Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Episode Transcript

Transcript edited by Let¡¯s Talk! Podcast Collective

Show Intro and Disclaimer

Kylo: You are listening to Let’s Talk!. Let’s Talk!, Is a digital space for students at PCC experiencing disabilities to share their perspectives, ideas, and worldviews in an inclusive and accessible environment. The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of Portland Community College PCC Foundation, or our community partners. We broadcast on our home website, pcc.edu/dca. On Spotify, on? XRAY, 91.1 FM and 107.1 FM, and KBOO Community Radio, 90.7 FM.

Meet Here Together

Asher: Welcome back listeners to another episode on Let’s Talk!. My name is Asher, and today I’m joined by representatives from the Here Together Oregon Coalition. Can you guys start by introducing yourselves to our listeners?

Angela: Asher, thank you for having us. My name is Angela Martin. I’m the executive director of the Here Together Oregon Coalition.

Asher: Thanks for joining us, Angela! And, Alesha?

Alesha: Hi everyone. I am Alesha. I am also with the Here Together Coalition. I lead communications for our team. Thank you for having me today. I will just pause and say that there’s a really strong chance that Angela’s gonna be your gal for all these questions.?

Asher: That’s totally fine. Thank you so much guys for taking the time out to talk to us. We did hear from you from our previous guest from the KBOO Live; Independent Living Resources. Thank you so much.?

Coalition Mission Origins

Asher: What is “Here Together” Coalition, and what does the organization do, and also what’s the mission?

Angela: “Here Together” came together in 2019 in response to a need for funding wraparound services. Our community had said “yes” to affordable housing bonds, so building the structures that were desperately needed. But, we needed the funding for the services and the rent support, that really build that bridge. So, the Here Together Coalition was the champion of the regional supportive housing services measure. Back in 2019, it was passed by voters in 2020.

Asher: Is that the origin story or is there more to it? And what’s the gap that was filled when Here Together was created?

Angela: Those are great questions. Here Together was formed in response to a need for funding that would provide services to people experiencing homelessness. Yes, an affordable home is a critical piece of that, but without rent support, case management, job training, access to medical health, behavioral health; we know that people will not be entirely successful. We need both, housing plus services, to help people transition from long periods of homelessness to a life of stability and health.

Asher: Yeah, definitely. I feel like that’s a very important thing, especially with the current state of homelessness here in Portland.?

Portland Homelessness Today

Asher: How would you describe that right now in your perspective?

Angela: I would describe the current state of homelessness as heartbreaking, frustrating, and politically fraught. And, the end result is that our neighbors who find themselves forced to sleep without a roof over their head, or are struggling to hold on to the roof. They’re the ones caught in the crossfire of this chaos. That often feels like what is standing in place of a system. It’s important to understand that Here Together is unique in this coalition, because we purposely brought folks together around a proverbial table who don’t always see eye to eye, who don’t always come from the same lived experience. So, our coalition is providers, it’s people with lived experience, it’s leaders of faith in its business associations. So, as you can imagine, the conversations around our table can be very robust, there’s a lot of learning, and we don’t always start off in a place of agreement, but we work toward that agreement. That’s something that I believe really makes the coalition unique and important, because that’s what the public is doing. Coming at this from different perspectives, all seeking the same thing. A future where homelessness is rare and brief, in our community.

Asher: Definitely. Yeah, I totally agree with that. Just the whole idea of the community coming together in such a strong way against homelessness is such a big thing. And, I didn’t really even know about homelessness until I came to the States. Although I was born in Texas, at a very young age, I moved out of the states and I was very sheltered, I feel like. Only until I started working and then coming to school here in Oregon did I just see the state of how downtown Portland is like, and just the homelessness of the different people there. I started to educate myself with that, and I’m so glad that you’re here to educate me also by just answering questions and stuff.?

Myths and Root Causes

Asher: What are some common misconceptions people have about homelessness in this city? I’m also asking for myself too, because I feel like there’s a lot of different sorts of misconceptions about homelessness. In the idea of “they’re choosing to be homeless”.

