care providers, enhance the resiliency and well-being of health care workers and increase diversity among the health care workforce to provide more culturally and linguistically responsive care, a new report by Oregon State University (OSU) researchers found. The report was developed by OSU for the Oregon Health Policy Board as part of a contract with the Oregon Health Authority, fulfilling a
2017 law that requires biennial assessment of the state’s health care workforce for the purpose of informing the state Legislature. It includes recommendations for how state agencies and legislators can address the most pressing problems. The findings Though the findings were not surprising, they did paint a dire picture, said lead author Dr. Tao Li, an assistant professor in OSU’s College of Public Health and Human Sciences. “We all understood that
burnout among health care providers would be high, especially during the pandemic,” said Li, who also holds a medical degree. “When we really dug into the report and compiled the existing data from different areas, we noted that wow, there is a severe health care crisis. Health care workers really need support, because the burnout level is just higher than I expected.” The 111-page report discusses how the health care sector saw significant job losses during the first two years of the pandemic, which have been largely regained over the past year, and how
employment trends varied within the health care sector. However, Li said, researchers do not yet have enough data to analyze the long-term physical and emotional impacts the pandemic has had on providers. “If we want to make sure that everyone in Oregon can get good health care, we definitely need to invest in the strong foundation of the health care workforce,” he said. “When they don’t get Metro Creative Connection enough support and they get burned out, it will have many Health care workers need greater structural supports like more flexibility in scheduling, more available and affordable negative consequences — it child care and a reduction in administrative paperwork, the See WORKERS, Page 9 report found.
TheNewsGuard.com
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