Angela: We’ll address some of those, but I first wanna start off by giving a lot of credit to the public. The public is very sophisticated. Most people I talk to understand that homelessness happens at the intersection of systemic failures. An economy that is not delivering jobs that pay. A housing wage, a rental market that has escalated, beyond the reach of majority of folks in our community. Then that intersection of personal crisis; whether it’s a job loss, experience of domestic violence, divorce, or struggling with untreated mental health or substance use disorder. The intersection, where there is only shreds of a safety net, is where homelessness occurs. In terms of misconceptions? Yes, Asher, I do hear some people say those common tropes; “people choose homelessness” or “they want to live the homeless life”. But, anyone that has spent any time, getting to know who is homeless in our community, having conversations. That myth is quickly stripped away. For example, anyone who goes out and sees some of our partners, like the folks at Cultivate Initiatives, who run job training programs, see a line around the block of people who are experiencing homelessness, lining up for an opportunity to have a job internship. So, they see that homelessness isn’t born out of laziness. It is born out of lack of opportunity for gaining employment skills, getting into the workplace so that you have a job that helps you pay the rent.

Asher: Thank you for answering that question. Yeah, that’s a great one.?

Asher: I totally agree with you on the idea of housing prices just skyrocketing in recent years. And, it’s even difficult for me, who has a job, to be able to afford just rent and live paycheck to paycheck kind of deal.

Angela: it wasn’t always this way. When I look back at the data in 1970s, here in Portland, Oregon, somebody working a minimum wage job was able to afford a modest two bedroom apartment. That person today, working a minimum wage job at our higher minimum wage, is over a thousand dollars a month short from affording that same apartment. So, in that generation, we have seen wages stagnate, we have seen rental prices go up, and the supply of affordable housing go down. That is the math problem behind our homeless crisis.

Asher: $1,000. That’s hard to believe. And you say that’s…?

Angela: 1970s, is when you could work a minimum wage job in Portland, Oregon, and afford a modest two bedroom apartment. Today, there is no way for somebody working a minimum wage job to afford a modest two bedroom, let alone, a one bedroom apartment. So, we’re setting people up to fail, and far too many of us are on the brink of homelessness any given month.

Barriers to Getting Help

Asher: How do individuals experiencing homelessness navigate services and where do they get stuck in the whole process of things? Just the whole idea that there are a lot of people who are homeless, and I feel like there’s a lot that get tangled in the system of trying to get the help that they need. They probably need different sorts of needs and it’s hard to just figure out what needs come in first kind of thing.

Angela: I’m gonna start off with something that we don’t even think of as services. And, that is taking care of your personal needs. I’m gonna talk about it from a female perspective; there are women experiencing homelessness, living unsheltered, who have to start off their day thinking about where am I gonna go to the restroom? How am I going to find a place for a shower? How am I going to just take care of my basic needs? I share this because it really defies some of that myth; going back to the question you asked of, “what myths are there?”. That there is this lazy homeless life. It’s actually the opposite. Piecing together personal care needs, feeding yourself, safety… All of this consumes so much of a person’s mental energy. That there is often little left to thinking about how am I going to access things that feel opaque to me; “I don’t know where they are. How am I gonna access those so that I can get myself out of this situation?”. And, then you have the issue of trust. When you are living in a system that has frankly failed you, you start to develop natural trust issues. So, when someone comes and says, “Hey, we wanna help!”, “Hey, sign up here for services!”, and you end up on a wait list, with no end in sight, that erodes your trust a little bit more. Or, when you accept help and go to a shelter where you are actually feeling less safe than you were in your tent, or your car that erodes trust. So, one of the barriers that people experiencing homelessness must first face is, it’s hard to get through any given day and get your personal needs met and have enough left to think about how am I going to make a plan? How am I gonna access services that sometimes feel like they’re rejecting me?

Asher: Just thinking about it. It does sound like there are a lot of just contributing factors of trying to get the help needed but, like you said, it requires trust in the long run of things. I feel like in a lot of situations there are a lot of wait lists because the need is just so big, especially here in Portland, as far as homelessness goes.?

Here Together Role

Asher: How does Here Together fit into all that? I’m curious to know.

Angela: So, our goal, as I mentioned earlier; we were born out of the need for wraparound services to be complimentary with affordable housing that was being built. Now, several things are true. We do not have enough affordable housing in this community, and we do not have enough services. But, we do have an opportunity to take this regional resource and leverage it to the best of its ability. And, that’s what Here Together is about. We seek to listen to the needs of people experiencing homelessness, the expertise of people who have put themselves on the front lines of solving homelessness, the social workers, the behavioral health specialists. The Here Together Oregon Coalition does not provide direct services. Instead, we create the space to discuss and debate how the programs are structured, how the funding is distributed across our community so that we can realize a future where homelessness is rare and brief. Asher, it might be interesting to take the conversation in this direction. I just wanna be really forthright and honest with the listeners.?

Asher: Yeah, for sure. Add anything you would like.

Public Debate and Bridge Analogy

Angela: Part of our role right now is to help understand where the public is in its debate and its demands around homelessness. And, in doing that, I’ve learned a few things. Number one, for far too long we treated public frustration, anger, perhaps even a little bit of fear, as something to be shamed and not named. And, I really do believe that was the wrong approach. Because, what I’ve learned is that someone can, both, hold frustration and hold compassion in their hand at the same time. And, that’s where the public is. We need to respect those feelings of frustration while also uplifting the compassion and empathy that, I know, most people have for their neighbors experiencing homelessness. By doing that, we help the public get into, a more full way, the most important role they have; and that is continuing to demand that our elected leaders invest in solving this issue, versus what I see happening right now. And that is the public getting into the role of experts in demanding particular solutions. That’s become a very dangerous place for us to be in the public absolutely should demand, “we wanna see homelessness as rare and brief. We wanna see a reduction in the number of tents on our streets. We wanna see people in our community thriving”. But, when it gets to the place that our elected leaders feel compelled to listen to how the problem gets solved from the public. We’ve gone in the wrong direction. Let me give you an analogy, think about the I5 bridge. Right now there’s a robust public debate; should it have more lanes for cars? Should it have infrastructure for light rail? Should it have both? Or something else entirely? That is exactly the right conversation for the public to be having. That’s democracy working. But, nobody is asking the public to calculate the load tolerances or to design the foundation. We don’t put that engineering up for a vote and, if we did, if the loudest political pressure overrode the structural engineers. The bridge would fall down. And that’s precisely what we have done with homelessness. We have allowed political pressure rather than data and people who know this work, including people who’ve lived it, to drive the tactics around how we solve it. And that place that we’re in right now? Where public demand for any one tactic like, let’s do sweeps, let’s have this type of shelter and not that type of shelter. That is complicating an already complex social problem.

Asher: That’s a great iteration of just the I5 bridge.?

How Listeners Can Help

Asher: How can we, as well as, the listeners and myself help as a community in the process of making homelessness brief and short.

Angela: There’s several things the public, can and I hope, will do. Number one, continue to center the needs of our community. I believe the public needs to continue demanding that our elected leaders address this problem, make investments, find solutions. That is an important role for the public to play. The education piece, exactly what you’re doing with this program, Asher. “Why are people homeless? What are the myths?”… Continue to educate ourselves. The third thing is we need recenter and ask for this problem to be addressed by those who have done the schooling gotten, the degrees lived, the experience firsthand; those are the folks closest to what the solutions need to look like, and we need to reinvest in trusting those. Just as we trust our engineers to build a sound bridge, I trust our social workers to build a sound homeless response system.

Asher: I’m hoping that a lot of our listeners, who are listening to this, are able to help out in the community. Whether, it’s providing food for those who need it or, like you said, reaching out to local leaders, “Hey, what are you doing in this situation with the homelessness? We wanna know what’s going on.”, educating ourselves and asking the right questions. I really hope I’m able to make this podcast, the best it can be by asking the right ones, especially to you.?

Angela: Asher, you’re helping all of us understand this more, and I hope that the conversation doesn’t stop here.?

Community Conversations Program

Angela: In fact, one of the things Here Together is doing is hosting community conversations. You can go to our website; HereTogetherOregon.org and sign up to host a community conversation. What does that look like? That is you bringing together 10 of your friends in your place of work, your place of worship, your backyard. We provide a trained speaker; these are folks who maybe themselves had experienced homelessness or they work on the front lines as a social worker, as a case manager. We come and have a honest conversation with your community about what’s working, what’s not, and what we can do together to make improvements. Those community conversations are a really important way for all of us to continue, working for the community that we all want.

Asher: I’ll have to look into that. That sounds very interesting. Getting a lot of my coworkers together and just talking about homelessness. I feel like that would be fun.

Angela: Asher, it is actually fun. Just last week, I hosted a community conversation. I was invited by the folks at ¡°Park Plaza¡±, which is a senior living center right near Lloyd’s Center. So, I got to be in a room of 40 individuals, all of them retired senior citizens. It was such a robust conversation. I learned something, I believe they learned something, and we all walked outta there with a renewed sense that we’re part of a community that cares, part of a community that wants to find a better way forward. Alesha, have I missed something that you would suggest I add to the conversation?

Alesha: No, I am really glad that you threw in some information about our community conversations. I feel they’ve been a really strong space for people to both hold their frustration and their compassion in the same hand, and would really encourage any listener to go to our website to check out more information about those.

Asher: Switching gears back into the whole idea of figuring out what the issue is with homelessness.?

Policies Funding and Treatment Gaps

Asher: What policies at the local or state level are helping and which ones are falling short?

Angela: We have a lot of policies, a lot of strategies that work quite well, for the individuals. Things like case management services coupled with rental vouchers to make housing affordable and accessible. That’s the formula that works for a lot of folks who’ve been experiencing homelessness for a long time. Where we see complications? Well, first, the biggest complication coming at us is the constant fluctuation of funding. I am sure many of your listeners are aware our federal government has been defunding or slashing the money available for housing healthcare support services. Well, when the federal government decreases the amount of money it spends on these things, we have to make up the difference. And, folks in this community have stepped up, but we’re now having to stretch those dollars even further because the funding holes are getting bigger. Number two, we are seeing an increased acuity of folks experiencing homelessness with an onslaught of cheap and dangerous drugs, far too few slots for treatment and recovery, coupled with untreated mental health, and far too slots for addressing a person’s mental health needs. All of these have come together to form, I would say, the “perfect storm”. But, I don’t wanna use the word “perfect”. “A storm”, that is really driving a lot of the complications in our system right now.

Asher: Yeah, that sounds so complicated. I totally understand that. Especially with government, just like slashing funds and everything, it’s very difficult, especially just for those of us who aren’t even having to face homelessness. I can’t imagine how difficult it is on that level of services needing to make up the funds; even with community members trying to pitch in and everything. How are the efforts in that, if you don’t mind me asking?

Angela: How are the efforts in making up the funds?

Asher: Yes. How does that look like?

Budget Landscape and Deficits

Angela: Well, let me give you a snapshot of the funding landscape. This snapshot is from 2024, so there are ways in which it’s already changing. In 2024, our regional supportive housing services measure, this is the one that was voter passed, paid for more than 40% of services, rental vouchers, case management. So, 40% of our homeless services system was paid for through local resources. Federal Government was contributing about 17% towards what it costs to keep people housed and connected to services. That number is going down even more, the 17% government is contributing. We see risks on the near horizon and out a year or two with expected cuts to food stamps, Medicaid, and a big shift in how the federal government funds affordable housing. Our community is gonna have to absorb that. Either through adding to local resources or cutting those services so that fewer people get access to it. And that’s the debate we’re having right now. As the budget season is upon us, we know that Multnomah County is facing a $68 million reduction in how much money is available to fund homeless services across the county. The debate on how we make up for that is real and will include some painful decisions. Painful decisions about how do we contract a system, who isn’t going to get services, and what are we gonna do to prevent people from being exited from a shelter that’s closing and landing right back up on the street. Nobody wants that outcome. So, now is the time that the public has an opportunity to weigh in and, again, talk about their desired outcomes. Letting your elected officials know; we don’t want to see people ending back up on the streets. We’ve got to continue making headway. So, I’ll leave it there.

Asher: Thanks for giving me the rundown of just the budgeting of houseless funding and everything. I feel like that’s very educational and for a lot of listeners who don’t even know about the situation at hand, I feel like that’s where we need to understand just how difficult it is.?

Sorting Headlines and Trust

Angela: Asher, it’s so hard for the public right now who are working to pay attention to their lives, their kids, their work, and then they’re able to keep an eye on this through some headlines. Well, the headlines have been chaotic. You hear that, “The City of Portland has found one hundred million dollars it didn’t know its had”. So, you get this impression that there’s more money than we ever knew and more money than we need, and then you hear “Multnomah County has a big budget deficit”. What is true? What is not true? It becomes very complicated. Here are the facts. Both things are true. There are short term, one-time monies that the City of Portland identified. Some of which can be spent, again, for a one time expenditure on homeless services. And, Multnomah County will be planning out its next year’s budget with $68 million less than it’s spent this year. So, tough decisions are going to have to be made. It’s likely also to be true that when the City of Portland and our elected officials work on their budget, our budget, the City of Portland’s budget for the next year, they will also be facing tighter budget than the year before. So, those one-time monies might lead to the impression of, “Hey, our local governments just got money coming out everywhere.”. That isn’t the case moving forward, and our system needs to rely on ongoing services, not one time infusions of money.

Asher: I feel like with that kind of money just gets moved around a lot and like it gets placed into places that we don’t even realize it gets placed in? And, correct me if I’m wrong with that too. I have no idea!

Angela: Hey, you’re not alone. You’re not alone. Even people who strive to stay on top of the information find themselves wondering, “what’s happening over here? What’s happening over there?”. It’s hard to track it all. And, I think a person shouldn’t have to do that. I always suggest to folks, find out who you trust. Is it your local homeless services provider? Is it an organization like Here Together? Is it another housing advocacy organization? And, look to them to help distill the information about what’s happening and ask them hard questions. But, trying to sort it all out individually, it can be overwhelming.

Asher: Oh yeah, definitely. There’s so many different kinds of information just all over the place, like you were saying, and it’s hard to know which one is true and which one is false, and not just about this.

Angela: Yeah. And, there’s a concerted effort to encourage the public to distrust the people who actually have the information the organizations and the people closest to, the issue. So, not only was it difficult, but there’s a cadre of political consultants and messengers who, for the last six years, have been working to help the public mistrust the folks providing services; casting them as the homeless industrial complex. That framing was never analysis, it was a political strategy designed to defund services and destroy trust in the people delivering them. So, now the public having had this play out for years and years, is left in a place of “who should I trust? Who can I trust?”. And. That’s a really hard place to be.

Asher: Oh yeah, definitely. And, the same thing just ties into the homelessness situation of, “who can I trust?”. I feel like that’s the biggest thing.?

Partners, Newsletter, and Data

Asher: What are some organizations that your coalition is in partnership with, that we can trust? In a world where there’s a lot of things that are not trustworthy, and are “not sure what is true”.

Angela: Yeah. Folks that wanna know more, learn more, about how we partner; I would encourage them to look at our website. Because, we do list coalition partners there. But, even more important, Alesha does an amazing job putting together a monthly news analysis. It’s a compendium of what’s happening, what are the data points, where can I learn more? Along with those narrative stories, the personal stories, of success and analysis of the policies that need to be improved in order to drive more success. So, we put out a monthly newsletter called “Happening Now”. That’s one way to just stay on top of it, be able to follow links to the latest stories and connect with organizations delivering services, as well as, associations that are standing behind the services that are being delivered.

Asher: Thanks for that. Yeah, I’ll definitely put a link to “Happening Now”. Is there a way to access this newsletter, or do we need to sign up for it?

Angela: You can read past editions online, for those that don’t wanna sign up for something. But, if you want more current information, you can get it delivered to your inbox by simply signing up. I would also point out, our local governments do have a wealth of information available to you. Multnomah County has a data rich site where you can see inflow and outflow. They’ve developed a by name list of who is experiencing homelessness. No, you’re not gonna get the name of anybody. You’re not gonna see that “Stan” is experiencing homelessness. But, you’re gonna be able to see that every month in Multnomah County, about 1,400 people become homeless and, that same month, about 1,100 or 1,200 people escape homelessness. So, you’re gonna see the math and the charts that explain what you see in the streets. That while the solutions are happening, every month, services are being delivered, the problem does feel like it’s getting worse. And, through this new database, you’re able to understand, in a way you weren’t able to before, what exactly is behind that. So, I encourage folks, go check that out. “Metro” has a website that helps you see what’s happening at the regional level; they actually tally the numbers. “How many housing rental vouchers have been delivered?”, “How many eviction preventions have happened?”, “How many new shelters have been sustained or built thanks to these regional dollars?”. So, you can see those numbers right there. And, then if you really wanna dig in, the Metro website also includes a link to every single county’s quarterly and annual report. These are data rich documents that show you the accounting, show you what’s happened, talk about the results, where what’s worked, and what hasn’t. Now, fair warning, these are 100 page documents. So, you can read them yourself, or you can read our analysis of them as they come out.

Asher: Yeah. I was going to say, that’s a lot of information. I don’t know how I would even ask the proper questions and get through the right channels to get the information needed. A hundred pages! That’s impressive, honestly! Thanks for that, Angela, I appreciate it.?

Biggest Changes Needed

Asher: What changes would make the biggest difference right now for this population? You’ve been saying that there’s a lot of different sort of circumstances going on, but at this very moment, in this certain time, 2026, what’s the biggest difference that would turn the tables for homelessness?

Angela: Greater collaboration and coordination. No one single source of money is going to be able to provide the services and the rental supports and the housing at the scale we need. So, we need to be braiding a lot of different sources of funding, federal, state, local. So, the biggest improvement would be in mapping the sources of funding, laying that against the population that is experiencing homelessness, so that we have a more comprehensive understanding of the opportunity and a more comprehensive understanding of what piece each of those funding sources contributes to the solution. It’s complicated work, but we have to go that way. Because, again, no one single source of funding is gonna get this done. The next thing, that will make the biggest difference, is we need to reinvest in trusting in the experts. I’ll go back to the bridge analogy. I absolutely will never cross a bridge that was built based on public input of how much cement, how much steel, et cetera, et cetera. But, yet we are allowing a homeless services system to be built that doesn’t fully center the expertise of the people who are doing this work. From our local experts that work internal to the government, to the providers who work external to the people who live it. Those are the folks that are closest to the issue and need to be the ones we rely on for developing the solution.

Asher: Thank you for sharing that.?

Success Stories

Asher: Do you have any success stories with your coalition, with people you’ve helped, or just experiences that have stayed with you and shaped how you see this work with homelessness, Angela?

Angela: Alesha, please chime in if you want. But, really, knowing the successes is what sustain us; getting to be close to the success. Two weekends ago, we got to partner with someone I consider a friend and a colleague, Kelly Clendenon, to share his documentary of resilience, success, giving back. Kelly is someone who shares, in this documentary, how he struggled with both homelessness and addiction. And, he is now on the other side of that; giving back to his community, helping with a shower program that provides a little ray of hope for folks experiencing homelessness today. That to me is the full circle. When people are given an opportunity, given access to the services, to get their needs met; their instincts are to give back to the community, so that they might be able to help the next person who is suffering in our streets. That full circle gives me so much hope that when you invest in people, you will get the outcomes that you want.

Asher: I love that. What’s the documentary called, if you don’t mind sharing that?

Angela: It’s called, “Helpers”. Yes, Alesha?

Alesha: Yeah, I also wanted to add to that is, after years of struggling with addiction and then, eventually, incarceration, Kelly was connected through an organization called “Bridges to Change”, which got him a place to live and on his feet after he got out of prison. And, that was a program that was directly funded by Supportive Housing Services Dollars, which is such a large part of our homelessness budget, as Angela was discussing before. I think just seeing a success story like Kelly, how after overdosing six times, within six months, now he just finished his master’s degree and is launching his own nonprofit to tell stories like his own. It really humanizes those dollars and I think it’s important for us to remember that, especially during budget season when we’re having difficult conversations and reading headlines that look scary.

Asher: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that, Alesha. Appreciate it. Yeah, I would have to check out that documentary. Do you know if it’s being streamed anywhere??

Alesha: You can see the full version on YouTube. His organization is called “Common Lens Film”.

Asher: Okay. Got it. We’ll also put this link in the description below of the podcast itself.?

Angela: Asher, I would also say if people wanna see stories of hope, stories of resilience; ¡°Humans For Housing” has an amazing exhibition up right now, where you can see the first person narratives of people who experiencing homelessness, learn more, take the opportunity to really step into the shoes of our neighbors, who experience homelessness. So, I think that’s a great way for your listeners to deepen their understanding while learning how they might be a bigger part of the solution.

Asher: Definitely. Yeah, thank you so much.?

Key Takeaway and Getting Involved

Asher: What’s one thing you want listeners to take away from this conversation as we end off, Angela. And, once again, we really appreciate all the information you’re providing us, as far as, the houseless situation, the numbers and just the math, and all of it. But, what’s one big takeaway from this conversation you wish our listeners to grab.

Angela: It’s the right question. I’m not asking Portlanders to be patient. I’m asking them to be specific about what they want as an outcome, hold the system accountable to get people housed, and then step back and let those who are the system experts, the social workers, the caseworkers, people with lived experience, let them work on the particulars. That is how we’re going to get the outcomes that we all want. If this keeps being a competition or a argument over “more of this” or “less of that”. We are going to be whipsawed through changing tactics and strategies; money deployed over here, money then redeployed over here. That’s no way to build a resilience system. So, I would ask folks to demand accountability outcomes, and then demand that those who have the skills, the training, the experience to deliver those outcomes, and demand that they’re part of the conversation.

Asher: The final question before we end off things; how can people learn more or get involved with Here Together coalition? Do you have any big events coming up? Like, “Independent Living Resources” recently had, I think, a big event with their community, recently. Is there anything besides the community conversations?

Angela: No, that’s really it. I love big events, but Alesha and I really believe that having smaller conversations with people you know and trust is how people are all going to be able to ask tough questions, get their questions answered, lean into this issue. So, we’ve shifted from large 100 person events to these smaller community conversations to give everyone an opportunity to get their questions answered and their thoughts shared.

Closing Credits

Asher: Well, thank you so much, Angela, and thank you so much, Alesha, from Here Together, Coalition joining me on this podcast. We appreciate you and all that you’re doing for the community, especially with the houseless crisis. And, yeah, we hope to talk to you again maybe one day.?

Angela: Thank you for giving us the opportunity. I really appreciate it. I also know how much work goes into the front end, the back end. So, you’ve spent you’ve been generous and spent an hour with us, and I know you’re gonna have to invest a lot more time to get this to where you want it. So, thank you so much.

Asher: Thank you for listening to Let’s Talk!. Portland Community College’s broadcast about disability culture. Find more information and resources concerning this episode and others at pcc.edu/dca. This episode was produced by the Let’s Talk! Podcast Collective as a collaborative effort between students, the Assessable Education and Disability Resource Department, and the PCC multimedia department. We air new episodes on our home website, our Spotify Channel, XRAY, 91.1 FM and 107.1 FM, and KBOO Community Radio, 90.7 FM.